People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
-Maya Angelou
In
Inspiring Spaces for Young Children, Sharon, a toddler teacher, shares this idea:
"Most of us remember growing up making tents under our mom's kitchen table and chairs, using the biggest blanket we could find. Our makeshift tent magically transformed us into adventurers who slept under the stars, ate from a tin can, and fought off grizzly bears.
"Those wondrous times come to life once again for the children in my classroom with an authentic campsite. The camping area is filled with everything a child needs to go on an adventure — including a wall mural of a lake, trees, and birds that bring the glorious outdoors into the classroom.
"Our children's faces light up when they begin cooking steaks and veggies on the grill, grab a backpack and go for a walk with their friends, or excitedly crawl into the sleeping bag to gaze up at the stars."
The classroom environment is an essential component for maximizing learning experiences for young children. These books invite teachers to enhance children's educational environment in a beautiful way by emphasizing aesthetic environmental qualities that are often overlooked in early childhood classrooms, such as nature, color, furnishings, textures, displays, lighting, and focal points. If you buy both books, you can enjoy a 20% discount.
Sale ends Friday. (9/12/2013 at 11:59pm)
Comments (2)
Displaying All 2 CommentsAHS-EHS
Taunton, M, United States
This is a great article about camping. It really did bring back memories of creating this magical world. How great it must be for these children to have this experience! Some may not be able to go with their families-but here they get the chance to explore and create
United States
I wonder if anyone notices the difference between these two scenarios? In the first, you have a child directed activity that requires planning, trial and error, assignment of meaning to objects and imagination. In the second scenario you have an activity that is limited by the planning and imagination of the adult. It is like the difference between a set of unit blocks and a doll house. Both have their place, but which requires the most input and output (and therefore learning) from the child?
The second scenario could have the same value if the planning, building tents, painting murals, making lists of needed materials, etc. had been done by the children, but that wasn't stated in the article.
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