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Planning with Kindiedays - or planning 'solo' without Kindiedays? What is the difference?
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1. Lesson Plans
Kindiedays has launched its own lesson plans. Kindiedays Lesson Plan Package is designed to guide and support educators to provide lessons and activities based on a curriculum.
Each lesson plan is carefully planned to match the learning areas and pedagogical learning objectives outlined in the Finnish National Curriculum for Early Childhood and Care. Kindiedays lesson plans can also be used with any other curriculum, as long as playful learning is close to your heart.
The first difference is, that planning with Kindiedays gives you ready-made lesson plans that last a whole year.
See a Lesson Plan sample here!
But wait a minute - educators are creative, so coming up with activities is not the issue. What makes ready-made lesson plans so special?
2. Pedagogically planned, holistic activities that have a purpose
The important part is here: Can educators justify the chosen activity pedagogically? Why is that lesson useful for the children? What do the children learn from this?
Advance lesson planning is the main step in securing quality learning. Planning pedagogically high-quality and overall holistic lessons is not everyone's cup of tea.
I bet every educator can come up with nice activities for children – for example, “Let’s take finger paints and paint! That is fun!”. But not every educator can justify why she/he is organizing that activity at this time for these children.
If early childhood education activities do not have a pedagogical base or a curriculum behind them, they serve no real purpose. If the educator does not think of the reason why she or he is running that activity or lesson, there is actually no point in doing it (in the long run at least).
3. Planning with Kindiedays has a quality guarantee
So, what makes planning with Kindiedays better, faster, and better in pedagogical quality is that every single one of the activities has a set learning area and set learning goals.
All Kindiedays Lesson Plans are based on a curriculum = they have meaningful learning goals. Having a set learning area and learning goal(s) give the activity a purpose.
What is different to planning without Kindiedays is, that most probably educators run also lessons or activities that are 'nice' and that miss the real learning goal, the real purpose. Therefore, the level of quality education is not that high.
4. Pedagogical documentation
Children's learning should be documented systematically. With systematic documentation, educators are able to understand what the children have learned, what are their strengths and what are their personal needs for development. Educators can also assess if there are some learning areas that their teaching has not yet covered.
If educators do not keep track of what the children knew at the beginning of the term and what they know now, the educators have no possibility to assess what the children have learned, what they should learn, and what type of activities or lessons the teacher should plan next! In other words = without documentation quality early childhood education does not exist.
Kindiedays gives educators useful tools for pedagogical documentation and therefore helps educators to maintain high quality in education.
5. Planning process
Below, in the picture, you can see the planning process of how activities or lessons get their pedagogical frame. There is a path with Kindiedays and without. Generally, the planning process goes like this:
- Observe children and their interests, strengths, and needs for development
- Choose the learning area and the learning objective(s) based on children's attributes
- Plan the lesson or activity
- Run the activity and document it (documentation can be a photo, video, or audio..)
- Add notes and reached learning objectives to the documentation (learning objectives that were determined already during the planning process)
- Save the documentation and share it with the child and his/her family
Documentation becomes Pedagogical Documentation when you add the learning objectives from the curriculum and share and discuss it with the children and families. It is also important for educators to reflect on it and learn something for the future. With systematic assessment, it is possible to improve one's own teaching methods too.
It is possible to plan, document, assess and improve without digital solutions using pen, glue, paper, scissors, and colored pencils. But Kindiedays makes the whole process more flexible, smooth, and up-to-date. Planning with Kindiedays has less stress and a quality guarantee and it actually is an all-in-one path!
All in all, Kindiedays gives your planning a purpose, it is securing your back, it is a safety net as well as a clear road map that guides your way!
Happy planning - with Kindiedays!
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