'This week everything will be about Bonfire Night!'

It's easy when there's a special day or time of year to dress all your provision around that particular theme. In my first year of teaching when it was bonfire night I would dress all my areas of provision around this particular theme for the week. Enhancing each area with things like;

-Firework themed play dough mats

-Adding red and yellow cellophane and kitchen roll tubes to the junk modelling table

-Putting black sugar paper up on the art easel and luminous paint colours.

Taking this approach to learning each week meant that there was always something in each area of the provision that the adult had decided the children should make often with the adults own example. Or maybe it would have been a tick sheet activity that everyone would have been called to take part in. Getting everything ready the week before was exhausting and I would often feel disheartened when I had set an activity up and the children used it in a different way.

This type of approach can leave very little space for creativity, problem solving, child interest and representing the world in the child's way. When we always 'provide' children with the resources they stop thinking for themselves. For instance they lose their natural curiosity about how a lolly pop stick and a peg can turn into an airplane with their own imagination.

Instead I like to provide the children with a rich continuous learning environment full of open ended play resources (loose parts, blocks, small world figures, materials, books) that allow the child to interpret what they've learnt in a way that they like.

In this instance I might lead an input on learning about bonfire night (Giving it a hook or a spark for interest) and when children go off into their continuous provision it’s up to them if they wish to continue this. As they are already familiar with the resources in the provision they can decide if they want to explore how they might make a fire work themselves in the paint or be curious about using loose parts (Beads, pipe cleaners, match sticks)  to represent their experiences of a bonfire in the play dough.  It’s also OK if a child want’s to make an airport in the block area and use the lolly pop sticks as a plane to reflect their recent holiday!

I watched here how you selected the blocks and fences off the shelf to create your own small world scene. "This is the bonfire we went to last night. It was very hot and there was a fence all the way around it so you didn't touch the fire." Sensitive educator interaction and discussions with the child led to the child mark making a sign for her bonfire warning small world characters to be careful!. 

Our careful interactions can then support and move learning on.

In between this wonderful child led learning there will of course be time and opportunities planned in to teach children particular skills based around their development.

To find out how you can make sure you have a child led Christmas head to https://hyggeintheearlyyears.mykajabi.com/store?preview_theme_id=973342