Okay, so World Chocolate Day doesn’t really have anything to do with the standards that we at SS Educational Services End Point Assess. But, a whole day to celebrate chocolate? How could we not acknowledge that! I love Lindt chocolate – any flavour! – and Jeff, (DoF) is a Toblerone and After Eight addict, whereas Alex, our marketing apprentice loves plain Dairy Milk Chocolate.
What’s your favourite?
On Monday on the blog we talked about transitions, which was one of my favourite topics to teach when I used to deliver Children and Young People Workforce, Playwork or Early Years.
Another topic I think is really important is holistic development. When I owned the day nurseries, I would love parents evening. We would start the evening with a learning session for the parents/carers – we were so ahead of our time! Every so often, when we had new parents, I would enjoy delivering a session on holistic development.
Holistic development means focusing on all aspects of a child’s growth. So when an activity is carried out with a child, it could be focused on a specific area, e.g. fine motor skills, but there will be a lot of other holistic development going on at the same time.
Back to the parents evening. I would have a photo of an orange, a plastic orange and a real orange. I would ask what children would learn:
With the photo – they said children could name an orange, say what shape it is and what colour.
The plastic orange – we agreed they would say the same as the photo. But then the children would also notice the texture and dimensions.
We then looked at the real orange and handed it around. Instantly the parents/carers started using language to describe the feel and smell, as well as using the original words. I cut the orange and explained the children would normal be involved in the cutting. The language became mathematical with how many segments. Conversation stretched to the inside of the orange, more about the texture, what the seeds were for and where oranges come from. And then we were able to taste it, after again explaining that the children would have shared it around.
No matter how many times I delivered this activity to parents/carers it was so well received.
As you can see, we have covered fine motor skills, communication, understanding the world, mathematics, and emotional and social development. This is a simple activity to show how a few changes to an activity can change the amount of learning and development.
