WHITE GUM VALLEY PLAY FORUM
NOVEMBER 27, 2019
About
The White Gum Valley play forum was a great success with teachers coming to share and be inspired by other early childhood teachers in what strategies and activities they could employ in their class and schools.
This data will be used to help the Union develop a template for teachers and administration to work together to develop a play statement or policy at their school.
Play strategies, policies and statement session:
Some of the outstanding at the class level were (more detail below):
- Hands on activities
- Inquiry table
- Intentional/teacher guided (resourced)
- Inquiry table with a provocation (one of the rotations)
- Manipulations
Some of the outstanding at the team level were (more detail below):
- Play time is the same
- Dependant on EA, parent roster, often unsupervised/independent
- Indoor/outdoor, hands/oracy, role play, puppets
Some of the outstanding at the school level were (more detail below):
- Nature play area for 1-6s, used at break time and class time: Wheels, crates sensory garden, musical instruments (recycled materials, blocks, books, dress ups.
- How to access outside break times.
- Nature play area – structures to build, be creative
- Outdoor Play activities
- Phonics/phonemic awareness
- What are the sounds Mr Wolf? Step one step for each sound in the word.
- Have a number of graphemes sticky taped to various outdoor locations (not too far apart) eg, sh, ch, th, ng.
- day
- Sensory garden
- Recycle parts shed
Tinker Table – South Coogee Ps Yr 1/2
Any non-working appliances to explore, pull apart and play with. Add cable ties, spanners, screw drivers, dowel, chunks of wood, hammers, nuts, bolts, magnifying glass, safety glasses, dust masks and basket for tools.
Geography – South Coogee, Sally Woodliff
Put road sticky tape on desks and then use recycled materials to build a town, then label parts.
Measurement – WGVPS, Alysha Lange
Set up water and rice stations and students used spoons/containers to measure capacity.
Jane K – WGV PS
Rotational activities including:
- Bingo dabber designs
- Hammer and nail activities/designs
- Tennis ball monsters
- Mr Potato head creations with play dough
- Finger twister game
- Pipe cleaner threading, bead designs, marble balancing.
Nature walk – Hazel
Pine cone; Christmas objects
If they found seeds, picked them out (fine motor).
Mystery bags – try to identify what’s in bag based on senses.
Using water and sand, children made a dam. Multiple children allocated each other roles, self-regulation and agency and social skills.
Measurement – WGVPS, Alysha Lange
Set up water and rice stations and students used spoons/containers to measure capacity.