Responsive Plans

This plan is a literacy experience where I placed books about the alphabet in the reading centre, put up an alphabet made out of twigs (using both capital and lower case letters) on the wall and I cut out different letters from a magazine so the children could create their alphabet on a piece of paper.

This experience focuses on the cognitive-developmental domain, the developmental area of Communication, Language and Literacy and the skill and skill reference “3.4 Phonological Awareness and Phonics: identifying initial, middle and final sounds in words/recognizing common patterns and words” (OMED, 2014, p. 57) - from ELECT.

This plan was based on the grade 1 curriculum regarding community helpers. As a group, we read the book Career Day by Anne Rockwell and we learned about community helpers. We then played a matching game that tied into literacy. We matched pictures of community helpers to the card that had their written their job title on it. After this experience, we did a reflection where each child had to choose a community helper, draw them and write about their roles and responsibilities.

This experience supports literacy skills as well as ELECTs psychosocial domain, emotional developmental area and skill "2.6 Positive Attitudes towards Learning, such as Persistence, Engagement, Curiosity and a Sense of Mastery; expanding curiosity and interest in learning about the world” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014, p. 56). As well as skill "2.1 Self-Concept: talking about personal characteristics, taking responsibility for dressing, eating and hygiene routines, using personality traits and social comparison to define oneself, being increasingly responsible and independent” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014, p. 56).

This experience was done with my grade 1 placement students and it was a show and share of each child's culture. I sent home a letter to parents asking them to talk with their children and help them write a few sentences about a cultural holiday/tradition they celebrate. The child was also asked to bring an item from home representing this cultural celebration which they shared with their classmates.

This experience focuses on fostering belonging by allowing the children to see and share their own and their classmates' differences in an environment, where everyone is accepting and welcoming to their individualities. By allowing each child to bring and present their home cultures in our classroom, we allowed them to feel a sense of belonging and we helped foster inclusion (OMEd, 2014).

This experience was done with a preschool classroom. I noticed the children were able to velcro their shoe straps so I decided to work on their ability to tie shoelaces. I read them the book, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. We read the story with interactive props and then played with busy boards with buttons. Then we read the book Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes. Followed by busy boards with buttons and laces on them.

This experience focuses mainly on physical skills, specifically skill 5.2 Fine Motor Skills of ELECT. The children were able to explore, and practise their fine motor abilities by using their fine motor muscles - fingers - to tie shoelaces and button buttons by using the busy boards.

This plan was based on an observation done on an individual child 3 years of age. However, the experience is meant to encourage group interaction. For this experience, I brought in a bin full of dinosaurs for the individual child to explore and discover. It was meant to be an open-ended experience, with little to no guidelines or rules so that the children can let their imagination run wild. This experience brought the children together and allowed for collaboration.

This experience supports physical, social and cognitive development. Specifically, it addresses ELECT skills such as (1.1) Making Friends by allowing children to “seek[...] out others to play with, offer[...] play materials and roles to others, play[...] with others cooperatively, invit[e...] others to play, exchang[...] ideas, materials and points of view with others [and] sustain[...] play with others” (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014, p. 37).