Sharing Good Practice
Teach 21st Century Skills with
Confidence in Kindergarten
By Deniece Wheeler
W
e live in an age of rapid
change.
Advances
in
communication
and
information
technology
continue to create new opportunities
and challenges for the future. As
our world becomes increasingly
interconnected, today’s young learners
must develop strong 21st century skills
in critical thinking, communication,
collaboration and creativity. These
skills will form a vital part of their future.
Freia Layfield, Teacher Trainer for
Oxford University Press provides 5 tips
for bringing 21st Century Skills in to
the Kindergarten classroom:
Grow a bean (Critical
thinking)
Give each child a cup, some cotton
wool, some soil and a bean. Get the
children to splash a little water onto
the cotton wool and place it in the
cup. Help them to add soil and the
bean. Cover the bean with more soil
and lightly water again. Place the cups
on a windowsill. The children can see
them grow a little every day. Get the
children to measure the plants as they
grow. You could also read them the
English story, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.
Masks (Communication,
Creativity)
Draw a simple mask outline that will
go around the children’s eyes. Cut
out the masks, or help the children
to cut them out. They are now ready
to be decorated. On a table, place
a selection of art products, such as
feathers, coloured paper, magazines,
paint, and glitter – or even just felttip pens and crayons. Children must
come up to the ‘art table’ and ask ‘May
I have this, please?’ You can respond
as appropriate, for example, ‘Yes, you
may’. Once the children are finished
decorating their masks, make holes
in them and thread through string to
go around the back of the children’s
heads. The children can now use the
masks for imaginative play as new
characters! Ask them ‘What is your
new name?’, ‘Where are you from?’
and ‘What do you like?’
Class height (Critical
thinking, Collaboration)
Create a simple height chart with
centimeters or inches on a large piece
of paper (or stick several pieces of
paper together). Get the children
to measure each other. They can
write their own names next to their
measurements. Repeat the activity a
few months later to show the children
how they’ve grown.
Float or sink? (Critical
thinking, Collaboration,
Communication)
a piece of paper. Hand out childfriendly magazines. The children look
through the magazines. When they
find something that starts with their
letter, for example a butterfly for Bb,
they draw the picture. When they have
finished, help them to write the word
of each object. Display the posters
in your class – you’ll have class-made
alphabet posters!
For additional information, please
email [email protected].
These are just a few ideas to get your
students on a firm path in developing
21st Century Skills and remember it’s
never too early to start.
FIRST PRESENTED AT MENA COMMON CORE
CONFERENCE IN DUBAI – OCTOBER 2014.
Collect a variety of different items and
prepare a tub of water. Will the items
float or sink? Ask the class to guess
what will happen before you try the
experiment. Place the items into two
categories: ‘sink’ or ‘float’. Now test
their predictions! Place each
i FV