Curriculum Development Assignment: Importance of Play in Early Childhood

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Curriculum Development Assignment To begin, there are many current trends and policies that have impacted greatly on the Early- childhood care and education system and services in Ireland over the years. Such trends and policies include, Play. Play is a huge part of any early-childhood care and education setting in Ireland. Children are said to be at their happiest when they play. They are also supposed to be at their most vital and energetic. Aistear the curriculum framework for early childhood care and education has impacted greatly on the early years settings and the development of the curriculum. Margaret Kernan says that there is a tension in current early childhood care and education in Ireland between the vision and theory of play and also children’s everyday play experiences. Understanding the importance of play for a child is highly important, not only as a right but an actual need for their overall well-being. Play needs to be secured in all ECCE settings. As well as play, there is also another focus and that is on activity and learned centred curriculum. This is defined as allowing the student to learn by exploring, thinking, creating and being involved with his environment. Thirdly we have the Developmental model of curriculum, this model is seen as a process and uses many of the teachings from such developmental theorists such as Vygotsky, Piaget and Bruner. This model of curriculum is concerned with the nature of the child. From these theorists we learn how the childrens minds develop and how they actually learn. This also has a huge impact on the curriculum development in early years services and the way they go about their teachings. Another thing that has had a severe impact on early year’s services is the la... ... middle of paper ... ... responsibility of having animals and the caring that comes along with them. This would be a long term way of keeping the activity going but if you wanted a short term activity, something as simple as asking the children to make their favourite animal out of play-dough or modelling clay would also be a great activity. Another short term activity could also be as simple as asking the children to all draw their favourite animals. There are many ways of keeping an activity like this going. To conclude, I have discussed the current trends and policies that have impacted on the curriculum development n early years settings. I have examined the learning story and identified the relevant principles, themes and learning opportunities outlined in Aistear. I have also reflected on the learning story and identified ways of extending the activity shown in the learning story.

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