We don't teach phonics but they learn letters and their sounds.

"We don't teach phonics but they learn letters and their sounds."

That's what I heard myself say when a parent asked if we teach phonics.

I pointed to the name labels on the tables and told her that we're always talking about letters and their sounds, like the sounds in their names.

I pointed to the alphabet puzzles and the magnetic letters which had been incorporated into the home center play.

On display is the recipe book, A-Z of recipes, that we will make over the year. It is through their play that the children begin to connect letters to the sounds they make.

We don't teach phonics but they learn letters and their sounds through play.

We don't teach phonics when the environment, or the third teacher, does it so beautifully.

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Fascinating Sunflower Sprouts

When planting sunflower seeds, one of the children wanted to do it on his own. He got a white plastic bottle from the recyclables shelf, added some dirt, a couple of sunflower seeds, water and took it outside to put it in the sun. Such independence. Such initiative. It was fascinating to see that different children were interested in different aspects of the process.

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.

NZ Teacher

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