Child Development
Children learn best when they
- Participate in making decisions as much as possible.
- Make choices and contribute to learning experiences.
- Share their opinions and diverse experiences and discuss their learning.
- Have positive role models within the staff team.
- Learn in a responsive and supportive social environment.
- Learn through multi-sensory experiences.
- Participate actively in experiences that engage them emotionally, physically, cognitively and socially.
Examples of Physical Development:
To allow children to develop both gross and fine motor skills, physical control, mobility and coordination and their mental wellbeing the service will provide suitable equipment, small and large, indoors and outdoors.
- To help this development all areas are supervised and children can play safely
- Gross motor skills are encouraged through outdoor play, skipping, running, games and slide etc.
- Fine motor skills are developed with a wide range of equipment i.e. crayons, scissors, paintbrushes, puzzles, pegs and boards etc.
- There is a wide variety of natural materials, sand, water, clay etc. to enhance technological skills.
Examples of Emotional Development:
- Healthy emotional development is promoted in a relaxed and secure environment.
- This helps children to identify names and explore their feelings both positive and negative.
- Adults allow the children to express their feelings and help them to grow in self- esteem and self-confidence. This will help their relationship with other children and adults.
Examples of Language Development:
Childcare workers should be aware that children’s language develops at different rates therefore the variety of activities and opportunities for language must be as wide as possible. Childcare workers in the service play a vital role in helping language development by:
- Talking to the children and giving them the opportunity to practice listening and speaking.
- We provide a variety of groups: e.g. books, posters, interest tables to talk about and discuss.
- Everything in the room is labelled with symbols e.g. shapes, jigsaws and patterns. Boxes that contain toys are labelled showing those toys etc.
- We encourage conversation in groups of different sizes. From one to one to small groups — on to the whole group.
- We also provide a quiet time for all the children to expand their listening skills
- We use rhymes and songs to allow children to play with words.
Examples of Intellectual Development:
- To develop intellectually a child must be helped to learn how to learn.
- The children are encouraged to solve problems.
- There is always sand and water for the children to play with. These develop concepts such as volume, weight, quantity, shape, size etc.
- There is also the natural material used i.e. wood, clay leading them into appreciation of science and math.
Examples of Social Development:
- Particularly relevant aspects are stories, songs, make believe play, outings and group projects.
- Staff provide opportunities for the children to play together in settings that encourage them to learn and assert themselves and fit in as part of the group.
- Staff are sensitive to the children developing play and avoid unnecessary interruption.