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How does supporting young children's curiosity and wonder promote their learning and development?

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How does supporting young children's curiosity and wonder promote their learning and development?

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Beiser, H, R. (1984). President's Plenary Address on Curiosity: a Developmental Approach. Journal of the American Child Psychiatry. (23, pp.518). Retrieved from https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0002-7138(09)60341-1/pdf

Breathnach, H. (2017). Play and the research agenda. Children's Perspectives of play in an Early Childhood Classroom. (pp. 28) School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education. Faculty of Education. Queensland University of Technology. Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/110539/1/Helen_Breathnach_Thesis.pdf

Marking with Coloured Pencils. (2013). ECA Learning Hub. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqF2BZeLOQQ&t=5s [Accessed 1 September, 2020].

Rinaldi, C. (2011). The pedagogy of listening: the listening perspective from Reggio Emilia. In The hundred languages of children: the Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd ed., pp. 237). Westport: ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/read.action?docID=820317&ppg=260

Exploratory Play. (2003). Siren Films. Retrieved from https://vu.kanopy.com/video/exploratory-play [Accessed 2 September, 2020]

Toddlers Outdoors: Play, learning, and development. (2010). Siren Films. Retrieved from https://vu.kanopy.com/video/toddlers-outdoors-play-learning-development [Accessed 3 September, 2020]

Natural Outdoor Play Areas- Part 3 Overcoming Challenges. (2020). The Empowered Educator. Retrieved from https://www.theempowerededucatoronline.com/2018/05/outdoorplayspacedesign3.html/ [Accessed 11 September, 2020]

How to use Treasure Baskets for Play and Open-ended Learning. (2020). The Empowered Educator. Retrieved from https://www.theempowerededucatoronline.com/2020/06/how-to-use-treasure-baskets-for-play-and-open-ended-learning.html/ [Accessed 12 September, 2020]

The Department of Education and Training Victoria. (2016). Pp. 21. Retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/childhood/providers/edcare/veyldframework.pdf

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Provoking children's thinking and learning:
As teachers, it is important to provide children with a safe, secure and nurturing environment were they feel relaxed, comfortable and develop a strong sense of belonging and wellbeing. This will empower children to develop and build on their interest and curiosity in the environment, through confidence and capability.
Children need guidance and support in a positive learning environment were they are actively involved in their own learning. This requires educators to scaffold children's learning and development by offering a range of open-ended questions and role modelling appropriate behaviour and language. In saying this, children still require a great amount of uninterrupted play that is free from adult intervention, giving them the freedom of expressing their curiosity and wonder in a meaningful way.

Hands on learning:
A significant part of supporting young children's curiosity, fascination and wonder is to encourage hands on play. To expand on children's learning educators can provide opportunities for children to interact and explore both manufactured and natural objects that are open-ended, therefore, they can be used in many ways and as anything. This will provoke the children's curiosity and wonder in a range of ways, as well as encouraging their creativity and imagination through hands on learning. When the children have the chance to experience and do things for themselves they begin to develop and build on their fine motor skills, as they shape, mould, cut, sort and manipulate objects.

Open ended materials and loose parts:
Children begin to display a great amount of curiosity and fascination from a very young age. They are eager to interact and explore their environment and surroundings. To extend on children's curiosity, wonder and fascination in the environment it is important that they have the opportunity to engage in open-ended activities and materials, such as loose parts. This will promote children's creativity and imagination, as it gives them the chance to use the materials in any way that they desire. Loose parts are adaptable and versatile materials, that allow learners the flexibility of building, inventing, experimenting, designing and combining as they construct meaningful and unique play experiences. Open ended play equipment also support and expand children's vocabulary and language skills, as they ask interesting questions and describe the different objects they discover, such as the shape, size and pattern.
As children explore and investigate their environment they begin to apply their creativity and imagination throughout play as they manipulate, build, construct and draw with a rich array of materials and objects. Furthermore, they develop and apply their curiosity and imagination to build a 'tool kit' of skills and strengths to guide problem solving, hypothesising, experimenting, researching and investigating activity (VEYLDF, 2016).

Using the senses:
From birth, children begin to explore the world through their senses. Therefore, learning through sensory exploration becomes a natural occurrence in young children's daily activity. It is essential to expose children to a diverse range of sensory based activities and experiences from a young age, ensuring that these are age and developmentally appropriate for all children in the group. It is also important to support and encourage children to become actively involved and interested in sensory based learning, as this will motivate them to explore, experiment and investigate sensory play in the outdoor environment, for example mud, soil, dirt, sand and water.

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Active engagement and participation in the learning environment gives children the opportunity to develop and build on their newly discovered and current interests. While children actively engage and interact with the environment and surroundings they also begin to apply and contribute to their strengths and skills in many ways by using their fine and gross motor skills to manipulate objects in their environment that they can  feel, touch, hear, smell, taste and control. These are the many ways that young children start to show their curiosity, wonder and fascination of the play environment.
They will then start to make sense of the world and what it represents to them as they respond to their emerging curiosity by taking part in their own learning and development, through active exploration and investigation.
During the very first year of a child's life they will slowly begin to express curiosity using their hands, vision and hearing. The first point of exploration for infants are typically their own hands and feet (Beiser, 1984).

Play based learning, taking place in each of the ordinary moments, has many benefits for children's learning and development, in particular cognitive development. While children engage and initiate play, they are motivated and ready to learn, as they develop positive dispositions for learning. Piaget's theory of constructivism and stages of cognitive development suggests that play  has a major influence on children's cognitive, social, emotional and physical development (Breathnach, 2017).

Children display a high level of independence and autonomy as they guide their own learning and development with a minimal amount of guidance and support from educators and adults around them.
Each child takes on the role of explorer and researcher whilst constructing meaningful play themes. Children are not only curious learners but they are full of wonder, awe and fascination, as they actively engage in play.

The  children are beginning to form connections and dialogue with educators and other adults around them through listening and communicating effectively. This is evident in the children's interactions and engagement with educators and adults. Children show that they have a strong attachment and bond with educators while they observe them, imitate their behaviour, mirror their language and seek their guidance.
Young children are the greatest listeners to their surroundings and the world, listening to life (in all its shapes and colours), adults and their peers. Thus, they quickly realise that listening is an essential aspect of communication (Rinaldi, as cited in Robinson, 2013).

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The centre has a welcoming and homely feel, were there is a warm and secure atmosphere in all rooms. The 1-2 year old room provides a cosy and relaxing experience for all children. A variety of natural  materials and diverse resources, that are stimulating and interesting are visible in this room. Outdoor areas are spacious and encourage imagination and creativity, by offering an array of equipment that allows children to take risks in a safe manner. Both the indoor and outdoor play spaces cater for the individual needs of all children in the service.

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All of the ordinary moments I documented influenced me to focus on this particular question. My main inspiration was taken from the ordinary moment that took place outdoors, where child C uses her curiosity and wonder to explore the environment.  She moves herself and the play equipment from one play space to another, while she feels, senses and examines each object that she comes in contact with and encounters in the outdoor play area.

One of the other ordinary moments was 'exploratory play'. This play scenario encouraged curiosity and wonder through loose parts. The child in this observation was actively engaged in play with plastic cups, bowls and wooden rings. She constructed her play by lining up each of the cups, then the bowls and lastly the wooden rings. Following on from this, she experimented and tried to stack the wooden rings to form a tower.

The last ordinary moment takes place on a table were the child sits alongside her educator and participates in drawing. She begins by making circular marks on the paper. Then she notices a small pot of paint and passes it to her educator. Her curiosity and wonder is demonstrated here when she peers inside the paint, places it back were she found it and repeats this process with another pot of paint.