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(Unit 5) Topic 4: Early Childhood Classroom Schedules and Routines

2 Clock Hours of Early Childhood Education

Learning Activities

​Topic 4 Page 6

Teachers support child-initiated learning by: 

• Observing each child’s interests, abilities, and learning style (auditory, visual, or tactile) and providing materials and equipment to support their development and learning. 
• Observing and listening to children as you plan activities for the group and individual children.  Being aware of each child’s interests and abilities is the best strategy for supporting learning. 
• Providing an organized learning environment with a variety of materials that encourage cognitive, language, physical, and social-emotional development. 
• Planning a daily schedule that provides children with enough time to engage in complex play.  
• Using observations of children’s play to evaluate opportunities to enhance and extend learning by adding new materials, asking open-ended questions, or providing new information through books, pictures, or stories.  
• Supporting learning by assisting children as they learn new skills by scaffolding their play. 
• Provide opportunities for children to repeat favorite activities.  Rotate some of your equipment on a weekly or bi-weekly basis so children have multiple opportunities to use materials. 
• Remaining flexible in your approach with children and offer the amount of support necessary for the individual child. 
• Model learning by talking out loud, asking children for help with problems, and trying out their ideas and solutions.

Teacher-Directed Activities

Although the majority of your day should be spent in child-directed activities, there are times when you will want to plan and direct specific activities to teach children new skills or introduce a new concept.  Teacher-directed activities allow you to spend time with small groups of children to focus on a targeted skill or area of development. Teacher directed activities include large group, small group, and individual learning experiences.  In teacher directed learning experiences, the teacher plans the activity, chooses materials, and implements the experience.  Time-frames for teacher-directed group activities vary based on the developmental stage and age of the children; however, a group activity that lasts 10 to 15 minutes is adequate. 

Examples of teacher directed activities for preschool children are:

• A large group activity that includes a story and introduces a concept to the entire class.
• A small group activity on color identification and matching.
• An individual activity on learning to use scissor.

Playing to Learn, A guide to child-led play and its importance for thinking and learning, ​A publication commissioned by ATL from Di Chilvers

This resource has a terrific scenario of child-led play and adult-led activities on page 13 and 14!

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