Default Style Register
Daycare.com Forum
Curriculum>Play Based Program Question
SunflowerMama 04:44 AM 03-18-2011
For those of you that do a play based curriculum and follow the lead of the children do have any sort of rough schedule or just wing it 100%?

I'm trying to move toward a more play based curriculum but think it may help ME a bit to have broad monthly themes I could at least get books from the library for the month and maybe plan a few little fun activities for each month ahead of time. Then I can just let the kids web off the monthly theme and take it their own direction.

I think it would also allow me to give something to the parents this summer so they'd have a bit of an idea of what we would be discussing each month. I could then plan to focus on a couple of letters each month and add those to the yearly "plan".
Reply
Meyou 05:27 AM 03-18-2011
I have a daily schedule but not a play schedule. If they seem bored I redirect and give them ideas. Like, "Doesn't this rug look like an ocean? Maybe you should find a boat and play pirates or fisherman." My kids are big on dressup. I do change their location mutilple times in the day. We have inside and outside play in the AM and PM so they have new scenery every couple of hours. I also have stations set up for them so they ahve different activities available. We have a book nook, art area and block building area that are seperate from the general playroom.
Reply
daycare 08:33 AM 03-18-2011
I do try to create some kind of theme and schedule by week.
Example, last week was little inventors. We took all of the store bought toys out of the room and we had to make everything we played with.

our schedule:

Monday, boxes, forts, castles, what can you build from boxes. Are they heavy are they light? How many can you stack and how high. Which ones are big and which ones are small. What else could you make out of these boxes. Where do you think cardboard comes from?

What actually happened: We built a huge space ship and a robot with eyes, arms and legs. the kids then took the boxes and tried to see how high they could stack them up. They brain stormed which boxes should go where and who should place the boxes.
One draw back was that some of my "problem" kids started kicking the boxes down after they were stacked up.
They requested sheets and they built a fort, which one child decided to be a fierce dragon and demanded a king, queen and knights, it was very cute.



At the end of the day we painted all of the boxes in an attempt to make a pirate ship. The rain came and we had to run for cover...lol

it was a blast and everyone had fun...From boxes............
I forgot to add, that I dont like having to go off of my plans 100% of the time, but I do make a plan/ If the kids are not feeling it, we move on down my list. The list is put together at the end of each month for the upcoming month. The parents love it, as they will be able to ask their child how was building with boxes today at school?
i dont mind winging it, as long as it does not require me to take time away from the kids to do something so we can change the activity.
Reply
anabel 12:57 PM 03-18-2011
We have to have formal planning in place for our version of licensing. However, we are not supposed to use themes for under 3's - whilst still having planning in place lol.

So I write out my plans, I literature and world holidays and events to lead the resources I have out, I post these plans on the wall then ignore them until it is time to write out next months plans.

If the kids and I are floundering and nothing is going right and everyone is getting cranky and being crosspatches then I will check out my plans and do something from them. So I do my plans to be realistic and usable but we tend to wing it unless winging it does not work.

I also have a daily schedule written down for my licensing but I rarely follow it. We eat when we are hungry, we go out when we want to, stay in when we want to, nap when we are tired etc. We only check out the schedule if we can't really decide what we want and we all need a little guidance.

I hate, with a passion, being told what to do and when to do it, even when it is me writing the planning. So we lead ourselves mostly, and do what works at any given moment rather than what I wrote on a piece of paper last month - i hope you know what i mean.
Reply
Tags:cirriculum, curriculum - play based
Reply Up