Documentation Panel on The Solar System

The center caters for children between the ages of 6 weeks and 5 years and is equipped to observe, plan for and evaluate the development needs of the children placed in the care. The center provides meals and other provisions to the children to ensure that their stay in the institution is comfortable even as they go about with their learning. Nutritious and child-friendly meals are provided to the children through the center’s well organized rotating four-week roster (Melbourne Childcare, 2018). The center boasts of a highly qualified and experienced staff that is also trained in first aid management, anaphylaxis, and child care thereby guaranteeing the safety of the children and a conducive environment for their growth, development and learning away from their homes.

The childcare center offers both before school and after school care programs for primary school children, day care centers for children up to the school going age and a family day care program where caregivers look after the children from their homes. The structure and layout of the center were very appealing, and even before we embarked on a tour of the place, I could tell that the center was very child-friendly and therefore suitable for the learning of my students. We began by having a tour of the entire center given by the center’s members of staff. In the tour, we got to see the various areas within the center where children are accommodated on the basis of their ages.

We also visited the kitchen and dining areas, bathrooms and play areas and were impressed because they were all child-friendly, clean, well maintained and evidently built using the best technology. In the various classrooms, we saw all the projects that had been made by the children in the center as well as those that were still ongoing. From my interaction with the care center staff and observation of the children as they went about with their learning activities as well as from their works displayed on the place walk, I learned that play and a child-centered teaching approach are highly effective with regard to the learning of children. The attention span of children is very low, and they tend to easily get bored and disinterested especially when the activities they are involved in are mundane.

As such, they learn better through play and activities that they find interesting and take pleasure in as opposed to traditional learning approaches which are more suitable for older students. This is also true according to the Australian Government Department of Education and Training (2010) which acknowledges that the learning of children is complex, dynamic and holistic as it involves all domains of the child including their physical, social, emotional, spiritual, creative, cognitive and linguistic domains. As such, the play is an effective learning tool for children because it provides them with an opportunity to express their personality and individuality while also enhancing such dispositions as curiosity and creativity and allowing them to relate the past and present. While the representations were not accurate and did not include all the components of the solar system, they were impressive considering the age of the children who made them.

The creativity put into the artifacts was also impressive and a reflection of the ability of children to learn and express themselves through art. Interpretation of the Documentation Panel One of the things I learned from the place walk was that involvement and play are very effective in the learning of children. From the artworks on display on the place walk that the children had made which included models and paintings of the solar system, it was evident that children are capable of learning even complex subjects as long as they are taught to them in a manner that makes it easy for them to understand and relate to them. The ability of the children to make models of the solar system no matter how imperfect was impressive and an indicator that they had acquired an understanding of what the solar system entails.

However, incorporating learning on the subject into painting and modeling made the subject interesting for the children and therefore easier to understand as opposed to an approach where the subject was taught using the traditional lecture approach. In light of this, I will ensure that I incorporate learning into children’s activities in my practice so as to ensure that they learn more easily and effectively. I also learnt that play is an effective learning tool and that young children learn the most through play. As such, I purpose to incorporate play into my teaching practice as much as possible in order to make learning more interesting for my students. Another of the lessons I learned from the place walk and that I will incorporate into my practice is that a student-centered learning approach yields better results as far as learning is concerned.

Through listening, children are able to find meaning in what they do, what they experience and in what they encounter consequently learning (Rinaldi, 2001). The ability of children to listen and comprehend what is being said to them is portrayed in the place walk activity by the ability of the children to listen to the instructors and in the process learn about the solar system well enough to be able to make model representations of the same with little or no supervision. Another aspect of listening that is seen through the process of making the documentation panel is the context of multiple listening in the learning environment whereby both children and their teachers have to listen to each other in order for effective learning to take place as opposed to the traditional approach to teaching and learning whereby the teacher is expected to do all the talking while the children listen and learn (Rinaldi, 2001).

In the making of the artifacts for the documentation panel, the teachers had to, first of all, teach the concept of the solar system to the children as they listened. From here, the children were allowed to give their views and ideas and raise questions pertaining to the subject as the teachers listened. This is demonstrated through the provision of a safe and stimulating environment equipped with all the necessary tools to facilitate the learning of children in the Good Start care center. It is also seen in the provision of opportunities for children to build on their interest and knowledge through the activities where they are allowed to make representations of the solar system based on their understanding thereby enhancing their creative and critical thinking abilities.

My cordial interaction with other early childhood professionals from the care center and getting to share ideas regarding early childhood education is also in accordance with this principle. Equity and diversity are another of the VEYFL principles that are evident from the documentation panel process. This involves the view of every child as having the capacity to succeed regardless of their abilities and circumstances and is concerned with giving every child equal opportunity to demonstrate and grow their skills and abilities (State of Victoria, 2016). melbournechildcare. com/childcare-provider/goodstart-early-learning-reservoir/2399 Accessed July 1, 2018. Rinaldi, C. “The Pedagogy of Listening: The Listening Perspective from Reggio Emilia”. Innovations in Early Education, Vol. The Australian Government Department of Education and Training (2010). Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia.