Parents of small children often wonder how to keep their pre-schoolers stimulated and engaged in their learning.
At ACG Sunderland, this comes as naturally as breathing. Small students at the Preschool have been engaged for the past month and a half in building an ever-changing Jurassic Park.
This child-led approach began with one child, who everyday would build cages out of blocks and within the cage, he would place his toys.
Natasha Bleach, head teacher, ACG Sunderland Preschool noticed how engaged the other children were in this one child’s activity.
From here, the idea of building a Jurassic Park came alive.
On a large-scale canvas, the students have painted it, added trees and twigs and in the middle have even built a volcano.
With the teachers’ help, they found a town in Japan where children wear hard hats outside because of a regularly erupting volcano; the kiwi students latched onto this idea and made their own hard hats, donning them when it was time for the Preschool volcano to erupt.
Inspiring imagination
“Every day we ask students what they want to do, whether that is the Jurassic Park or something else. For now, they are focused on the Park. Who knows for how long but we will stick with it as long as the students are engaged in the process. Their imagination outmatches that of adults! We have gone down all kinds of tangents in the last month and a half,” Ms Bleach said.
The Jurassic Park theme has also been linked back to the school where the pre-schoolers go to the school library for shared reading with the Year 4 Class.
They invited Year 4 students to see their creations recently.
Added excitement
Adding to the excitement one morning was the preschool in a semi state of disarray.
To the delight of the pre-schoolers, they discovered a ‘preschool creature’, one with giant footprints and one that left an egg to nest!
The pre-schoolers wrote letters to the creature asking many important things, such as “Will you eat us?” and “Do you ride a bike?”
“These ideas all tie in with our literacy, numeracy and handwriting programmes. We also involve the preschool in with the wider school to develop the sense of community. These help make our students school-ready,” Ms Bleach said.
There is no such thing as a dull day in the office for Ms Bleach; in fact, she often leaves at the end of the day saying, “Wow that was awesome!”
The above material (edited) was supplied by ACG Sunderland.
