Early Childhood Curriculum
Early Childhood Curriculum
Play is an important part of children’ s development, the opportunity to learn through involvement, through trial and error is critical to how we cope with life and interact with other.
All early childhood services across Australia are obligated to follow the National Early Years Learning Framework, a Curriculum framework that outlines the key learning outcomes for children prior to school.
The Framework outlines the key practices that support the best outcomes for young children. The outcomes are:
• Children have a strong sense of identity
• Children are connected with and contribute
to their world
• Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
• Children are confident and involved learners
• Children are effective communicators.
The outcomes are broad and observable. They acknowledge that children learn in a variety of ways and vary in their capabilities and pace of learning. Over time children engage with increasingly complex ideas and learning experiences, which are transferable to other situations.
Learning in relation to the outcomes is influenced by: each child’ s current capabilities, dispositions and learning preferences educators’ practices and the early childhood environment engagement with each child’ s family and community the integration of learning across the outcomes.
Children’ s learning is ongoing and each child will progress towards the outcomes in different and equally meaningful ways. Learning is not always predictable and linear. Educators plan with each child and the outcomes in mind.
In our learning environments …”
Our day is filled with opportunities to test our skills, build on our ability to communicate and interact with others, gain new knowledge and retest learned skills. It’ s about the process of learning and never about a produced product, its about fun, its about being safe, nurtured and trusted.
Learning begins early and whether you are a baby, toddler or preschooler, our education and care program will be designed to reflect the children, families and community in which we live.
Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths:
Within the curriculum, STEM( Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is an important component, as it allows children to begin to understand their world. STEM promotes process skills such as observation, investigation, comparing, classifying, creating, prediction, explanation, verification, analysis and communication.
Through science we learn about biology, chemistry, physics and geology. Science experiences are open ended and child orientated discovery tours. We encourage the child to discover the process and the reaction, and then to explain or describe what has happened.
Through our science program, we are giving children experiences, skills and knowledge that they can revisit at a later stage. Science is a lot of fun.
Number, shape, size, seriation and form all constitute integral parts of our math program. Allowing children to have experience with numbers, shapes and other math concepts, enables them to develop understandings relating to these concepts, and also lays the ground work for more complex and abstract concepts to be understood at a later date.
Math concepts are part of our whole day and we offer children many opportunities to experience and gain knowledge about these concepts Language and Literacy
The acquisition of communication and the ability to assign symbols to thoughts is an amazing process- especially when you consider the age of the child and the amount of input they have received when they start to communicate with you.
Language is one of the most important facets of a child’ s development. Language helps us to communicate, express ourselves, think and socialise. The amount of language skill we have determines how we interpret the world and are able to reflect on what we see and experience. The more opportunities we have to express our ideas and to verbalise our thoughts and experiences, the better our language abilities will become. It is important that language is not only about the spoken word, but also encompasses other creative and expressive processes- painting, drawing, sculpture, writing, music, songs, movement etc.
Within our curriculum, language forms an important component. Staff provide opportunities to imitate and model appropriate communication techniques and this is done through providing verbal and physical feedback, and providing frequent opportunities to experience language in a variety of forms- spoken, written, etc.
Our staff use open-ended questions to encourage children to talk about what they are doing or what they have created.
We have an extensive children’ s library and enjoy opportunities to tell, read and make up stories. We enjoy sharing experiences- the children’ s and ours. We also use photo’ s, video, television, scrap books, posters, puppets, told stories, show and tell, role play and drama, excursions and sequence activities to aid in language development.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Handbook for Parents Griffith Child Care Centre Inc 6