The Child is the Curriculum

Bev Bos coined this phrase: The child is the curriculum.

That really defines child-centered teaching & learning.

We learn so much about our children when we interact with them and let them choose what they want to do in the classroom.

I like to define "curriculum" as 'everything that happens in the classroom'.

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation"
- Plato from http://www.playcounts.com/

Comments

Tape Man

Some of the children put blue tape over their mouth. Usually I would have said something like, "Take the tape off your mouth. It's not for putting on your mouth." Instead I thought of Tape Man (with some pride, being from New Zealand). I thought of creativity. I thought of art. So we sat together for whole group time, some with tape on their mouth. I said, "I've got something to show you." When they first say him one of them said, "It's scary." I reassured them that it's not too scary and that he's being funny. So they started to laugh. Pretty soon there was no more tape on mouths (not that I minded if there was, it's just hard to laugh). Thank you Tape Man for reminding us that creativity begins with exploration in play.

Journals & Writing

We like to write about what interests us. It's the same for children. Journal writing time is an invitation for the children to draw something of interest to them. They tell me something about their pictures and I write it on the page. They see how writing happens by starting with an idea then seeing it get written down.

Paper Tray / Spatial Exploration

The paper trays were moved from the top of the shelf to the table so that some of the children could make a trap using the yarn. One of the children experimented with the paper trays. He pushed them back to discover that they can be formed into steps or they can be stacked on top of one another. Spatial exploration.

NZ Teacher

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