Portfolio Page 1

Portfolio Page 1
Emma Fitzpatrick 2107606

‘An Experience’

During last semester, I was doing my placement at a kindergarten. Each week the kindergarten staff would change the outside play equipment; climbing apparatus, footballs, soccer balls, netballs and this particular week, they put out a giant tarp on the lawn outside. The tarp had the game ‘Snakes and Ladders” printed on it, so numbers 1 to 100 were on the mat. During fruit time and lunchtime, students were to pick a number to sit on while they ate their lunch.

Every odd number was a white number on a black background and every even number was a black number on white background. I came up with an idea that we write the numbers individually 1 to 100, on the edge of a popsicle stick. (1.2)>At lunchtime, they then had to match their number to the number on their Popsicle stick and that is where they sat and ate their lunch. The children got over excited and this plan didn’t really work the first couple of times. Brand new shiny number mat outside, they couldn’t contain their excitement to sit on it, forgetting about their activity.

After the children ate their lunch, they went off to play. I had a few stick around counting the numbers that they could count. I decided to bring the pop sticks back into play again. I gave the children numbers and then helped them find the match number. My invented game started with 3 or 4 children, then ended up with children lining up to play!<(1.2).

I learnt that I could make learning fun. Most of the children didn’t recognise numbers over 30, so I set a real challenge having to match other numbers higher. I would help the children find the number, by telling them for example; number 56. ‘Number 56, this number begins with a 5, then has a 6 next to it’. The children would go hunting and find ‘65’ and ‘95’ until they found the ‘56’. Once they found the correct number the children would be so excited and proud of themselves for overcoming their challenge. I found it so interesting watching the children interact with each other to solve their challenge.

1.3 Specifies the teaching approaches you’ll use & the learning environs you’ll create to support the social dimensions of early literacy/numeracy    
1.2 Explains how young children’s literacy & numeracy learning can be socially conveyed through their behaviour, feelings or approach