How do early childhood educators in Finland prepare children for formal education through playful pedagogy? And is it scientifically proven that play really promotes learning?

What is the mission of ECEC in Finland?

The mission of Early Childhood Education and Care in Finland is to: Promote children’s holistic growth, development, and learning in collaboration with their guardians.

The aim is to nourish and teach children in all learning areas. It is vital that children are happy. Their well-being is the most important thing.

All this work with the children does not work out without engaging the guardians. Effortless, trustworthy, and open communication with the whole family is valued in Finnish early childhood education.

What is essential in ECEC in Finland?

Essential to Early Childhood Education and Care in Finland is: Understanding the importance and pedagogical possibilities of play in the promotion of wellbeing and learning. (Finnish National Agency for Education)

Play is the most important tool in early childhood education. Learning happens through play. Children practice new skills, test their own ideas and theories, process fears, and express feelings in play. Children learn through all those experiences in a natural and most of all - fun - way.

Highly or loosely structured classroom?

Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle state in their book Let children play that a Classroom with rich child-initiated play and a Playful classroom with focused learning brings the best results in learning. Children should be able to explore the classroom with the active presence of educators. Children also benefit greatly if educators guide learning with rich educational activities.

Educators should give plenty of space for children's play, guide it gently and offer materials, tools, and ideas to enrich it. Topics for play should come initially from children, but adult guidance and monitoring are needed.

Talented educators see when the children's play is too free and wild. In those situations, some steering and guidelines are in place. In turn, too many rules and warnings suppress children's ideas and creativity so the educator should not be too controlling either.

What are the positive sides of play?

• Play promotes the child’s development, learning, and well-being.
• Play motivates children and brings joy while allowing them to learn new skills.
• Experiences that stimulate the children’s emotions, curiosity, and interest inspire them to play.

(National Curriculum Guidelines for early education in Finland)

Is it scientifically proven that play actually promotes learning?

Simply, YES.

A learner-centric and holistic curriculum should be used. Test how your preschool is succeeding:

• Is your curriculum utilized as the basis for the daily planning and activities?
• Do your teachers observe, document, and assess learning goals effortlessly?
• Do the parents know how their children progress in their learning?
• Can you guarantee that the children get learning opportunities in all the areas of your curriculum?
• Can you provide a competitive high-quality service?

If you answered YES to all questions, you are in good shape – congratulations!

If NOT, there is room for improvement. You should take the lead and make the change happen! 

Sounds challenging - but it is actually straightforward

In this blog, we want to share our views from Kindiedays. And provide some advice on how to make the improvements in a pragmatic way.

"We help to provide quality education for as many children as possible through education innovations, that is the core mission of HundrED", says Annina Huhtala.

According to HundrED the purpose of education is to help every child to flourish, no matter what happens in life. To thrive as global citizens, children must be equipped with a breadth of skills these days. In a fast-changing world, traditional academic skills play an important role, but that is not enough.

A child-centered approach, personalized and passion-based teaching, as well as the relationship between a motivated student and inspired teacher, is the key. Furthermore, assessment has to be linked to the core of the learning process.

We need to move away from narrow approaches of summative assessment, which only measure students' ability to memorize and regurgitate facts at a certain point in time, states HundrED.

To make all this happen, the world needs visionary leadership in education systems and ambitious education innovations. The world of education is full of hard-working specialists who are implementing these processes every day. HundrED thrives to give them the visibility and recognition they deserve.

“Formative Assessment can only be formative if the student is heavily involved,” says Education Specialist Clara Garcia Millan from HundrED. This involvement can come in many forms: self-assessment, peer assessment, or teacher assessment.

However, if the student does not have the chance to reflect on their own learning and discuss this assessment with their teacher - it cannot be considered a formative assessment.

Kindiedays in the Education Innovation Shortlist

Kindiedays is proud to be shortlisted for the “Formative Assessment spotlight” by HundrED. There were in total 129 innovations around the world, and Kindiedays has been ranked among the 27 finalists.

There were a number of factors that they took into consideration when creating this Shortlist. See who else made it to the Formative Assessment Shortlist!

The Research Process for this Spotlight was particularly strict. All applicants were asked to submit additional information regarding how their innovation integrates formative assessment into students’ learning journeys.

Kindiedays in the spotlight for HundrED 2022

The environment is the third teacher.

Early childhood is defined as the period from birth to compulsory primary school age. It is the time of remarkable growth and important milestones in brain development. During this stage, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them. (Unesco 2020)

In early childhood, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them.

That being said, it is good to assess/reassess how the learning environments are set up to support children's learning. The learning environment should take the whole child in consideration - social, emotional, cultural, linguistic, physical, and cognitive side - and provide activities in all those aspects.

To do this, you can for example include activity areas that offer opportunities for both hands-on, play-based learning and developmentally appropriate instruction of academic skills. Activity areas should invite children to inquire, explore, test, discover, and engage in play and learning.

Even if the learning areas are full of inspiring, changing, and varied materials, the basic daily schedule should remain the same from day to day. The daily schedule can be supported by routines and carefully planned transitions so that the day is a smooth and well-managed ensemble.

What is Finnish Early Childhood Education?

Examples of Activity areas in the learning environment

Presented originally in Community Playthings - Supporting high quality early learning:

• Block Center

A block area that houses a full set of wooden unit blocks arranged by size and shape in low open shelving that clearly demarcates where each block should be stored;

• Math/Manipulative Center

A math/manipulative area that offers a variety of materials including puzzles, small blocks, Legos, games, tiles, geoboards, attribute blocks, and other hands-on materials that foster children’s thinking and problem-solving skills and support the development of math (counting, operations, numbers, measurement, geometry)

• Art area

An art area that offers different types of paper and drawing materials (crayons, markers, etc.), as well as paste or glue, scissors, stamps, watercolors, pastels, and tempera paints and brushes, an easel or table available for a large painting, collage and construction materials, and other assorted materials such as playdough and clay.

• Science area

A science area that includes magnifying glass(es), sand/water table, possibly animals (guinea pigs, snails, mealworms), and other natural items (eg. plants, rocks, shells, leaves...) depending on the time of the year, current topic, or interests of the children in the classroom. Within this area, children should be given time to experiment with measuring, counting, pouring, and making predictions.

How to assess the quality of the learning environments?

Provide the best early childhood education experience with Kindiedays Preschool Apps

• Children reach their full potential with playful learning based on world-leading research from Finland.
• Educators observe, document, and assess learning goals intuitively, allowing them to pay more attention to the children.
• Parents follow their children’s progress online, appreciating their preschool’s excellent care and pedagogical standards.
• Preschools adhere to government policies that promote portfolio learning and formative assessment.
• Preschools are able to market themselves as high-quality service providers.

Don't set the bar any lower. Your children deserve it!

Kindiedays offers 3 different kinds of solutions: Starter, Portfolio, and Premium. Read more about them below:

Kindiedays Starter

Start documenting learning moments and collaborating with families

Kindiedys Starter is a compact solution to support children's learning and engage families. This is a perfect way to start using Kindiedays with your center.

With Kindiedays starter you:

• Document children's learning with notes, photos, and videos.
• Use automatically-collected portfolios to develop learning.
• Engage families and show evidence of children's learning.
• Run communication between educators and families in a secure channel.
• Record attendance and utilize versatile attendance statistics.
• Spend less time on paperwork.

You can upgrade later to Kindiedays Portfolio with all your data maintained.

Kindiedays Portfolio

Use a leading-edge tool for documenting and assessing children's learning

Kindiedays Portfolio is a highly flexible digital solution for implementing your own curriculum and a high-class learning process. Inspired by Finnish best practices and based on portfolio learning and formative assessment.

With Kindiedays Portfolio you: