Planning enjoyable experiences

Thinking ahead

Being prepared and organised is the pivotal part of successfully providing a responsive, interesting and appropriate program for the children you work with.

The program involves the whole day for the children, and this would include:

• routine care experiences
• transitions from inside to outdoors
• play experiences.

Always make sure the experiences and the learning environment are set up in advance, whether this is indoors or outside.

By thinking ahead you will identify any cleaning materials you may need when you pack the experience away - for example, a cloth, warm soapy water, a spatula or a container to clean finger paint off the table and floor.

Remember the five P's of thinking ahead:

Number of children to be involved

The younger the child, the fewer the number of children involved in the experience being offered. Below is a suggestion on appropriate numbers for activities with children of three different age groups.

For children less than 3 years of age, an experience needs to be set up for no more than 1 or 2 children at a time.

For children 3 – 5 years, a maximum of 4 children should participate.

For 5 – 12 year olds, no more than 6 children should participate at a time unless it is a sporting game, but preferably no more than 4 children at a time.

Keeping an eye on the numbers can help to reduce the need for children to share and compete for the materials being offered. This helps to reduce or even eliminate conflict.

Remember that younger children are less likely to have developed the skills and understanding involved in taking turns, waiting and sharing. The younger the child, the more duplicates will need to be available. If you have ten toddlers, they need ten bikes!

If the children are really enjoying participating in the block area, you may need to provide two block areas to avoid having too many children in one play space. This may also apply to cubby houses, water play or to any new experience that lots of children find attractive and want to try. For example, if you are washing dolls in a water trough with one or two children and others want to be involved, consider putting water in small trays with containers for pouring. This will disperse the group and avoid the problems that arise when too many children are in the same space.