Children love play. Play is the work of the child. I believe that children can learn something from play. From my observation I found that children like to play with play dough. Children enjoy every aspect of the exploration of play dough. In my centre, we gave children the opportunity to making play dough with us. The best part is we only need a few common ingredients to make it, so that children will not lose their patience in a short process. Children were enjoying to touching, feeling and mixing the play dough. I think this is the best way to let children to get in touch with technology. Teachers are introduces real life math skills through the good opportunity (e.g. weighting, quantity). After complete to make the play dough, children would like to stay and play with that. This is the best way for children to creating things out of play. “Technology is about problem solving, designing, re-designing, finding solutions, and thinking about process” (Smorti, 1999, p. 7).
From children playing with play dough, I
found that there has lots of benefits to playing with play dough. It helps
children to develop their motor skills. For example, strengthen their little
fingers, hands and wrists. Children also improve coordination through they move
their hand and arm. “Children gain confidence in and control of their bodies.
Children develop increasing control over their bodies, including development of
locomotors skills, non-locomotor skills, manipulative skills, and increasing agility,
co-ordination, and balance” (Ministry of Education, 1996). Play dough provides
a sensory experience that extends imagination and creativity. Children can learn sharing when they were
playing with other children. They are take turns and share the equipment. This
is a way to foster the cooperative play. When children play with play dough,
there doesn’t have the right or wrong way to play with that. Children can
develop their self esteem. Play dough is an ‘open’ resource with no set way of
using. It can be everything, just like food, animals, flowers etc. And vocabulary
will be increased with use of descriptive language. Te Whariki Strand 5, Goal 4
described that, “They learn strategies for active exploration, thinking, and
reasoning. Children develop confidence in using a variety of strategies for
exploring and making sense of the world, such as in setting and solving
problems, looking for patterns, classifying things for a purpose, guessing,
using trial and error, thinking logically and making comparisons, asking
questions, explaining to others, listening to others, participating in
reflective discussion, planning, observation, and listening to stories”
(Ministry Of Education, 1996).
Reference:
He whāriki mātauranga mo nga mokopuna
o Aotearoa.
Smorti,
S. (1999) Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, 19,
5-10.
I found this reflection a bit hard to understand, you talked about how to make play dough and that children enjoy touching and feeling play dough, are you talking about the process of making a play dough or when the dough has been made?
ReplyDeleteI believe you have focused more on play in general then the actual technology in this reflection which is play dough. Maybe you could have mentioned more on the process of how they create and explore in play dough, what they were constructing and deconstructing. Play dough is about problem solving where children explore, create that can lead the child to be mind set towards their technical side. Technology is how can we make something, this could have been linked to play dough, what and how can children make from play dough or how to make play dough, the process is the part that is technology (Smorti, 1999, p.6). A reflection is what children have done and what you have seen that you can reflect on, maybe you can talk about how children think when making play dough.
Linda. You have chosen a good topic to write about technology in play-dough play. You mentioned ‘technology’ twice in your reflection. Once is in the first paragraph you talked about the best way to let children to get in touch with technology, and you gave two examples (weighing, quantity). I think you’d better to explain more on this. The other one is in the last paragraph while you were explaining about technology is being used in our life.
ReplyDeleteAfter I read this I thought I was reading a play-dough learning story. It was a great fun for children to enjoy, but how does it link to our topic- technology? I think you should talk about it more.
I like the quote of Smorti (1999), she said : “Technology is about problem solving, designing, re-designing, finding solutions, and thinking about process”. I realized that you used this quote in your reflection too. However, if you can talk about more technology part instead of talking about too much of how children enjoying playing play-dough, benefits of playing play-dough, then the quote would be more suitable.
Play Dough is an awesome resource in the way that children can use their imagination and creativity skills. I love the fact that you made the play dough with the children, this is a great way for children to learn the process of how it is been made.
ReplyDelete“Using a process approach to technology (similar to our current approach to the creative arts in early childhood), it is the ‘doing’ that is important, rather than the ‘product’. Children will be encouraged to design, make and appraise (DMA) their work.” (Smorti, 1999, p.6).
I agree with you when you said play dough is an open resource. However, not so sure I’m in agreement when you mention that the best part of the process was there where only a few ingredients, so the children won’t lose their patience. What happens when you do other baking activities at your centre? I believe that this is a great activity for children to learn how to be patient. My belief is that children need to understand that not everything happens at once that they do need to wait for good things to come. In this day in age technology has influenced time as in we don’t need to wait as long to get things done or to receive mail. However I still believe that we need to teach our children to be patient.
Hi Linda,
ReplyDeletePlaying with playdough is an everyday occurrence at most ECE services.At first I could not understand what you were trying to say about play dough but I just want to add on to your reflection. I totally disagree that flour is used in the centres to make play doughs. Some ECE services restrict their use of food for playing because it is "bad tikanga" and considered culturally insensitive to Maori. Another reason for not using food in play is that many families cannot afford decent meals. At some point I do agree that through play dough, children develop their gross and fine motor skills. "Children develop increasing control over their bodies, including development of locomotors skills, non-locomotor skills, manipulative skills, and increasing agility, co-ordination, and balance” (Ministry of Education, 1996). Play dough provides a sensory experience that extends imagination and creativity. Your reflection talks more on the benefits of play dough rather than play dough as a technology.It would be great if you would have explained more about playdough as a technology and how it has helped the children in problem solving in your centre.