The aim of education during preschool is to stimulate the growth of the child. This can be done by giving the children opportunities for play, both spontaneous and structured. They should be allowed to manipulate objects in the environment around them. A variety of material may be used by the teacher to stimulate their intellectual growth. The material and strategies should match the level of each child’s development and learning.
The following basic principles may be useful for the teacher while planning the learning experiences and activities for the young children:
A climate of certain degree of freedom for the child: It provides the child with many opportunities for spontaneous play. It should be unstructured in the initial stage then they may be gradually introduced to structured play which enables them to learn certain fundamentals of language and numbers. It lays foundation for formal learning.
Learning activities must be doing activities: The child needs experience. The child learns better if he does the activity on his own. The teacher should not do anything for him.
Activities may be around real objects and situation: The children learn easily many things when they are exposed to nature. For example they learn about rain during rainfall.
A well planned schedule:Planning of activities make teacher’s and child’s day more pleasant and fruitful. Observing a child during free play enables the teacher in understanding the child’s readiness towards formal learning.
Language as a tool of learning activities: As the language competencies grow in the children, they may be encouraged to talk about what they see and how they feel about a particular thing. Conversation with them should be simple and accurate. Lengthy speech will make children passive listeners and soon they may be disinterested in the learning activities.
Individual attention: The teachers should develop rapport with each child and pay individual attention and recognition.
An ECE programme should be flexible and innovative. The teacher has to be clear about the long term developmental objectives. She has to provide a balanced ECE programme for the childre
Long term planning: means drawing up a programme for the full year. This should be done in terms of:
The specific developmental objective to be promoted.
Identification of themes for the year which would form the content of the programme.
Activities based on the themes that would help in promoting development in children in line with the objectives.
Material required for conducting the activities.
The budget requirement to implement the plan.
The full years plan should be split into term/quarterly and then monthly plans. Monthly plan is then required to be reduced into weekly and then daily plans.
Short term planning: The weekly and daily planning is referred to as short term planning. Each day’s planning should be detailed. It should include the developmental objectives to be promoted, the theme, the specific activities to be included and the material required.
L.N. Bossing defined lesson plan as “Statement of the achievements to be realized and the specific meaning by which these are to be attained as a result of the activities engaged during the period.”
Daily lesson planning: involves defining the objectives, selecting and arranging the subject matter and determining the method of procedure. It indicates the aims to be realized by teaching a lesson, the methods to be employed and the activities to be undertaken.
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