Charles Telfair Institute
Happenings in Children's Services 13 November 2008
The students of both the Certificate III and Diploma Courses in Children's Services have been busily progressing through their course curriculum and learning how to provide quality care for children (and their families) from the ages of Birth to 12 years old. At the same time, we see them developing an incredible sense of professionalism in this field as the course prepares and implements activities for children to help them develop physical-large motor and fine motor skills, language skills, social/ emotional/ psychological skills and cognitive and creative skills that need to be enhanced, nurtured and stimulated in a caring, safe and healthy environment. CTI is trying to provide the same type of environment for its students as well.
The children of Bethleem Nursery and Pre-primary School are creating and exploring the properties of play-dough. Micheline Nelson adapted and implemented this ‘sensory-motor exploration of materials’ activity with her focus group of 2-3 years old. Micheline is also helping the children to develop their fine motor strength and coordination which will help them to be great writers in the future.
The Diploma students are currently undergoing their second work placement experience in the 2-3 year age group at a number of local nurseries and pre-primary schools that are in partnership with CTI to produce quality child caregivers and teachers. At "Bethleem", "St Jacque's", "Step-Ahead" and CEP in Quatre Bornes and "Melbee's" in Floreal, CTI students have been creating survey sheets and suggestion boxes, using their own observational records and interacting and meeting with both parents and staff to gather pertinent background information about the children. They then will use the information to produce and implement a one-week timetable for the 2-3 year olds in their care.
Nelly Gentil-Gordon with her focus group of 2-3 year olds at Bethleem Nursery and Pre-primary School are creating a tactile exploration painting using different textures. The children experimented with powder paint, wet paint, sand mixed with paint, and paint mixed with glitter. Which was the favourite? Each of the children had their own opinion and preference and were very candid about expressing their ideas and feelings in their painting.
The Diploma students are putting into practice the course philosophy that each individual child has unique needs, interests, strengths and abilities. Using this as the basis for childcare, CTI students have been trained to design and implement activities and experiences to support and explain children's development at this stage of growth. They are also practicing how to provide appropriate care, while creating a motivating environment for children to help them develop thinking strategies through play, storytelling musical and art experiences as well as cooking. We know that we can successfully use all these experiences to help stimulate children's curiosity, help them to learn at their own pace and to practice and develop skills.
The students all agreed that learning theory in a classroom setting was "interesting" but to actually work with and watch their planned activities being done by the children, being able to evaluate their program and themselves in a professional setting and just being allowed into the world of a child's natural wonder of learning, was priceless.
