𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗹, 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 "𝗜𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗪𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱"!

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Ｃｌａｓｓ　Ｄｅｓｃｒｉｐｔｉｏｎ
In this class, children will explore, extend, and gain confidence in their skills in constructing 3-dimensional objects such as buildings, towers, structures, and sculptures. This sort of building and construction play offers unique benefits for the development of young children. It represents the first type of play where children simultaneously combine their sensory, fine motor, experimental, cause-effect and problem-solving skills into complex and coherent thinking and action. Construction play also offers opportunities for children to organise their thinking and understanding about the ways that different processes and materials “work”, providing valuable experience in understanding the real-world applications of both science and mathematics.  

This class uses a teaching approach known as "scientific playworlds", which helps young children develop high-level STEM skills through imaginative play, art and story-telling. Research shows that, compared to circle time classes, this interest-led and play-based approach increases memory retention of science, maths and language concepts, and promotes children's longer-term interest in STEM (Chung, 2016; Fleer, 2017; Williams, 2010). 

Each session will start with sharing an interactive story (prepared and told by the teacher), allowing children to explore, talk about and make sense of important concepts. Inspired by these stories, we will put our ideas into practice by creating amazing constructions, structures, and compositions to reflect, explore, experiment with, and bring our understandings to life. Combining construction with storytelling, art and play in this way helps children deepen the relationships between their ideas, objects and places, and their sense of self. In this way they more easily understand the ways that people, places, materials, and environments influence each other. 

Our weekly sessions include: 

𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟭: 𝗛𝘂𝗳𝗳 & 𝗣𝘂𝗳𝗳
This week we'll introduce a range of building materials with a gentle re-telling of the familiar, favourite story: The Three Little Pigs (see parental guidance notes below). Then, we will get hands-on with some experiments to explore how the different materials from our story might work in real life.  We will reflect on ideas about what makes a “good” construction. 

𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟮: 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀, 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀 & 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀
In today’s story, we will continue to ponder what makes a “good” construction, beyond its mechanical features. Do you think a construction should be beautiful? Home-like? Functional or useful? Temporary? Permanent? Children will be able to explore, experiment with, and extend these ideas as we introduce a range of new materials and ideas for construction play.  

𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟯: 𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘆 & 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁
This week we will be adventurous by exploring ways to create, build and sculpt with unusual materials such as sand, mud, mudbricks, and clay. Playing and constructing with these materials will also help stretch our empathy muscles, as we consider how constructions with these materials might impact on other creatures and our environment. 

𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟰: 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁-𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻
What constructions do you dream of? What do you wish was possible? Today we will ignite our imaginations and dreams and play with a range of design possibilities. We will use drawing and language to show our design ideas and gain valuable literacy practice in communicating our thoughts by representing them on paper. 

𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟱: 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀
This week we will take an interactive exploration with incredible examples of nature, design, architecture, and construction overlapping with each other. Children will be invited to draw from any of their materials and skills used in the first four weeks of the class, to construct a beautiful building, sculpture, park or even a city to reflect their ideas. 

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Ｉｎｃｌｕｓｉｖｅ　Ｐｌａｙ　＆　Ｌｅａｒｎｉｎｇ　Ｅｘｐｅｒｉｅｎｃｅｓ...Ｆｏｒ　Ａｌｌ　Ｌｅａｒｎｅｒｓ

All children have preferred ways of engaging with learning content. 

Typically, children learn best when they can engage with content in a way that reflects their own unique preferences. 

I endeavor to ensure that this class is inclusive of all learners (including E and 2E learners). I do this by structuring classes, activities and conversations so each child can choose to engage in the whole class, using whatever way is most appropriate, meaningful and rewarding for them.

In this class, where we will be exploring science, math and literacy through an exploration of buildings, I structure each experience so that children may elect to engage through any one or more of the following ways:
~ sensory experience
~ exploring and discovering the properties of materials
~ manipulative and fine motor activity
~ sorting/ aligning/ categorising/ patterning activity
~ exploring cause and effect
~ problem-solving
~ construction
~ imitation and role play
~ fantasy/ imaginative play and creativity
~ art and artistic play

Because I maintain very small group sizes, I am able to ensure that each child is able to participate in whatever way is most meaningful for them. This means that each child is able to enjoy the benefits of a group class, while at the same time being supported with an individualised and personalised learning experience.
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Ｔｅａｃｈｉｎｇ　Ａｐｐｒｏａｃｈ

This information will help you decide if my approach is a "good fit" for your child.  

This class is capped at a maximum of five learners, to ensure each child has the best possible child-led, personalised learning experience. I believe that learning comes not from memorising abstract facts, but though children being able to create and make sense of new ideas. To guide this learning, we need to have immersive, two-way conversations with children. Small class sizes allow me to work personally in this way, with each child. 

Child-led learning means that your child decides how they participate and what they focus on in our class. In this class, I do not tell children what to think about, or what to focus on. Instead, my goal is to understand your child's unique internal motivation. I do this by using stories, art, creativity and conversation to spark engagement. I then support each child to respond to these ideas and to follow their interests in a way that the class content and material comes to life for them. This helps make their learning become meaningful and sustained. 

You may see some differences in my classes, from the traditional US-based pre-K/ K/ early elementary and seated classroom approach. My aim is to extend your child's learning beyond our allocated screen time, through teaching and classroom practices such as:

🦋 Child-led learning (not teacher-led instruction)

🦋 Shared understanding (not imposing meaning)

🦋 Individualised and humanising relationships (not standardised expectations)

🦋 Hands-on, authentic play (not lectures)

🦋 Deep experimentation with creative, scientific, mathematical and relational process (not factory produced products or worksheets)

🦋 Collaboration and meaning (not rote memorising)

🦋 Imaginative resourcefulness (not mundane replication) 

🦋 Growing children's passions (not their performance)

🦋 Reading and responding to children’s cues, behaviours and signals (not managing, pathologising or fixing them)

🦋 Being an adult who is in calm control (not an adult who is battling for control and compliance)

My teaching approach tends to suit families who are seeking a humanising and wholistic learning experience for their young child.