Asking Children from Input

Give them a choice may be between two objects... such as a book or an animal and see which one they grab, go towards... that's what they choose...

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Lorina

Thanks for your response . I'm not sure if what I was asking/thinking is that simple. But I suppose it could be as you can still ask them if they want one option or the other to go somewhere... I was thinking more along the lines how what I'm reading says that they should have an input on what is set up, how things are set up, ect. which they obviously can't vocalise or at least not as well as older children.

I guess the other way for it is when you get to know the child, see what their interests are, & then based on that you set up the area accordingly? That way they're still having an input, even though its not in the same way as an older child who may be able to assist you in setting up a space? Or even today I saw how one of the babies had found a toy dinosaur & was going around saying "rawr" so I wanted to set up an animal area so they could play with more than just one dinosaur. That's taking inspiration from what a baby was already doing, & they've sort of influenced the set up (well if I'd been able to find more animals at the time & been able to do that it would've influenced it )

Sorry, I think I totally misinterpreted your question wrong!

Yes definitely, you have to base your environment on the children's interest not just at the centre but also by what's happening at home as well. Any information you gather from parents can be used to set up the environments within the room based on what they say, For example - if they took their child to the zoo - you can set up an area based on that, if they mention that their grandma came over to help bake cookies - then you can set up a cooking experience, if a baby is learning to walk at home then you encourage it by adding standing walkers etc. A parent may not necessarily fill in an "input form" but just by chatting with them on their daily pick ups/drop offs you can gather info that will help you introduce learning to the children.

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Lorina

All logical things, thank you. Guess I knew the answer, but just wasn't thinking about it in that way? So it just was dismissed in my brain. Sometimes it helps to look at things from a different perspective & to get someone else to help you do that, thank you

Didn't even think of parental input though, that's a good point. They provide lots of information which could be used, even if its something simple like they've started to show signs of learning to walk, or they took them to the zoo...

Thank you again

You're welcome!

Yes, using parental input, especially in the babies room will help greatly in setting up experiences for children. Also, add these comments to your weekly program/parent input board along with the date, so you can link the experience back to the input you received.

Every little bit helps!

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Lorina