My University project coming to an end! I was so happy to receive a book I was waiting for:
Understanding Schemas and Young Children From birth to three
by Frances Atherton and Cathy Nutbrown.
Finally a book, which concentrates on young children and their patterns of play.
It should be read by everyone, who plays with children!
Have you ever given a child a present and noticed she/he is more interested in the box, rather than the toy?
Have you ever noticed a child paint or draw a lovely picture, then cover it completely or folded it?
Have you ever noticed a child who can’t leave a house without a bag full of toys?
Have you ever wondered why children like to look at the spinning washing machine?
This book will help you to answer the question: Why do children doing things again and again?
It was great to see an article in this week Nursery World about how to support children and their patterns of play as play needs of two-year-olds are very different to those of three-year-olds!
It aims for practitioners to make sure that settings are offering sufficient opportunities and resources to provide for the common play patterns and schemas of two-year-old children.
However, I personally think that we should observe children’s patterns of play even when they are younger and provide some new challenging experiences for them. My project focuses on children from eights months up to twenty four months and I have plenty of evidence to demonstrate how smart those young children really are!
To provide a high quality childcare it’s great to look for those repeated patterns. We should ask parents what their children like doing at home, give children a space when they can throw things or roll things without causing a tensions between each other and to interact with them and at the same time extend their language by using a vocabulary, which fit with their schema.
Last tip: don’t look for new, expensive toys, visit a pound shop, you can find many treasures there to support your child’s play!
This is a bag I created for a child with containing schema – an interest when children are fascinated by spaces that contain objects, materials or people. More info about each schema you can find in my previous post: Schema by brickmum