Emergent Curriculum for Engaged & Empowered Learning
The activities that I introduce to the children I work with are emergent, diverse and inclusive for children of all abilities or disabilities. Emergent curriculum is child centered, emerges from the child’s interests and is differentiated for their unique needs. Differentiated instruction takes lesson planning a step further and is tailored to meet the individual student’s interests, needs and strengths. With emergent curriculum and differentiated instruction, the how of learning is flexible and students have choices. When students play an active role in the learning process and can make decisions about learning plans, they become more engaged and invested in learning.
The children above are siblings and the one with the pink helmet has non-verbal autism. She is a kinesthetic learner so I plan outdoor activities that include movement. When we have enough snow, I take her to the park and pull her on a toboggan. Sometimes she will walk with me and play in the snow. It is great exercise for all of us. Including her brother helps to strengthen the family bonding as he often has to cater to his little sister’s needs. I have been working with children who have special needs as a respite provider for a couple years. Like many children with autism, she loves the sensation of moving. Our activities often include new sensory experiences too. It has been said that sensory play helps build nerve connections in the brain to assist in developing language and motor skills. I have noticed great advancements in her gross motor skills within the past two years. Also, she will shout out new words when she is having fun. When children enjoy sensory play, it encourages learning through creativity, curiosity, exploration and problem solving.
The cupcake liners in this math activity have the days of the week written on them. This helps the children to learn the days of the week in an engaging way. They practice counting with the fruits and place them into the cupcake liners that corresponds to the day of the week according to The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. Also, when doing this activity, the children can learn to subitize numbers one through five. The children can use the pipe cleaners to form the shapes of numbers 1 – 9. Then, they practice writing the numbers 1 – 9 on a worksheet. This gives them practice counting and writing or tracing the numbers.
Creative Learning Experience Plan
This emergent art experience was a great success because they were able to express their creativity. The children were engaged and had fun with this activity painting on paper with coloured ice cubes. They enjoyed picking out the paper and paint colours. All of the children had fun being creative with this activity.
