BlOg 3 - PiKlEtS

When you think about the start of time and how people used to live, till now everything that has changed is because of technology. All it takes is one person to have an idea and find a way of making it possible then the world is limitless and full of endless possibilities.

As most 2 year olds are always putting everything in their mouth we are always thinking oh no germs or how they are going to get sick but in my room we hardly ever give them experiences for them to taste and put things in their mouth that they can eat or that they have made themselves.

We always make playdough and the children always eat it so for a change we made piklets, at least this way the children can eat it all. It was so beautiful watching the children mixing and helping pour all the ingredients into the bowl and we baked them all together using the electric pan.

The children all looked at the pictures and used their counting and mixing skills to mix all the ingredients correctly. Cooking is a great way of including the children and letting them feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction when they eventually get to eat what they put their hard work into. I love cooking as it is an amazing activity to get the children involved in and get creative with. There are down sides to cooking as I have found that the children do have to be careful and they are not allowed to touch the electric pan, but the children had so much fun that that tiny part of the activity was not a problem. The children could see the change in colour and the way it felt afterwards all thanks to the portable convenience of the electric pan. This experience again opened my mind to how many opportunities we can involve children in and provide to extend their learning in so many areas, not just technology but science, maths, art, literacy and so many more. according to (Tsantis, Bewick, & Thornton, 2003) "As educators we need to understand how modern technologies can help us better meet the social, physical, and learning needs of young children."

It made me feel excited about their learning and that they had an opportunity to explore using more than pens and bikes and cars which is the norm for the activities in the room, there are so many other ways to use the equipment like ironing crayon pictures, as most of the children will be aware of the iron and its purpose. By taking the home experiences and making the link is where the magic happens and when I feel we can  really reach out to children and create a smaller barrier between home and centre life. I liken how (Clark, 2007) talks about openmindedness and being open to adapting practice, in relation to technology we need to include technology and extend our own learning so we can share it with the children, too facilitate good project work.

I thoroughly enjoyed this activity and would definitely do many more like this as it brings so many important areas of the curriculum together and was simply a very fun activity for the children to experience and be included in the whole process.



References

Clark, A. (2007). Changing classroom practice to include the project approach. ERCP, 8 (2), 1-10.

Tsantis, L., Bewick, C., & Thornton, S. (2003). Examining some common myths about computers in the early years. Young Children on the Web, November 2003, 1-9.