How to plan activities that interest children + have a learning goal?

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

It is time to start planning activities for the coming term! When educators plan activities, it is crucial to take children’s views, interests, needs and ideas into consideration – otherwise the activities have no point! Each activity should have a target, a set learning goal based on curriculum (for example: Practicing fine motor skills and naming colours).

Download template for Child's Individual Curriculum

Making children’s participation stronger is one of the most important pedagogical tasks in early childhood education. Children’s opinions are being asked and listened to – but only here and there. Taking children’s views into consideration should be a systematic and continuing process in early childhood education.

Educators can find out children’s views for example by:

  1. Observing children’s play
  2. Following children’s conversations
  3. Asking children to draw their favourite things

In case the educator notices that the children are very interested in cars...

...he can include cars in the activity so that the activity is pleasant and interesting for the children. If the activity was to practice fine motor skills and colours – including cars – the activity could be one of these:

  • Put many little pictures of colourful cars on the floor and talk about the colours you see. Then divide the cars in the boxes with the children. Red cars go in red box, purple cars in purple box…
  • Look for a colouring page of a car. Children need to use at least 5 different colours when colouring it.
  • Look for a colouring page of a car. Children can “colour” the car by ripping small pieces of coloured paper and gluing them onto the colouring page.

When educators plan activities that interest children, children are more interested in participating and learning! Children learn by playing. Including their ideas and favorite toys in the activities makes learning fun and benefits both the educator and the children.

Happy learning!

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