Children learn by playing solitary, in parallel, and in a group

Playing is the underpinning theme in the Finnish curriculum for early childhood education and care. In ECEC, children get to play every day. They play solitary, in parallel, and in a group. An operating culture that encourages children to play recognizes its significance to children’s wellbeing and learning. Playing is the main channel with which children express their emotions and an important source of well-being.

Initially, playing is about contact and interaction between an adult and a child. After this, the child begins to show interest in the surrounding world, and playing is targeted at objects and their purposes. During these early stages of play, playing is usually solitary or parallel. Solitary and parallel play gradually change into collaborative play, allowing children to develop interaction and different roles within a group.

The community encourages everyone to be resourceful, use their imagination, express themselves and be creative. Playing allows children to interact with one another. The staff help children join and ensure that all the children are able to be active participants in their peer groups.

What is the role of the Group Curriculum?

In the previous two blog posts, we discussed the whole Center's Curriculum and then the Child's Individual Curriculum Plan. The Group Curriculum complements these to strengthen the group level. The Group Curriculum has several important themes that help your planning process. 

Group Curriculum is a tool to support the process of pedagogical planning and to assess children's learning and overall educational work with the group and with your team.

View the Group's Curriculum template from Kindiedays!

The Group Curriculum is drafted at the beginning of the academic year, but it can and should be assessed and modified regularly with the staff. The Group Curriculum includes information about the specific children of the group, so each plan is valid only for one academic year.

The Group Curriculum should include information about the group's working methods, educators’ strengths, and individual qualities of the children.

With your team, discuss the following areas:

According to the Finnish Act on Early Childhood Education and Care, every child in ECEC has the right to receive education and care that is systematic and goal-oriented. In order to achieve this, an individual ECEC plan is created for every child together with the child and their guardians. These plans include goals that are set together and promote the systematic care and education provided for the child. Read more: What is Finnish ECEC?

How is the child's individual plan created?

A child’s ECEC teacher is responsible for creating and evaluating the child’s individual ECEC plan. This is a process and involves several steps. In addition to a discussion and the writing process, the creation of a plan includes an assessment and observation of the child’s strengths, needs, and views, as well as an evaluation of the child’s previous ECEC plan. All staff members working with the children take part in the process, and the creation, observations, documentation, and evaluation are conducted multi-professionally.

The plan is based on the child’s strengths and interests, as well as on their best interest and needs. The pedagogical goals and measures, and any support measures and their implementation, are recorded in the plan. The linguistic and cultural background and linguistic skills and abilities of a child who speaks a foreign language or is bilingual are factored in when creating their individual plan. The child’s cultural and religious background will also be considered when creating the plan.

This is how the City of Helsinki has defined the child's individual learning:

Wondering what a curriculum framework really is?

"Curriculum is an organized framework that delineates the content children are to learn, the processes through which children achieve the identified curricular goals, what teachers do to help children achieve these goals and the context in which teaching and learning occur.”  

- National Association for the Education of Young Children  (NAEYC)

The Center's Curriculum consists of the information related to the children's learning process in one tight package. It is a guideline for the staff in their everyday work, and it also tells a lot of you and your values to the families. Therefore, it is a nice idea to have your Center's Curriculum available for the families too. With this as starting point, you can then plan your daily work and create the syllabus consisting of the weekly plans, preplanned lesson plans, etc. 

How to create the curriculum framework?

It is very important to think about how your center operates and what are the core values that everyone should know. Writing down the curriculum with the staff unites your team and sets everyone on the same page.

When planning, arranging and developing early childhood education and care, the primary goal must always be the overall wellbeing of the children. Children’s interests, wishes and needs guide the teachers work forward.  

I  have prepared a list of questions that guide you when writing down your Center’s Curriculum. The checklist is based on Finnish best practices. Naturally, you should adapt these to your local needs and requirements. Think of the questions in detail, as thinking of the themes ahead makes it all easier when the situation hits you - for example a case when someone is bullied. When your team has a clear practice of how to deal with bullying, families trust your professionalism and most of all children feel secure, valued, and happy.

Take a look at the themes and include the relevant ones in your Center’s Curriculum!

Colors are one of the most interesting things for children to learn about!

In this post, you can find many inspiring online resources for teachers and engaging activity ideas for children that teach for example about colors and color mixing.

Here you can find a truly awesome summary of a ColorCurriculum about teaching colors by PEEP and the Big Wide World. Each week has a different theme (connected to colors) and a versatile plan for circle time and learning activities!

1. Week: Exploring the shades of color
2. Week: Mixing colors
3. Week: Exploring color and light

The page by PEEP and the Big Wide World is absolutely great and gives teachers an amazing package about teaching colors (and other things in addition to that). Each activity has its materials, key science concepts, directions, topics to discuss, and instructions on how to run the activity. Each activity also has an estimated time frame as well as a possibility to print the plan out.

You as a teacher can follow the whole curriculum and have all the activities ready for three weeks, or choose the most interesting ones!

There is also a possibility to try Stand-alone activities if you are in need of a single activity related to colors only.

In case you are looking for online videos to boost up the lessons, below is a list of videos that teach children about color names and color mixing in a fun way!

1. Learn colors via online story time

• Mix it up by Hervé Tullet
• Mixed a colorful story by Arree Chung

Wondering what to do next with the children? Painting is a great activity that invites children to play and explore the world of colors! Art activities are a way to relax, pursue creativity, learn about colors, play with water and practice fine motor skills.

How to prepare?

For watercolor painting, you will need watercolors, paint brush(es), large heavyweight white paper, masking tape for making the paper stay still, and cups of water.

When you are starting a watercolor painting with children it is good to teach the basics in the very beginning:

• Show children how to dip the paintbrush into the water
• Show children how to take color onto the paintbrush
• Remind children to wash the paintbrush in between changing colors
• Show children the magic of color mixing
  • yellow + blue = green
  • red + blue = purple
  • yellow + red = orange

Then let the children lead!

When you have set everything ready, there is really not much more to do than letting the children lead the game. Let the children decide what colors to use and what type of marks to paint.

It is much more fun and surprising when you do not give any specific orders or ideas on painting.

In case you are painting with little children, it is a good idea to assist with changing colors and washing the paintbrush every once in a while. With older children, you can for example give them a black permanent marker to add some drawings along the watercolor paint.

When the children seem ready, you may ask what did they paint and write down the name of the child/artist, the date, and what is on the picture described by the artist him/herself.

Also, remind the children to clean the paintbrush with lukewarm water after painting. Too hot water or soap can damage the paint brushes. You can clean the brush easily by making circles on your palm under the running water. When all the color has washed off, then set the paint brushes aside to dry.

Need more ideas?

Below are some links for more ideas on watercolor painting with children. Have fun!