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Choosing a topic/theme is important when trying to create that authentic experience for the children

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Choosing a topic/theme is important when trying to create that authentic experience for the children

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I watched a presentation on the NAEYC Virtual Institute, and I found the following resource for games and parent resources about preschool math:

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Games for Young Mathematicians is a program of research and development in early mathematics teaching and learning at the Education Development Center (EDC). As part of this work, we are developing tools and resources aimed at supporting young children's mathematics learning and mastery motivation and examining the effectiveness of interventions that include family math on preschoolers' school readiness skills.

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation Grants# DUE 1348564, DRL 1907904, and by the Heising-Simons Foundation Grants# 2015-023, 2016-133, 2019-1396, and Overdeck Family Foundation Grant# 2019-1396. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

"The best way to improve the American workforce in the 21st century
is to invest in early childhood education, to ensure that even the most disadvantaged children
have the opportunity to succeed along side their more advantaged peers."
James Heckman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

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Games for Young Mathematicians is a program of research and development in early mathematics teaching and learning at the Education Development Center (EDC). As part of this work, we are developing tools and resources aimed at supporting young children's mathematics learning and mastery motivation and examining the effectiveness of interventions that include family math on preschoolers' school readiness skills.

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Found an interesting article on ways to teach kids through play at home. 

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Found an interesting article on ways to teach kids through play at home. 

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Professor Angela Pyle: 10 ways to teach kids through play at home

May 1, 2020

By Angela Pyle and Perry King

Angela Pyle is an assistant professor in OISE's department of applied psychology and human development. Her research focuses on child development and the role of play in children's learning. She currently runs the Play Learning Lab at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study.

Sitting down with OISE News, Pyle lays out a list of great ways to engage children's learning through play - a less stressful and productive way to support children's learning.

Do you want to learn how you can help children feel secure and stay connected as they learn during this time? Read this article by Professor Pyle.

Supporting your child's learning

Teaching our own children can be quite challenging. Children are used to you acting as a parent not a teacher. Play-based learning provides a developmentally appropriate context for learning skills in an engaging manner that is less stressful for all.

While play is traditionally conceived as a child's activity rather than a serious learning context, research has found that the integration of academic learning in play-based contexts is often more successful than traditional adult-led learning. There are many ways to integrate play and learning, and there are many ways that you can enact this play, including both adult led and child led approaches.

Here are 10 ways to teach kids through play at home:

Language and play

1. Hide letters around your house and go on a letter hunt. Have younger children identify the letters and their sounds. Invite older children to make as many words as they can using the found letters.

2. To help children learn to blend letter sounds, an essential reading skill, play hide and seek. Choose a favourite toy and hide it in the house. Invite your child to find their toy with the help of a clue: say the sounds in a word that describes the hiding place (e.g., "The car is under the t-a-b-l-e."). Your child can blend the sounds together to solve the clue and find their toy!

3. Invite your child to choose one of their favourite toys to be the character in a play or movie. Younger children can identify the parts of the story - character, setting, problem, solution - orally. Older children can write the outline, while more capable children can write a full script. Then perform a live play or create a movie of their story!

Math and play

1. Use Lego to practice basic math skills. Have younger children roll a die and build a tower with that many blocks. Older children can roll two dice and add the numbers together to determine how many blocks to put in their tower. More advanced learners, can roll two dice, the first identifies the number of towers to build, while the second represents the number of blocks in each tower. Children can then write out and answer the corresponding multiplication sentence, using the blocks as counters if needed.

2. Board games support the development of number skills as children roll the dice and count out the appropriate number of spaces to move in games like snakes and ladders, and candy land. For older children, strategy games that develop their spatial awareness are a good option (e.g., Blokus).

3. To work on your child's visual spatial skills, present them with a building challenge. Build a simple structure out of blocks. Show the structure to your child for five seconds then hide it. Challenge your child to visualize the object and build it from memory. Once complete show the original structure and allow them to compare the two.

Science and play

1. Building things can promote the learning of the scientific process as children experiment with different ways to make their structures more stable before eventually finding a strategy that works. For instance, they could build a roller coaster out of Lego and tracks out of cardboard and other household items. You can extend this learning by asking purposeful questions: How can you ensure that the roller coaster arrives at the end of the track without stopping? How can you make the roller coaster travel faster?

2. A common household item like an ice cube can provide the inspiration for both science and art. Experiment with melting ice cubes by using household items like salt or a hair dryer. Measure and compare how quickly each item causes the ice cube to melt, then ask them for their theories about why. Add food colouring to the ice cubes using primary colours to experiment with colour mixing. What happens when a red ice cube and a purple ice cube melt and mix together? Use this newfound knowledge to create beautiful art by rubbing the ice cubes on paper as they melt.

Integrating learning and imaginative play

1. In this unusual time, many children and adults alike wish they could go somewhere besides their home. Use this as inspiration for their play rather than a frustration. Learn about a place your child would like to go by reading about it or watching videos online. Make a pretend airplane and invite your child to create passports, boarding passes, travel brochures, and signs for your trip. This type of play scenario provides the opportunity to practice both reading and writing while engaging in imaginative play.

2. Invite your child to build a fort that can serve as the inspiration and location for learning. They can draw plans for their fort prior to construction. More capable learners can label these plans and write a list of the materials they will need. Children can give their fort a name and make signs containing the name and any rules that they wish those inside the fort to abide by.

This fort can also provide a cozy place to read together. Both inviting your child to read and reading to your child are valuable to their learning. When your child reads they practice using their strategies to decode words and read fluently. Reading to your child provides the opportunity for them to hear what fluent reading should sound like, expand their vocabulary, and hear stories that they may not yet be able to read on their own.

More research

Learn more from these research papers about the different types of play that help children learn and about the educational value of play.

More OISE news

Professor Angela Pyle: In social isolation, there are ways to support children's learning at home

Canada's co-operatives: Helping communities during and after the coronavirus

OISE Stay At Home Club

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10 ways to teach kids through play at home

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May 1, 2020 By Angela Pyle and Perry King Angela Pyle is an assistant professor in OISE's department of applied psychology and human development. Her research focuses on child development and the role of play in children's learning. She currently runs the Play Learning Lab at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study.

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I learned that you have to make sure that you pick a topic that is relevant to the students home life because we are not able to give them these experiences with us in a classroom environment, so the topic needs to be related to something the students have access to at their house to help contextualize the learning.
-Allison

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I have learned that time flies by on Zoom meetings when children are engaged in the lesson!

- Alaina

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I learned that getting children to feel comfortable with you and interact with you is more difficult virtually. I felt that I would have had specific children communicating more with me and my co-teachers if were were meeting face to face.

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Something that I have learned about virtual learning is that it harder to keep the kids engaged over zoom.

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I have learned that not all my students are going to wanted to participate as much that day as the other students in our whole group/small-group.
-Hannah Beth Simmons

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It's difficult to do activities with students and had some issues with background voice coming from students.

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When selecting a topic, you want to chose something that is tangible.  We want students to be able to experience what they are learning about.

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I have learned that time flies when students are engaged in the lesson!

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I learned that you have to make sure that you pick a topic that is relevant to the students home life because we are not able to give them these experiences with us in a classroom environment, so the topic needs to be related to something the students have access to at their house to help contextualize the learning.-Allison

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I learned that you have to make sure that you pick a topic that is relevant to the students home life because we are not able to give them these experiences with us in a classroom environment, so the topic needs to be related to something the students have access to at their house to help contextualize the learning.-Allison

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I am learning so much  about working with families. Virtual learning has showed me the amount of family involvement it takes to run a class. There is a new responsibility for families in a virtual learning setting. They are having to check the emails, get the zoom links, login into the zoom, supervise their child, etc. I really appreciate the dedication parents have shown these past few weeks!

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I have learned that you have to have a time for children to talk and share with one another.
-Marie

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I have learned how important it is to engage students in activities they enjoy doing. An example, of what my co-teachers and I have done is Simon Says and "Go find...(favorite book, something that starts with the first letter of your name, or something that is your favorite color). The students have absolutely loved being able to be active and share with others.

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I have learned that it is much more complicated to assess, evaluate, and observe over a Zoom meeting.  It is also hard to maintain "classroom" management, especially when there are siblings screaming in the background, Peppa Pig blasting in the microphone, and various other distractions.

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I have learned the importance of keeping the children engaged during our zoom sessions because if you don't, they will start to lose interest and stop communicating.
- Kara

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Something that I learned about virtual learning is that kids can get distracted very easily because they may have other things going on around them. Providing them with engaging activities is key.

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I have learned that parents have varied styles of involvement with their students' learning.

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I have learned to understand each of my students then plan out games and activities they like to do in our lesson plan. I also know parents more through email communication and try to engage them as well. 

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I have learned to understand each of my students then plan out games and activities they like to do in our lesson plan. I also know parents more through email communication and try to engage them as well. 