Question+3+How+do+you+help+children+learn?

Question 3: How do you help children learn?

Drawing on your experience with children so far discuss how you have helped children to learn.

Give examples of such learning experiences.

Discuss what you did and why

====This question will help you to begin to think in a more reflective way which will be beneficial for your work experience and practicum when you will begin to document your reflections to show evidence of your developing teaching practice.====

_ Please begin the discussion under this line.
=__Sara Beazley__=

Helping children learn... My main focus when trying to help a child better themselves is support and patience. Negative energy and lack of interest usually lead to a child giving up on their project and conceding defeat. A personal example of this would be my first daughter learning how to walk. I was only 16 when I gave birth to her so I wasn't the greatest mother. Luckily I was in a teen parenting unit so I was receiving a lot of support on how to be an effective parent. When my daughter first starting to take steps I was inpatient and would get annoyed when she would fall over. Thanks to the help of my tutors I learned to take time out to help her balance and encourage her both when she would take steps and when she would fall. Unfortunately for my first daughter I had to grow up with her. But thankfully by the time it got to her potty training I was able and willing to help her through the ordeal. By supporting her and understanding that it wasn't going to be a quick change for her, we were able to get through the shift from nappies to underwear without any big slip ups. Now we have moved onto learning to write and she is picking up so much! We are writing every night and practising the 'hard letters' so hopefully by the time she gets to primary school it wont be too stressful on her.

I feel the most positive way of helping children to learn, is by encouraging, supporting, having patience, offering advice but not taking over, so when they have accomplished something that is their own success, nobody else’s and lastly having fun! While I was on practicum I was sitting with a young boy while he was doing a puzzle. We had been sitting at the puzzle table for a while, it was quite a tricky puzzle but he persisted and finished it and when he finished he looked so proud and I think it was because he did it without me taking over or telling him what to do. I was sitting there supporting and encouraging him and when he was having trouble I would offer advice like “what if you turn it this way?” which was giving him options, he did not have to do it if he did not want to so it was still all of his hard work.
 * __Anita Jacobs__ **

__**Sue David**__ Academic literacy Assignment #1 Question 3: How do you help children learn?

I have helped children learn by encouragement, support, letting them make their own mistakes, and setting realistic standards and goals. When my children were learning to read we used to encourage them by sharing the reading sometimes, taking turns so that they were not too over awed by it. As they improved the turns became longer. My children all enjoyed us reading with them or to them for quite some time which was also invaluable quality time together. Our eldest daughter used to be very determined (actually, still is) and I used to let her get on with things in her own way and to let her make her own mistakes. It didn’t take long for her to realise it was actually more comfortable to wear her shoes on the right feet! Letting her make her own mistakes also taught her to seek help when she realised she couldn’t do something on her own.

Learning also needs to be fun and I feel music is a fantastic learning tool. All my children love music as they have been brought up surrounded by music from a very young age. Counting songs, alphabet songs, times tables songs (had a fantastic one all to African music which we thrashed in the car), Animal songs, and hand action songs which are great for their coordination.

__**Jay Joshi**__
Children learn through encouragement, repetition, positive reinforcement and when they are having fun. My son loves art and music and everyday after school he draws numerous drawings of his favourite sea creature or superhero. He also loves to play the harmonica and flute for us ( his favourite tune is 'Auld Lang Syne'). I have always praised and encouraged him when he is doing well and helped him when he gets 'stuck'. He likes practising so that he can improve and now associates both the activities with fun and enjoyment. Activities that give pleasure are repeated and activities that don't are often considered cumbersome and avoided. While working at the early childhood centre, I have realised how children learn through play. T and A were playing with water in the water trough. They had some plastic toys and marbles to play with. I explained to them that light objects like plastic float and heavy objects like marbles sink. After repeating this for few times and encouraging them to try it out for themselves, T picks up a dried leaf from the ground and puts it in the water and exclaimed that it was floating. Wood (2004) says that "Good quality play is linked to positive learning outcomes in the cognitive, emotional, social and psycho-motor domains".

Lack of encouragement can dampen their confidence too. My son's favourite sport was swimming till one lesson last year when his swimming instructor growled at him for being slow. That incident shattered his confidence and he refused to go for any further lesson. Any kind of explanation or bribery would not make him go for his lessons. Ministry of Education, 1996 states, "Children develop a sense of personal worth, and knowledge that personal worth does not depend on today's behaviour or ability" (p.50). It took me almost an year to convince him and renew his confidence about swimming and its importance as a life saving skill. All that positive talking seemed to have worked and from this term he has joined his lessons again to my delight. He is once again enjoying the sport and looks forward to it. Negative emotions can be detrimental in a child's progress. I believe encouragement, joy and having fun in what they do is vital for their thirst of knowledge.

I would like to tell Michelle how I loved her idea of 'giant hopsctoch' for times table. What a fantastic idea! Guess that's what my son and I will be doing this weekend. Victoria (Walters), I enjoyed reading your story and like to say... Well done and keep up the good work!

Reference: Ministry of Education (1996). //Te Whariki. He Whariki Matauranga mo nga Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early Childhood Curriculum//. Wellington: Learning Media. Wood, E. (2004). Developing a pedagogy of play. In A. Anning, J. Cullen & M. Fleer (Eds.), //Early// //childhood// //education:society// //and culture.// (1st ed.,pp.19). London:Sage Publication.

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 * __T.J. Tuaiti__ **

Children will always be children and that's my opinion. Now weather a child doe's something that we know is wrong, we as Teacher's or Educator providers, should realize that they are still at the early age of learning. I support children's learning just by letting them express how they are or feel, and encourage them when they feel that they "can't do it" or another child told them "you’re not my friend", is to say "you can do it" or "I will be your friend". My experience with children and challenge's I faced were we vital to their learning. One morning a child from my 4-5 age group had fractured her hand a week ago and she had come back to school the week after with a Cast on. Now I would say that myself and other's who agree with me, is that we live our Lives’ in constant **Fear **. An obstacle course was made for the children and this child with the Cast on wanted to join in, and she did. But I said "don't do the monkey bar's" because of your hand. She didn’t listen and still went on and fell from it and laughed. But what I got out of this was that although I felt that she was restricted from doing any physical activities she did not fear and she did not show that she couldn’t do it. I've learnt and observed that if you have doubts or a negative mind; the child will never explore the environment or implement their own philosophy while learning and role playing what they know. So positive thinking, open minded, encouragement and showing them love (Aroha) are just some of the basic tools of supporting a child's learning. I let the children explore their mind in whatever interest that they have, allow them to make choices for themselves and not for me making it for them.

=Michelle Johnson= I was just reflecting on what Jay said about how children learn through positive reinforcement and fun, and It reminded me of when my daughter was in year 4 and 5 at Primary school. I thought of a way to help her to learn her times tables. I made a giant game of hop scotch that extended down our hall way, each square of paper had a times table on it. We threw the dice and had to hop down the number of squares, land on a times table and call out the answer. First one to the finish won the game. We played it often, and it helped her learn. As T.J said, “we can live our lives in constant fear”, for me as a child, I was terrified of Maths and particularly of making a mistake. So as a parent I want to include as much fun in my child’s learning as possible, and be involved in what she is doing at school .

Michelle that sound's like such a fun way to learn timestables. Like you I am terrified of Maths and the thought of trying to teach maths frightens me, thats a great idea of using a fun and simple game like hopscotch to make timestable fun and not boring. I strongly believe children learn through play not by sitting and being dictated of what to do and being told to do something a certain way just because us teacher's think it is right. Great work Michelle.
 * Anita Jacobs**

__**Aimee Watson**__

I have been fortunate enough to help my niece with an array of learning in her 10 years. Recently I have assisted her with both learning to ride a bike and learning to swim. She is a reasonably shy and reserved person who lacks confidence when doing some physical activities. Both tasks have required a lot of confidence on her part, not only in herself, but in trusting me also, and an immense amount of encouragement and praise on my part.

In learning to ride a bike, she was petrified that she would fall off and hurt herself. To over come this, we discussed how we would approach this task and it was agreed that I would hold the bike while she pedaled. This put her in a safe environment where she was able to forget about falling off her bike, and concentrate on the mechanical aspects of riding.Firstly we tackled the pedaling technique, then the steering and finally balance. Once she felt confident combining both the pedaling and steering of the bike, we agreed that I would let go of the bike, but stay beside her to be a safety net and gain control of the bike if she asked me to. Through persistence, praise, encouragement and instilling confidence, she was able to ride her bike for the first time by herself. The next time we had a lesson, she had taught herself to turn the bike. Not only had she been practicing riding her bike, she had built enough confidence to try something out of her comfort zone. She would proudly show off her new skills to everyone in the street.

Teaching her how to swim was a similar process. Here she was afraid of the water; she didn’t know her own abilities. Without knowing how to teach her how to swim, I decided that the best approach was to build on her confidence in the water. Again, it was ensuring her confidence remained high throughout and that she was in a safe environment so she could concentrate on the physical aspects of swimming. Her additional safety net this time was a pair of goggles. When she had them on she could confidently put her head under the water, without them, she wouldn’t.She was keen to learn how to jump into the water. We started in the shallow end of the pool and slowly reached a depth that she was happy with. I ensured that she was in control of the situation. I didn’t want to break the trust that she had in me. As we are at a depth she was happy with, her next concern is how far away I was standing. She asked me to move closer until I was within arms reach, she jumped and we both cheered in excitement of her first jump. As she became more and more confident in the water, she asked me to move back a pace, if her confidence waned, she asked me to move in. By the end of our time at the pools, she is jumping as far as she can and has the confidence to swim around in the water by herself. Through these experiences I have learnt the importance and value of positive encouragement, breaking learning into small manageable steps, not just for me, but for the child also. This makes it less scary and builds their confidence much more quickly. I have also learnt that rather than just explaining how to do something, it is far more beneficial to show the child how to do it, encourage them to be part of the solution and give praise when they give it a go. It demonstrates that you don’t always pick up that new skill the first time, sometimes you need a little bit of practice and lots of encouragement.

** Question 3: How do you help children learn? **  Drawing on your experience with children so far discuss how you have helped children to learn. Give examples of such learning experiences. Discuss what you did and why
 * __Robin Clark__**

When working in my centre on Monday, I spent some time with a 2 year old boy called Ben. Ben has good clear speech and is a reasonably confident child. However, as he is only 2 the monkey bars are slightly too big for him and he struggles to swing across them, and reach at the higher end. Our monkey bars are designed with a big cube at each end which the children can not only climb onto to reach the bars, but can also play inside, often used for a house, a boat, car, rocket ship, etc. When I first began working with Ben he struggled to climb up onto the box, at the lower end of the monkey bars. To help him I was giving him a small push from behind to get him over the last ridge. He would then walk over to the monkey bars and ask me to lower him down onto them. There is then another box under the bars, for the smaller children so they can reach the bars when standing. When he first started, Ben would need help to get onto the bigger box, and then once on the bars, would swing by himself on the lowest bar where he felt confident in being able to land on the smaller box if needed.

After a while, I decided to ask Ben if he would like to go across the monkey bars with me holding him so he wouldn’t fall. Ben was excited about this idea and let me help him across. As we went across we counted each bar as he grabbed onto them, yelling “fiiiive!” together excitedly at the last bar. When he landed I then praised him and we clapped together at his achievement, he danced with excitement at what he had done as a said “Kai Pai Ben!” Over the next 2 days when we had outside time, Ben would take me over to the monkey bars and ask “Bens turn?” pointing at the bars. With praise and re-enforced encouragement, Ben gained more confidence in going across the monkey bars. By the second day, he did not need help getting up onto the box and would be waiting for me up there by the time I had arrived. When I saw this we would clap and cheer together that he had managed to get up all by himself. On my second day at the centre, Ben was grasping each bar tightly as I held him and was not only going from the low end to the high end, but was also going from the high to the low. Ben lost interest in just swinging on the low bar where he could reach the ground, and asked constantly if I could help him across to the other side.

I believe that allowing Ben the opportunity, not forcing him into going across the bars helped him have the chance to think for himself. When he crossed he knew he was safe with me. By praising Ben, I allowed him to further his physical development with confidence. When he couldn’t quite grasp the bar I would encourage him with sentences such as “you’re doing so well!” “look at you!” and “come on, you can do it! Reach!” which would help him then to do his best and reach higher. I think it is important that when helping children learn, you hold realistic expectations of what they are capable of. Every child develops in different ways and stages and it is important to take this into a consideration when working in a centre -what may work for one, may not work for another. When working with children we need to insure we follow the ways of Te Whariki and take what the child is doing, and further it accordingly. There should be no forced learning, children need to feel confident, comfortable and enthusiastic about what they are doing. It is important that they are in an environment where they can feel okay about making mistakes and asking questions. With re-enforced encouragement and a positive attitude Ben was able to go back and forth across the monkey bars with my help. He was not stuck at one end swinging back and forth, he was able to further himself and feel confident with me.


 * __Victoria Walters__**

Yesterday my support person assisted me to work with a 4 years old, J who is Deaf, short sighted, lack of NZSL, I was asked to teach her more word in signs with a puzzle which she would have to sequence them, she picked up the puzzles close to her eyes and then looked at me with a curious with a question what's she would have to do next, so I had to sign in a simple language and she understood, and went on to her work. After she had them sequenced, I asked her to tell me a story in NZSL; she told me a story which she did very well. I reflected myself that I have achieved the goal that she have told me a story in NZSL which I was pleased.

And, today there was a girl who started her first day at preschool, she was diagnosed Deaf from Meningitis’s a couple of years ago, her mother briefed explained to me of her history - no language, not focus, unsettled - always on the move and after she have left preschool I found her at a table with sea creature models and a picture on the table. We both worked together naming the sea creatures, eg I picked up a model and show in front of her eyes at same time I signed for 'fish', 'whale' 'seaweed', etc and I keep continue then I paused to see if what she will do to next. And she picked up a fish and signed fish; she achieved first sign for fish, which was reward.

Being working with Deaf and hard of hearing and cochlear implant preschool children are a hard work, with a lot of visuals, photos card (flash cards with photos on it) and signing, but knowing at the end of the day is a rewarding what I have achieved when they discovered new words or sign.

**__Kushla Browne__**

Gathering from what I have learnt over the last few years, I find children learn best when they are encouraged, given positive feedback, letting them express who they are without judgement, giving them lots of praise when they accomplish something by themselves, setting realistic goals in which are reachable within a ceartain time frame, patience, learning from their own mistakes and gaining their own sense of what is right and wrong. I think learning should be fun, lots of play and also a variety of activities. In saying this there needs to be some structure, we need to be able to focus on certain needs of each individual child. As we know everybody learns differently and some of us need a little more support sometimes. I currently am working with a little girl who is autistic, she is wonderful but it is very hard trying to break down the barriers. I have had previous experience with autistic children, but not at the age of the little one I am working with at the moment. She is very strong willed and is unable to verbally express herself, so sometimes we find ourselves in a battle when it comes to certain tasks. I have found that alot of teachers simply dont have the time to deal with her, which is sad for me as they obviously find her quite difficult. I decided since working in my centre that I would try to form a relationship with this little girl and finally start breaking away at her difficulties. Its amazing what you can do when you simplify things and just talk to her as if she is any other child, instead of thinking she is not going to ever comprehend or understand anything you say. I have started with small gestures like waving my hand in front of her face to say hello and mimicing her noises and it has worked. I have gained her trust and she now knows somebody is there to listen to her. The centre I work at have seen the progression in her and are now alot more on board to find new interactive ways of progressing her voice. I will keep you all posted.

Reading through everbodys stories I saw that Sue said music is a great tool for learning, I thoroughly agree. I have been introducing music to the children at my centre during my mat times or lunch time activities. I recently set up a painting activity and the children and I listened to mozart, we painted what we felt in our hearts. We created some baeutiful pictures and the children all had a look of satisfaction on their faces. I think it relaxed them alot too.


 * __Maia Thompson__**

I have been thinking over my past experiences working with children and what actually worked to extend their learning. Every day at my kindergarten so far, one of the students has been struggling with opening his containers in his lunch box. Yesterday, the head teacher made it quite clear that none of the other children or teachers were to open it for him. She was getting quite frustrated and motioned with her hands how he was meant to twist the container (It was 3 containers the size of small cups stacked on top of each other that are twisted together and resemble a tower. The top level has a lid that you twist on too). As I watched the student I could see he was just holding the containers and trying to pull them apart but was not actually twisting them. No matter how many times he was told to twist or had it demonstrated he was still confused and kept asking for help. I got him to hold the containers and put my hands over his. With our left hands we gripped the container and with the right we twisted it. Then I tightened it again and he opened it himself. Today, I had forgotten about this small breakthrough until I saw him at lunch opening his containers with such ease and without assistance. Who knows if it was what I did that got this previously difficult task to make sense to him? Maybe because I am a multimodal learner with kinesthetic leanings I recognised that the words and actions of others were not getting through to him and that he learns by doing, he needed to feel the twisting motion to understand it. As we have all discovered there are many different combinations of learning styles and preference and it is of course the same for children. I agree with Kushla that children need a variety of different activities to learn. And as Jay said repetition is also important. In the past I have followed a theme and introduced it in different ways through song, story telling, art and role-play. This really helps to extend children's learning as it builds on and reaffirms their knowledge. I definitely agree that children need a patient teacher, positive praise, activities they are interested in, role modelling and activities that are age and stage appropriate. Children will also learn when ‘they’ are ready to. I agree with Robin that children should not and cannot learn when they are forced and that when children have FUN and PLAY that they can learn through their own actions and relationships with other children and that our role is to facilitate that learning by providing the activities and a safe nurturing environment to learn within.

__**Fal'e Davey**__ Although I have been working with children for a number of years, I am always reflecting on my practice as a teacher. There have been times where I have had to step back and re-evaluate my teaching practice. Was I correct in presuming that the child needed my input at that time? Should I have been the negotiator in a situation of conflict between those children? Or would they have been able to resolve the conflict on their own? Am I right to presume that the child understands my commands? Should I get the chair for the child instead of allowing them to do it for themselves? So many questions and so many reflective moments! We learn through our own reflective observations about ourselves,so that we can become better educators.

Children gain knowledge, confidence and skills through their own experiences with praise, support, positive feedback, encouragement, and patience from teachers. When a child feels that he/she is supported in a positive environment, then they are able to grow with confidence and become competent learners. It is then that a teacher can extend that learning, so they are able to either accomplish their goal or understanding.

We currently have a 7 month old boy, who has been at our Centre for just over a month. He already has an overwhelming drive and determination to get walking. However whilst his brain says one thing, his body isn't responding in quite the same way! He has had a number of falls, whilst pulling himself up by the side of a chair or table. However he forgets to hold on and tumbles backwards onto the floor or cushions. This is repeated a number of times a day, usually with the same result. As a teacher it is my responsibility to ensure that he is safe and doesn't break any bones, however he still needs the freedom to move around and try again, and again. He becomes quite frustrated, understandably and will look towards me for support. I give him encouraging words and remind him that in order to get down from his standing position, he needs to bend his knees. You, may well ask, yes, but how does he understand your instructions, because he is so young? Amazingly, he stops, thinks and will ease his body down by bending his knees and then is able to continue again with pulling himself up and coming down. This is not a skill that has been learnt in a day, it is a journey of small accomplishments. It is vital that children are not rushed by adults to get to the next point of learning, we all learn differently and in our own time. Just as adults have their different learning styles so do children.

In helping towards children's learning, it is important for me to note, that the environment is hazard free,the atmosphere is enjoyable,attractive and creative.I always remember to interact with children at their eye level. My experience with children so far is, around Art area and pebble table at a centre. When children are at the art area,they snip and cut through a page.I used small sized scissors which fits children's fingers.While cutting thin strips of card and straws where one snip is required.Once they have developed this skill,children are encouraged to cut wider strips of card and paper. Holding the scissors correctly with the thumb in top loop and two or three fingers in the bottom loop. Cutting should always be fun.We cut folded papers to make a design and made a paper chain for decoration. In addition,we all used tweezers to pick up small pebbles and put them in the bowl.The reason for this game was taking turns,holding tweezers properly,knowing colour of pebbles,the shape(square or round), By taking turns we knew each others names with correct pronunciation.We used hand and eye co-ordination skills.
 * __Nimlesh Narayan__**

__**How do I help children learn?**__

I help children learn with my warm and caring nature to have patience and understanding of each individual child because every child is different and unique and will learn at their own speed and in their own way. I support them with encouragement, to just be them selves and have fun. I love getting involved in their play to get there imaginations racing and because its a blast.

__**How I like to help children learn?**__ For example when some of the kids would say “WOW Paula look at that big truck” I would usually see that as being my cue to step in while they are interested and open up there mind to the possibilities. I'd say “Does your dad drive a truck like that? How many wheels does that truck have? Big or small? Heavy or light? What do you think is inside that big truck? Maybe its empty or full of clothes or maybe bread. I wonder where that truck is going? Is it going to your house? maybe it's going to Pak'N'Save to drop off the bread?”. I enjoy seeing what imagination some kids have compared to others.
 * My learning experience:** I helped a girl gain confidence in herself to speak out. When I first started at my centre I had noticed that this girl who was 20 months of age had very advanced gross motor skills, loves art, had good hand and eye co-ordination skills and she could understand so much, but she didn't talk at all. I asked her mum about the her not speaking and she was surprised that she doesn't talk at daycare because at home she didn't shut up (mothers words). I brought it up at one of our staff meetings and my boss said OK well if you want you can work closely with her for the next two months and see if you could encourage her to say some words. We formed a very strong bond. I would convince her to come and play with me and I encouraged her in our play because I think she needed some focused attention and a friend to play with I read her many books and talked to her all the time about what she was doing, what I was doing and what the other children were doing, she then began to be so happy to see me. During one month of one on one time she had said ball twice, shake, bubba, mine! Dog and woof woof. Each word she said was so precious and her voice was so sweet. At the end of the two months she was talking so well. She had gained the confidence to talk to the other teachers as well as the other children.

- Paula Bacon.

I believe that we help children to learn by observing, encouraging, supporting and being positive. I also feel that respecting their space, their play and their freedom of expression gives them the courage to learn more. I was helping on the floor one day when M wanted to go toilet, she was toilet training and I wanted to help but looks up at me and said “I do, I do it”, she was confident and didn’t want my help. She was set on doing everything herself and she carried on with the process of putting on her pants which she found difficult, I offered to help but she was determined and she was happy. What I did was to listen and respected her wishes because she dressed herself and the pride of achieving that goal was obvious. She was capable and she knew that to achieve the purpose she had to sit on the floor to put her pants on. Many times we underestimate our children’s abilities and forgetting that they also learn from observing and sometimes all they need is “yes you can do it”.
 * Sara Tanielu-Seve**

The way I help children to learn is by giving them support, guidance and repect. Prior to working in a Early childhood centre I was a stay at home sister. Yes a stay at home 'sister' not 'mother'. I did this for almost two years looking after my little brother while my mother went work. I had always been taught to watch him carefully. Dont let him climb that because he will fall and hurt himself. So that is what I did. I made sure he didnt do anything dangerous or touch anything that could hurt him like the scissors. But when I began working in a centre I was told that it was ok for my little brother to be climbing up on to the monkey bars. That that was all a part of his learning. Being the big sister it was I guess normal for me to try and protect my brother by stopping him from climbing onto the monkey bars. What I then learnt was that I was only getting in the way of his learning. I continued to watch him as he tried to hang from the bars. I was so afraid that he would fall. But I was supprised that he could do it. He feel down and I rushed over. But he got up and smiled and said 'its ok Ria, I'll do again' From then I have relised that I was only stopping him from experiencing things and that all he needs is guidance and my support. Also to respect the child's space and needs and their learning. If they need help they know that I am there. Not just to carry them down from the blocks but to show them how they can do it themselves. I also agree with what Sue David said "that learning also needs to be fun" That is what I think is one of the most important factors when learning. I remember all the fun things I did back in school and what I learnt in those leasons. I don't remember what was taught in the boring classes. I had a child that did not speak much at all in class. She was so shy and her words were not clear. I then found out that she loved to dance and loved music. So to help develop her speech and learning I played music and sang songs. A week later she came up to me and asked to turn the Mamma Mia c.d on. I watched her dance and she sang all the words to the song. By finding out her interests are it helped me to find a way in which I could help and support her in her learning. I think that this is very important.
 * Suria Iuvale**

__**Jaime' Oosthuizen**__

From what I've seen children learn best through encouragement,positivity,observation and sometimes demonstration.I like to help children learn by watching what they can already do then trying to expand on that either by encouraging them they can try the next step or just being positive and showing them it is OK.

My experience I'm going to talk about is my nephew learning to swim. My nephew is 3years old and he's never really liked the water whether it be pools or the beach. When in Australia his mother, father and I were swimming. LeBron did not want to even touch the water because he was scared he would drown. I took my time in demonstrating to him the water wouldn't hurt him and I was fine in the water so he would be too.He finally stepped into the water feeling safe as long as he was with me. He then got his "floaties" on and didn't want me anywhere near him. I wasn't too happy that he didn't want me with him becuase I'm very protective over him and it was the first time he was doing this. He loved the water it may have taken a long time for him to eventually get in the water but he ended up in it in the end. He then watched us dive under the water and jump in the water off the edge. He then climbed out the water and told me to watch him jump. I did and he loved it. He learnt through having fun and observing. I knew to step back and let him have his space because that was his way of learning.

Now I know to let him try something if he feels confident in doing so. Children learn through demonstration if something looks to hard or scares them, but they also learn through fun and I think that's the best way. I will always continue to help children learn through these ways because the child has already got a basic understanding to it.


 * __Carly Bean__**

I believe I best help children learn when I verbally explain things. For example, if I am reading a book to a child, I like to have conversations about the subject of the book, to enhance their understanding. A specific example of this is if we were reading a book about helecoptors, and a child might point to the picture and say "plane". I would then go on to explain the similarities and differences between helecoptors and aeroplanes. The part of this process that I enjoy is the challenge of getting only the vital information (as I work with under 3 year olds), in a way that is simple and easy to understand, so as not to confuse or overwhelm the child. We then may continue on to a conversation about what the child thinks about the subject, which may include me asking him/her a question. This allows them the time to reflect on what they have learnt.

 Anjani Prakash

Helping children learn, even though I have worked at the under 2 years work experience centre for four days now, I observed children start learning as soon as they enter the centre (it does not mean they don't learn elsewhere but this is just summarising whilst kids are in our care). Smile spreads across their faces and hands wave as they catch sight of familiar faces. The elder kids run to give hugs to everyone. This gives the children a sense of belonging and teaches them we are all a big whanau (family). Before their snack and mealtimes, all children are encouraged to sit in a quene to await their turn for washing hands. This teaches them respect for others and patience. After mealtimes, as they finish they take their water cups from the table to the trolley for dirty dishes. This teaches them independence and table manners. Every now and then, all teachers and children sit in a circle singing rhymes in all the languages they know, some of which include Maori, Samoan, Chinese, Hindi apart from English. There are heaps of ways of learning. Some of the teachings in which I was personally involved. It involved a ten month old baby whom we will call `M'. She crawls everywhere in the centre and in this instance had crawled underneath the childrens table which is just about 30-40 centimetres high. She sat up, bumping her head (lightly) against the table and looked around confused. Seeing no way out as she had her back from where she had entered, she started crying. I went forward to help, then stopped. Let her solve her own problem, and instead of helping her out, I started calling her name from the directon she had entered. Hearing me call her couple of times, she stopped crying, turned around, looked at me, then crawled out. Like Fal'e Davey said learning is a journey of small accomplishments, learning in various ways and in their own time as oppotunities arise. Another opportunity I had was playing with children with coloured blocks of ice.

__Rhonda Warner__ Drawing on the experience I have had with children so far, I feel that I help children learn through experiences they receive through their play. Being a kinesthetic learner myself, I have some understanding of the ability to learn through doing.

I always approach children at their level, engage in their play and work alongside them with gentle verbal interactions to ensure the child's mana is maintained. This takes patience and consideration of the child’s needs, age and stage of play, also allowing the child to engage in their own play without taking over. For example, today in Centre I noticed C, a very quiet 3 year old girl who had just been dropped off by her mother. From my observations I noticed that C was showing an interest in the paint area. I placed myself to be next to her so we were at eye level and I picked up a brush covered in paint. I noticed C edged closer to me as I talked to her about the paint and its colours. With gentle encouragement I offered the paint brush to her which she tentatively accepted. She had not yet said anything verbally, but by the way she moved towards the paints, I could tell by her body language that this held her interest. She made small paint strokes on the paper. As she did so, I noticed that several times she would glance up to look at me as if seeking approval. I extended her play by introducing other mediums to paint with like a feather, sponge and her own fingers. C’s face lit up at having her fingers being immersed into the paint, feeling the texture and seeing the colours mix together on the page. I noticed that her confidence grew along with her delight and she became more open with talking to me about her creation. She was having fun, which became infectious to other children who began to also want to join in.

I found that building C's confidence with the process of painting and discovering her own creativity by exploring the colours was far more important learning than her creating an acceptable end product. This confirms my belief that young children learn best when they have the freedom to explore their own creativity in an ideal environment. In most cases, I believe it is the process and not the end product that is the most valuable learning experience. This is also the view of Pennie Brownlee (2007) when she talks about the creative process and how the process is more important than the product.

Through this experience, C became very settled and comfortable in the centre, she learnt to create and explore with colours, use the colour names and feel the different textures of paint, brushes, feathers and sponges. She then learnt how it feels to share her experience with the other children. This was a very enjoyable teachable moment.

Reference: Brownlee, P. (2007). //Magic Places: the adults’ guide to young children’s creative art work revised//. Auckland: NZ Playcentre Federation


 * Les Queenin **

A lot of children’s learning comes from watching each other but at a certain point children will need some help and support taking the task to the next level. This is the type of learning that I find the most rewarding because the child gets a rush of pride and achievement once they have completed the task.

I will not use an example from my own children as there are so many situations to choose from and it’s ever so slightly different when you have taught someone else’s ‘baby’ to face their fears and obstacles.

One moment that comes to mind was when I was a relief teacher at Lollipops Educare Glen Eden. One of the teachers and myself set up an obstacle course where the children had to walk across balance beams and around other obstacles then at the end they had to jump off a climbing box and be caught by the other teacher or myself. Out of the ten children that participated there was one little boy, (for this I will call him Tony), who had trouble. Tony was usually a very loud, boisterous kind of lad but when it came to heights and balancing he was not so keen. I spoke with the over two’s supervisor and asked if I could work with him on his fears.

On the morning of the first day Tony and I went around the obstacle course, he was holding my hand very sheepishly. As he gained more confidence we would make a game for him to let go of my hand at certain points of the obstacle course, this worked really well as each time he let go of my hand there was lots of praise and high fives.

As we moved into the second day it took Tony a while to gain his confidence from the previous day, but as the day progressed we increased the stakes more and more by having longer unaided intervals, which ended in more praise and lots and lots of high fives. By about three o’clock he was nearly doing the whole course by himself.

This was the stage of ‘the deal’. We made a deal that if Tony could do the course unaided before he was picked up then I would leave it set up for him to show his mum. He was usually one of the last children to leave. He was happy with this arrangement and by five fifteen he was able to do the whole course by himself. It was amazing, I was so proud of him and he was so excited about his achievement and just beamed with pride. It was a great moment, so as agreed the equipment was left out to show his mum.

When Tony’s mum came walking up the path he ran up to meet her, he was very excited. He pulled her outside and told her to sit on the steps while he started to walk over the balance beam but then he slipped and fell off. He didn’t hurt himself but was a bit deflated so I bent down and game him my keys. I told him they were my lucky keys and to put them in his pocket. This helped him to gain a bit of confidence back and with a little encouragement and praise from his mum and I he was ready to try again. Tony went around the course faster then before without any hesitation at all and made it to the end with a big jump into my arms. He was so happy and proud that he had done it for his mum. We all gave him lots of praise and double high fives.

During this exercise I tried to install the courage for Tony to overcome his fear of heights and failure. The added bonus of being able to perform his achievement for his mum game him a great sense of pride.

That was a really great teaching moment. It was really nice that Tony had enough trust in me to know that when I said he can make it, he could. That will be one teaching experience I will probably remember forever.


 * __Liz Reedy__**

How do I help children learn

Helping children learn gives me great satisfaction, watching them in their struggles and then over coming them is priceless. Tools I use to help children learn would be encouragement, praise, awhi guidance and words that would help them push through. Sometime I feel I walk out there with just my mum cap on but am learning to wear my teacher’s cap as well, even on some occasion you have to wear both. There has to be a level of understanding when dealing with young children most of them are experiencing things for the first time weather it be right or wrong this is where patience comes into it also letting them experience it, but making sure you are there when needed. From being a mother I am what you would call a worry wart, so now looking through a teacher’s eye this will be one of the tools to throw out of my kete and replace with a new taonga. I have be placed in this environment to help tamariki to learn, grow and to help uplift their mana, but also I am learning alongside them from being able to look through the eyes of a child. My example: we have a young boy in our centre that was thought to have been color blind, so we have been working with him to establish weather this was the case, but we have found, the more we made him use his colors through making him point them out, when he was painting and coloring in etc, we have found he is not. We went through this process because his parent had concerns and we just followed it up.

Children learn through responsive and reciprocal relationship with people, places and things. Some children learn best playing toys they have seen and some learn the things they have heard, while other learns while playing. My nephew who is a small boy I helped him to draw sketches, cartoons which he watches on cartoons network on T.V. I helped to draw sketches and pictures of a character he loves much i.e. Sponge Bob. I helped him to take the pictures of his best liked characters through digital camera and to draw his favourite character on paper. I also taught him to colour those pictures as they look in his digital camera. Through this activity I helped him to learn lots of things, and most of the time he is busy drawing cartoons. He never feels bore doing this activity as every time there is a new character on T.V. I always praised him when he is doing well and helped him when he has any difficulty at any stage. He likes to practice this activity again and again in the spirit of fun and pleasure. I think it is paramount that when helping children learn any activity of their liking you gives them time to repeat the same again and again. With praise and encouragement they gain confidence in their activities. Play is considered to be a meaningful learning and the importance of spontaneous play is recognised all over the world, and I build this activity in his daily routine even while studying in the centre. Through this activity he gained confidence in and control of his body. Children learn strategies for active exploration, thinking and reasoning through playing activity. Crafts and games that help children learn to become creative and explore their creativity, as well as being fun to sit down and have a go at basic drawing, children are also helped with the development of fine motor skill.
 * Nadia Khan**

Well the main reason why I really wanted to become an early childhood teacher, was being an aunty and babysitting, discovering how much I really loved interacting with my nieces and nephews, I wanted to take on my new passion and become a teacher. I found that with children you really have to have a lot of patience, because we all know that children can randomly change their minds about anything and everything. Showing children that you really do take interest in their learning, I personally like to show a lot of excitement and enthusiasm when I interact with them, whether it's reading or drawing a picture. I like being hands on with children’s learning and enjoy taking part in the activities as well. The way I help children learn is by showing them support, having patience, encouragement and praising them when they have achieved something, following up with how they felt afterward. The thing I enjoy most, is the facial expression on a child’s face when they have accomplished something they have done or learnt, its price less.
 * __Caroline Malaesilia__**
 * How do I help children learn?**
 * My learning experience:** When H a three year old girl was making shapes out of play dough, she knew how to do the shapes, just mixed the shapes names up. So I sat beside her and started making shapes as well, but after I was done making a shape I would say what the shape was, and she would copy. And after we were done with making all the shapes we repeatedly went over what the shape was. I had also asked H what she thought the shape looked like, she said that a triangle was like a pointy party hat, a square was like a book and a circle was like the moon. Later on that day we had drew the shapes the way she thought they looked like, by doing this I thought it would help her remember what name went with what shape. So throughout the week I sat beside H and did the exact same thing, and she was more familiar with the shape by what she thought it looked like. Eventually H was able to tell me the shapes correctly, and when she had perfected this, she had told me at ease, each shape with a big smile.

**// __How do I help children learn?__ //**
=__//By Milly Crawford//__= Helping children learn for me is so much fun, watching their brains work something out for themselves is so exciting. We are helping children learn but we are also learning from the children ourselves, we are learning to let them do things for themselves and gain independence. I have been working in early childhood education for nearly three years now so picking out only one thing to reflect on is not easy. One of the best things I have been apart of is helping a child learn to walk. I have been involved with this little girl in centre since she was 6/8 months old and she never crawled she always shuffled on her bottom. When talking to her mother one day she explained to me that she was becoming worried and was taking her to a specialist to see what the problem maybe. Over the next few months everyday I would help Capri stand up and walk with both feet flat on the ground, she started gaining more confidence with standing, that she became frustrated when she couldn’t run around with the other children, so I implemented a piece of equipment that was in centre for teaching young children to walk. This helped her run around with the other children, everyday she used this walker and improved with every step she took. I feel helping her using repetitive, constant enragement helped her gain the confidence and release the cheeky personality she so wanted to show. Now Capri is 3 years old and running around like a normal cheeky 3-year-old girl should be. This has had a huge impression on me, not only did I help Capri learn to walk she helped me learn that not all children are the same and some need more help and encouragement than others. So I think the way I help children learn is by identifying what they need to be encouraged, and worked on with them and not making them feel alienated.


 * Patricia Kendrick**


 * How do you help children learn?**

I work at a very multi cultural centre (Kiwcare). I have been taking the focus time for the children in my centre who cant yet write. We play games to do with numbers and letters, we sing song and do dance's on the internet and I spend some one on one time with each child to focus on there writing skills. There is this one child aged 3.5 years old, who's in my focus time. He is a Samoan boy who is quiet, because he doesn't understand English. In Te Whariki (Ministry of Education) it states that "adults should respect and encourage children's home language. Policies should be in place to support children for whom English is not the home language and to support those who do not have verbal skills". I formed a step by step strategy plan of how I was going to instruct this child. I explained my plan to my head kaiako/teacher, she allowed me to put the plan in action. Step one: Talking to the whanau about my ideas and concerns. I learned to say hello/talofa or talofa lava in Samoan before talking to them as well as implementing Kiwicare's communication policy when talking to parents. Before you give negative or unfortunate information to the whanau you should say three pleasant achievements that have occurred in the day. When I talked to the whanau about their child's day, I told them about all the activities we enjoyed e.g. face painting and water play, then we discussed what could be done. Step Two: Teachers using some simple Samoan words with hands gestures and songs directed towards him and used around the centre e.g. drink/inu, hat/pulou, toilet/faleuila, food/meaai, please/fa'amolemole, thank you/faafetai, teacher/faiaoga and the Samoan song for washing yours hanAfter a while I asked the parents if they could also use simple English words around the house and in the community. I'm starting to see that this child is very smart and with my help it wasn't long before this child changed from being a quite boy to an outgoing 2nd English language speaker. In our growing multi cultural community, I believe that very child learns in slightly different ways and we as teachers need to be open to ideas of different ways to teach.


 * Michelle Johnson**

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading Patricia's account. The way she approached the challenge with genuine respect for her head teacher and the whanau. How she helped him make progress with his language skills. Fantastic. Its really great to learn from each other in this way.

Sara Tanielu-Seve That is such great work Patricia and so encouraging for that little Samoan boy. I think slowly you have built his confidence by trying to communicate in his mother tongue and it will help him to participate. I understand how he must be feeling because we migrated to New Zealand as teenagers and having English as second language was very hard at the time. We didn't have the support like Patricia is doing now with this boy at her center and it just confirms how the education in early childhood center is diverse and catering for everyone.

**Chanel Dwyer**

I think all children learn from being encouraged and by playing however all children learn differently as a result it is best to find out what type of learner they are and how they learn best. I help children learn by putting together activities which create fun learning I think this benefits the majority of children’s learning as they seem to be more focused on activities that they take pleasure as a result they would continue on approaching that activity which would have a big impact on their learning. In the center I am currently working at most of children love to play and make mess as their experiencing new textures to different materials therefore I help children learn by involving myself in their activities constructing ideas that will assist their learning. One activity I like to achieve at least once a week to help children learn involves paper, scissors, paint and a group of six children at a table. I ask them to paint a picture as colourful as they can and of anything they would like, after they have drawn a picture I ask them what colours are in their picture, what types of shapes they have painted and to count the different colours they have used. Most of the time the children want to continue the activity and have a lot of responses to the questions I ask which I think is great because it shows that they enjoy learning about numbers, colours and shapes. I like to repeat these activities as the more they are repeated the more likely children will remember. I also help children learn by reading them books and singing entertaining songs. A majority of children love books red to them and love to sing and dance this is something I do a lot with the children as I like to amuse them as well as benefit their education by teaching them new things. When I finish reading a book I ask the children questions like “What do you think the book was about” children love to respond and get their own opinions in as some children do have different thoughts on certain books. I like to sing songs that will benefit a child’s learning while keeping them focused and joyful. There is one certain song which says a variety of words that are sung in Maori, all the Maori words have actions to them while singing at the same time. I think this is very important to do the actions as well as singing because they develop a better understanding on the Maori words and if the children continue in listening to this song they will more then likely memorize the words.

I have helped children learn through support, encouragement, positive feedback and by hands on learning (activities, examples etc). I think it’s really important that children try things for themselves and learn from them as well as having a range of activities for all different learning styles -visual, oral, read/write and kinesthetic. At my centre I always like to encourage the children to give things a go by themselves first because quite often the can do it already or underestimate their own ability. I stand by and encourage giving examples showing and talking it through. For example the other day a little boy in the under 2s wanted me to put his shoes on for him, I showed him with one and talked him through it then asked him to try put the other one on, with support and encouragement from me he was able to put it on and was so happy with the result and my positive enthusiastic feedback. I saw him the next week putting his shoes on all by himself and felt a sense of accomplishment in myself. I think children are able to make the right decisions and learning strategies with the support, guidance and encouragement from us without us doing everything for them. In doing this we are able to be there for them when we need to but also let them experience and make the most out of life’s situations.
 * Abby Pine **


 * __Danielle Booth:__**

I, like other people before me, have helped children learn through letting them know that I am there if they need my help, be it feed back on what they have already achieved, or close to achieving, or asking me questions on things they are unsure of. I also believe I help children learn by introducing concepts with haven't yet, or are rearly addressed. An example of this is introducing 3D shapes rather than the same 2D shapes which are contantly gone over, and the majority of students geting bored because of this. I personally believe that children learn more when they are enjoying themselves and don't have pressure on them to remember,therfore i like to introduce things randomly though out the day and reintroduce or ask questions about what i had introduced later on in their play in order to put theory into real life for them, the children.

__Anjani Prakash__
 * __How do I help children learn?__ **

I think reflecting on my own mistakes with my own child is probably a good starting place. You can really get a sense of what works and what doesn’t with the help of reflection. As a mother there is a tendency to make mistakes because of our emotional involvement. Because I was “learning as I went” I often made mistakes because I was stressed or tired or not coping. It soon becomes obvious that the positive interactions have a better outcome than the negative ones; I certainly knew that in theory but was unable to practice it all the time. I know what Sara Beazly is talking about when she says that she sometimes experienced ‘impatience or annoyance’ with her child’s progress. From temping in early childhood and trial and error with my son, I have begun to learn a lot more about the need for patience, and sending positive messages. I was working the other day with a boy called Nathaniel who was attempting to climb across a bridge ladder. Because he was quite small I think he felt a bit of fear when it came to reaching forward to the next rung on the ladder with his hand. I suggested he try a foot forward first, and after lots of words of encouragement he did. This was a bit of an unconventional way to start moving along, but it was more comfortable for him at first. When I could see he was feeling a bit more confident and getting his balance I suggested he try to reach forward with his hand. He wasn’t sure at first [It was a long way to reach!] but with more reinforcement and “you can do it!” he finally gave it a go and he was away. He had the biggest grin when he came off the ladder. I made sure I made a big deal about it and gave him lots of praise. I really think, looking back, that having a flexible approach to crossing at first, helped him to achieve his goal. By Merrilee de Simas


 * __Cathy Bolton__ **
 * Having read everyone’s ideas on how they'll help children learn, I agree entirely with the whole team. Words like patience, encouragement, support, fun are all very apt for me as well. **


 * Since working at my centre, I have realized that I am drawn to the children that tend to stand back or play on their own. This may be because when my son was at kindy the teachers said that they were worried that he stood back and watched activities instead of joining in and that he would be a follower rather that a leader. The opposite has happened however and he is so cautious that sometimes he misses out on things that would have been fun. He never follows; he just refuses to do anything he considers to be risky. I have encouraged him over the years to step out of his comfort zone and enjoy life; sometimes it takes a really firm hand to get him to do things, but usually with good results. Horse ridding was one thing I remember he really didn't want to try, but as the whole family was going, we were on holiday, he had to come. At the end of the day he had enjoyed it so much that he wanted to go the next day. **
 * Several of the children at our centre are loners and we have one that is constantly dressed in tutu's dancing and talking to herself. I haven't managed to guide her to join in with any activities yet, but I'm still working on it slowly and with patience. **
 * One of our children was so shy when I met her that she hid behind the nearest thing if I even looked her way. I just kept smiling and saying hi, getting closer and closer at each session. One session I just sat next to her in the sand pit. We didn't say very much, but it was a step forward from running the other way. Last week she came in howling and throwing herself at her mum's feet, as she didn't want to be there. Our head teacher took her and tried to comfort her and get her to come and join in, but there was no consoling her. She was left on the couch and she could come and see anyone if she wanted. Several teachers tried to talk to her but she just wasn't interested. I wanted to go over but as I'm the newbie and I didn't want to step on toes I left them to it. After she'd been there awhile and had calmed down somewhat, I took over a book. I sat on the ground next to her, "do you want me to read you a book?" I asked. She shook her head. “OK, but I'm going to read it anyway", and off I went. She listened, sat up making a space for me next to her on the couch. We got talking about the story. Another teacher started a science experiment, so we went over to check it out. She was fine after that. **
 * I really believe that children need positive feed back for accomplishments, even for the small things, so I praise them often. "well done, I knew you could do it, and you did it really well, good girl (if I haven't learnt their name yet)" when they say they can't do something and then go ahead and do it, or if they fail, tell them that it is great they gave it a go and that it takes time to learn to do tasks sometimes. **
 * On Thursday at our centre one of the teachers approached me and started discussing that praising children is a bad thing. She said that there have been studies done and that they say that children who get praise when young get depressed as adults because they don't get any praise anymore. **
 * That totally shocked me, she put in that "you may not agree..." to which I said " no I don't, I strongly believe that children need positive affirmation to grow self esteem and that they try harder if they think others are noticing their efforts, they also need to learn what is 'good' behavior". **
 * To this she said that "we as adults don't need others to tell us what is right and what is not, they are not dogs and do not need to be told that they are being a good girl or boy or not". While I do understand about the 'girl/boy' thing, I still think that is getting a little too PC. For goodness sake, don't they know that they are a boy or girl; I'm not saying "if you were a boy you could have done it better or anything!!!" **
 * Suffices to say this conversation REALLY got me going, believe it or not I barely responded to the conversation as at the time I thought she must be talking to me on behalf of the centre and their policy was not to praise the children. **
 * I came home thinking that I didn't know if I could work in a centre where they thought like that and if that was what was expected of teachers then I was in the wrong profession! **
 * Having gone on the internet to research this, I discovered that there is some data in this area, but for every site that said not to praise children there was 10 more that said we should... What do you all think on this matter? I really am shocked that anyone would not want to praise children when they achieve. **


 * I am going to diplomatically ask our centre leader, and my support person, on Monday exactly what she thinks.**

=**__Mandy McMaster:__**= How do I help children learn? I feel that when I help children to learn it is important to give them a great amount of support and encouragement, by using positive words Getting down on a child’s level and ensuring children that it alright to feel a little uneasy when trying new challenges. When children learn they are gaining knowledge, skills, confidence and a feeling of success, therefore are more likely to try new things. An example of an experience I had helping a group of children learn through the above strategies was when I was at kindergarten. I was outside in the playground were we had an obstacle course set up. The children were lined up in single format to get a turn at completing the course. Although there were safety mats placed underneath the beam bars and the money bars to limit the chances of injures if they fell, the children still wanted my help by holding there hand as they crossed the wooden beams. I felt that the children were capable of crossing on their own, so after giving them a demonstration (modelling), and talking them through the process of balancing each child had a go and mastered it. The obstacle course was the most popular activity of the day.

Over the three years that I have worked at my centre I learn't alot in how children react to different learning circumstances.I have worked with under two's and over two's. Working with all different ages showed me about the aspects of a childs learning depending on their age, this showed me on how to use different techniques when working with a variety of children as they all learn differently.A childs learning in life is very important because it helps them in the steps towards adulthood.An experience that I have had in helping a child learn is when I was drawing picture's on a chalk board and asking a child what the picture's were and what sound they made ,I drew different types of animals and the child was excited when playing this learning game with me.I made the noises of the animals with the child and we laughed together and had fun .Through this learning experience with a child I supported and encouraged the child with positive words ,and made my best effort in making them feel comfortable and engaged in the activity .This helped the child communicate with me because they were enjoying themselves. It is a great feeling when you can make a child smile or even laugh and to see a child happy is the most thing I love about this job.**
 * //__Cassandra Deane__//

__**Tori Sefuiva**__


 * At the moment I am working with the under 2's and have been observing and interacting with one particular child. I won't give you her name but we will call her *S. She suffered from a stroke during birth or in the womb and is not as developed physically on her right side of her body. She is now 13 months. We have had to find different resources for her for a couple of months now to gain confidence and control of her right side. I have been spending a lot of time with her on the floor and have been placing toys and books on her right side or just in front of her right hand and yet she still hasn't tried to grab them with her right hand. She also has not tried to move her body from sitting position. I have had *S on the floor on her knees and hands and have been encouraging her to crawl by placing toys in front of her and helping her move as it is part of her physio. With doing one on one continuosly with *S she is gaining trust in me and is slowly gaining confidence and control of her own body. She is now 'bum shuffling' her way through the centre and is even shuffling from inside to outside. It may not sound as though I have helped *S learn much but I feel her confidence and control of her body is very important. With my guidance and encouragementI I have noticed *S is much happier and is enjoying her time more at the centre, she is no longer frustrated. With this learning experience it has made me more aware and confident in dealing with individual needs of children and I have realised its a step by step process, if you want to grow, you need to give it time...!**

__Messina Larsen__ I believe children learn from positive encouragement and reinforcement greatly as the constant praise during such learning sessions stays with them and prepares them to learn in a much easier and carefree way where they feel they are not being judged. An example of this was when my younger cousin was learning to read. She had many books and would bring them out whenever we went to visit or when she had a book to read for homework. By sitting with her and being patient i helped her slowly sound out words she didn’t know and then would let her read it again by herself without my help, if she got any wrong i would tell her to try again but not in a way she felt embarrassed. She soon started to enjoy reading to me and by encouraging her and having patience she gained much more confidence in reading. Of course I cannot take all the credit for teaching my cousin to read, but I do think that by having that little bit more input of positive encouragement it can change the way a child approaches learning from a young age and they can learn to enjoy it.

=__**//Noriko Asada//**__= I have done origami with some of the children in the kindergarten. One of the parents had asked me about Origami and I told her that I like Origami and also I have some books. That was the start of the activity and I enjoyed doing origami with children. I believe that origami helps children’s fingertip’s motor nerves to improve and to encourage the creativity and plain paper to assemble in a 3D, mathematical aspects, imagination, construction, as well. In addition origami assists cerebral development.In this circumstance, I have done with my Japanese culture because I wanted to contribute my unique talent however it was a big challenge at the same time as well. I was concerned about how many children will accept the Origami work and like it. In addition, I usually ask some questions to children for example, when I am reading a book in a small group of children, I ask them about numbers and colours in the book which makes children to recognise the figures and colours more accurately. Repeat is important in learning for example; when I studied times table I kept saying and writing times table continually. Knowledge comes from my own experience to help children to learn.

I feel children learn best by doing and experiencing things for themselves. Children can watch something being done and will with encouragement give it a try for themselves. In my centre, which is mixed aged a lot of this knowledge of how things are done is learnt by watching the older children. Teachers are there to be supportive, encourage and enable that learning to take place. Learning to do things on your own, I feel helps imprint this knowledge in the brain to be used and added to throughout life. The final product of many activities attempted by children is in the eye of the beholder. A work of art or craft constructed solely by a child is a lot more beautiful than a piece which is carefully guided by an adult. The time, concentration, energy and originality put into the work by the child is a masterpiece in itself. With encouragement we can extend a child’s sense of worth rather than crushing it. This is the type of teacher I would like to become. Last week while supervising the carpentry table, I spent over an hour watching and talking to a 4 year old boy very competently try to build a bird out of wood, nails and bottle tops. We chatted about his interest in creating anything whether it was out of wood or paper. We talked about building, flying and his family. I encouraged him when things did not go right but did not suggest he change his design. This he figured out for himself. With his determination he ended up with a finished product. To many it may have been a piece of wood with bits hammered on but to the boy and myself, it was a masterpiece. The next day I asked if he had taken his masterpiece home as I had been thinking about it and all the hard work he had put in. He very proudly told me he had taken it home to show his parents. I mentioned the word bird and he told me it had changed into a device for blowing things up. He proceeded to tell me all about it with the biggest grin on his face. He was encouraged by completing the task on his own with only vocal encouragement from me. His sense of worth was valued by the interest I showed to his ideas and work. His knowledge was extended by the conversation we had. I feel I contributed to his learning by being supportive, encouraging and valuing his hard work and ideas. Paula Rudd
 * __How I help children to learn.__**

How I feel about how children learn is through encouragement, practical inspiration and through a fun and warm atmosphere. With encouraging the child we can see how the child can feel good about itself and will take on the attitude of yes I can accomplish anything if I try! Through practical inspiration the child can actively get a feel of what its afraid of or unsure about and with actually taking steps to do it, the child can learn every step of the way through your guidance or of your mere support for that child. Also with having a fun and warm atmosphere you see that the child will feel more comfortable and self- worthy, not being afraid to ask you or other children a question and with feeling good about itself will try and be more determined because the child beliefs it can do it! The teacher that I would like to be is one with the insight of knowing that every piece of work produced by the child is a opening to see how that child is growing, how that piece of work has developed a new skill in that child. The child itself is beautiful and we must hold on to that as we teach these skills or the child develops these skills by self- discovery. Last week I was outside at the wood table with a four year old boy, I was helping him make a little guitar with strings stretched around both sides of the nails on each side of the wood. He was very excited about the prospect of making a guitar! so after searching for the 'perfect piece of wood' he then began nailing with a hammer after watching the nail wobble around without ever piercing the wood, the boy exclaimed that it wasn't going in! I said "don't give up, how about trying it this way?" I then showed him how to hold the nail steady with one hand and hammer with the other. After frowning a bit in concentration the boys face broke into a smile when indeed the nail pierced the wood without a wobble from his steady little hand. "I did it!" the boy exclaimed and we both laughed. He then did it with the other three nails and although the nails came out once or twice I kept encouraging him and praising him enthusiastically when the nail would go in or when he held the nail steady. By then we had all four nails in and after attaching the string the guitar was made. After he strummed the strings while doing a little dance I said "Well done!" to which he somberly replied "Your Welcome". I feel that if I hadn't encouraged and praised that boy throughout that whole activity he would have eventually given up and said "you do it". I also feel that had I taken over with his hammering every time, he wouldn't have felt so proud of his work.
 * Chelsea Buchanan:**

How do I help children learn? There are many ways in which a child can learn, even then each child is different in the way they respond to you and your techniques. I help children learn through successfully communicating with them and acknowledging each child for who they are. I can then help them excel at what they love, teaching them to explore, use their imagination and be open minded, this helps them create, understand and discover while reinforcing positive learning. One example of such a learning experience I have had is when observing a boy called Mathew and through interacting and communicating with him I could recognise that he loves cards. Each time I go to my centre Mathew and I sit down with a few friends and I teach him a new game or two including; go fish, last card, memory games and others. He absolutely loves playing these different games and I encourage this because it promotes; problem solving, social skills through taking turns and following rules, it also increases visual memory, an understanding of numbers and contributes to the recognition of colours and shapes. Another experience I have had is with a young girl called Grace, again through interaction and communication we got to know each other quite well and I found that she absolutely loves drawing. I encourage Grace to use her imagination as there are countless things she could draw and to explore the many different colours of the world. I also participate and some times demonstrate if she feels she can’t, but by teaching her to be positive and to have patients Grace always succeeds and when she does she is ecstatic. By helping Grace excel at drawing I am effectively teaching her by encouraging creativity, the use of imagination and allowing exploration of colours, more importantly it helps to develop fine motor skills and develops confidence and self esteem through pride of her creations. Reference Shanahan.K.(2005). Springboard to learning through play: //How parents can help their children from// //birth// //to 6 years//. Melbourne: Ibis Publishing Australia. Nicole Wheat


 * __Jade Lochmann__**

How Do I Help Children Learn? The importance of childrens learning and the effect we have as educators is an incredible experience to witness, The beauty of a childs success and the joy of pride for accomplishment can be seen non-verbally just by the happiness sparkle in their eyes.I have helped to teach a young girl with special needs to learn how to ride her bike. This child was mute and could only communicate through sign language and non-verbal symbols.The child had been given a brand new bike for her birthday and had been struggling to ride it with the training wheels due to the bike being too heavy and she was not quite strong enough in her legs.The child and myself communicated about the situation and agreed to try with the training wheels removed. We then went to an open area on a flat grass surface where she rode her bike with the assistance of myself helping to balance the bike along side her as she rode to gain her confidence, then i would sneakily let go and keep running along side her. We did have a few falls but the encouragement and praises she received regained her determination to try again. It took a few trys and eventually she got it.I feel that the learning of children is and can be repeatitive and positive encouragement to push further and determined their ability has a huge part in learning. Its an amazing feeling to know you have made a diffrence. To this day this little girl loves to ride her bike at the park or beach with her daddy. I believe the repetitive learning and the right encouragement is an effective style of learning such as my personal experience i have shared and can be recognized with other learning. 304 words.

Some of the ways in which I have helped children to learn are by showing and helping them to use their hands through play, talking and singing to them. An example of a time when I used this was when I was looking after a ten month old baby and noticed he was watching t.v. I decided to sit down on the floor with him and started singing to him the song below Mahunga Pakihiwi Puku Hope Waewae x2 Taringa, whatu, ihu waha e. While I was singing to him I was also using his hands to point to the parts of the body that the song was singing about. The ways in which I helped the child to learn, was teaching the child to verbalise by singing, learn te reo maori and recognise the parts of the body. I choose to do this with him because I felt that it would be more beneficial to his learning rathur that the child sitting down and watching cartoons. Had the child been older I could have shown him how the song goes and shown him the actions. Although the young child would not pick it up straight away, repetition would definitely help the child to learn. The child laughed and thouroughly enjoyed this learning activity.
 * __Nicole Korff__**

=**__Bora Joung__**= I totally agreed with Sara Beazley when she said that negative energy and lack of interest usually lead to a child giving up on their project and conceding defeat. I was also one of the children who would give up easily without any perseverance, when I felt no interest or had negative thoughts. In this case or a situation, praising and encouraging is very important in children’s learning. For example, with a child working, you should observe what the child is good at which they can maintain, or is bad at which then they could improve on it and make it better.

You can praise specifically on what the child has done that is really good, and also praise and encourage at the same time on what the child has done that is not really good and telling them how they can get improved on it. It is very important that you don’t let the child down or cut down the ‘mana’ of a child when they have done something wrong. This might lead to a child having lack of confidence and that child might not do it again, however by encouraging a child when he/she have done something wrong or not good, he/she will learn to not give up on what has been done not so well.

I don’t have any experiences yet, where I think that I have let a child down or that I have praised so well that the child is noticeably happy. I will go always work with children with ideas of praising and encouraging them properly and hopefully I will get a situation or an experiment.

​​__//** ​Children like adults have different ways of learning, although most them feel secure and confident when they are encouraged along the way reinforcing the idea of how children learn through positive encouragement. Another way that children also learn is through imitation and exploration in which we can see most of the time through play. Children imitate what they see or hear around them and in doing so they begin to develop an understanding of how things around them work. They also learn through exploration in which we can see most of the time being incoperated in their play. One of the ways I helped children learn is through imitation. I would often sing the "If you happy and you know song clap your hands" song. I would sing the song and clap my hands, and the babies would imitate what I do. In doing so i am helping develop a sense of beat through music.
 * //__MARYANN AREI

__**SANA AWAN**__

In the past few months I have experienced children learn by encouragement, support and a positive attitude. Learning also needs to be fun for children so they like what they are learning. Having a negative attitude with children will lead them to lose interest in learning. Doing activities is also a good way of helping children learn, because that way they are having fun learning and will be more interested. Patience is very important for us teachers, some children learn what you are teaching straight away, whereas some children take time learning. We as teachers need to show the children we are always there for them and their learning no matter what speed they learn at. Encouragement is just as important as patience in helping children learn. Without encouragement the child may not be successful or confident. Every child learns differently and we as teachers need to support each child’s way of learning. I also believe young children should be taught by explaining and showing how to do what you are teaching them. That way the child is physically doing what you explained, which should help them remember what you have taught them. I learn best by explanation and physically being showed what I have just been taught. The best ways I like to help children learn something is verbally and physically teaching them.Good teaching at a young age is the key to a successful future I believe.
 * How do I help children learn?**


 * __Michelle Smith__**

I believe that children learn the same way as Jay Joshi does, through encouragement, repetition, positive reinforcement and having fun in what they are doing. There is also one other thing I feel that you need when helping children learn and that is patience. I have used all these learning strategies with my daughter to teach her how to walk. Firstly I encouraged her to stand by putting objects that attract her attention in places that she has to stand to reach them. Once she had grasped the ability to stand and felt confident about it I would put my hands out to encourage her to take a few steps. By doing this repetitively. giving her positive praise and being patient with her it did not take long before she was taking more and more steps without losing her balance. The big beaming smile and excited look on her face when I was giving her positive praise was amazing. It made me feel really good about the way I was teaching her. I also feel that by using all these learning strategies it helped to give her the confidence to keep at it. And now she is walking and smiles all the time because she is so proud of her accomplishment.
 * How do I help children learn?**

I have helped children to learn in many ways. I will discuss two ways that I have had learning experiences. The first will be in dealing with conflict between children and my methods of dealing with them. Secondly I will be discussing how I teach a child with behavioral issues how I can help him.

My first learning experience is teaching a group of children about conflict resolution on a smaller scale. I have been trying to teach the children about how it feels for the other person/group of children when they hurt them. The whole idea of conflict resolution is trying to get them to understand how it felt for the other person a more personal scale, in doing so I try to do it so the other child does not feel bad in doing so. I try to also understand why they did it, and if I can help them in anyway. I have learnt that on occasions it could be that they are frustrated about something or are trying to tell the other child what they want but the only way they fee they can tell them is if they hurt them. In doing this they get their attention. One of my learning experiences was that a child hit another one on the head with a ball. I bought both children together and got down to their level and asked the child who hit their friend why they did and how do you think it felt for the his friend? I asked the other child to tell them how it felt. They then decided to share the ball and have fun with each other after they said sorry and gave each other a hug.

Moving onto my second learning experience it was in regards to a child who suffers from ADHD. I tried to see if a different way of handling the child’s behavior would work. My plan when the child plays up to bring them in side, and get them to draw about how they are feeling. Some children may play up cause they have a “monster” inside of them that makes them play up. Once the child draws what ever is inside of them that is making them play up, we talk about it. Discuss how we could make this ‘monster” go away or work out how we can all work together so he does not play up anymore.

Overall I helped children to learn by thinking about how it makes other people feel when they hurt them. Secondly by working out how to control the angry person in side of them so it want make them play up.

Jesse Greenslade

__**Penny Lin**__
I agree with Jay that repetition and encouragement can help children to learn. Encouragement helps to build up children’s confidence and encourage them to ask question and do not feel afraid to answer the question; and repetition develops children’s learning. For example, when I doing activities or playing with the children I always repeat asking similar questions such as this is yellow, there are three balls and count one, two, three. After I repeat it for several days, the children may started to pick up the new vocabulary and language structures. I think that is why the storyteller’s books are often designed reiteration. For instance, the book’s content may keep repeating the sentence such as “under the table”, “under the chairs”, and “under the mat”. When you read the same book with the children for several times, they often start to memorize it. If I read the same book and ask them where is the mouse, they normally can start to answer you that the mouse is under the mat. In this way, children may also find involvement with the activity because they can answer. Moreover, I think repetition is useful because now I still can remember how I leant numbers or months when I was little. Michelle J, I like the way you taught your daughter to learn the time tables .

The way I believe I help children learn is by finding out what the child is interested in. Then helping them develop on that interest. Once we have found it I help to expand on that interest for example with baking we use different recipes and different shaped containers to make them in e.g. Star muffin tray, heart muffin tray or snow man cake tin. Then we repeat the activity they are interested in. I support the child with encouragement as wells as helping them developing their skills by providing all the things necessary for them to have a go at the activity. I think children all learn in different ways just like adults and as a lot of you have said I also believe children need positive encouragement, patience and support. An example I have is from my nannying. One particular family I worked for had a child who was interest in baking. I supported this by making opportunities for us to do baking. We picked different things to make. When we where baking I was continuously talking to him and asking him what he thought about what we where doing how much we where putting in and what happened when different ingredients where put together in the bowl. I encouraged him to add the ingredients and mix them together himself. He was an expert at cracking eggs into the bowl with no shell falling into the egg mixture. And his favourite recipe we made quite often was a chocolate chip cookie recipe I had. Of course we have to taste test everything along the way especially the choc chips!! The learning I believed when on here was maths – working with measurements, size, and weight. Science – dry to wet, mixing, experimenting with different recipes or containers and tasting. Food safety – we always washed our hand first. Literacy – always talking about what we where doing. And most important we where having FUN!!
 * __ Rose Adams __**

//**__Melody Sun __**// I completely agree with what Liz said that being supportive and encouraging is a very important tool to help children learn. However I think all that is related to communication. I believe that communication is one of the most important components that we need to help children to learn which is the tool that I use to help children, so for me it is really important to have good communication with the children, listen to their problems patiently and encourage them to solve it by themselves and if they can’t then help them to solve so they will know that there is someone that is willing to help them. I think that is the best way to help children to learn problem solving skills. I’ve found that children by speaking for themselves can build their confidence of speaking and positive attitude towards learning and problem solving. I am working in a small centre which only has about 24 children each day, so it is really good, getting to know all the children and having some individual conversations with them and helping them to getting to know me as well. I found that after I had some conversations with them, they seems to be getting closer to me and willing to open their heart for me to help them which really helps me to help them. One of our children was telling me that she is scared of me, so I sat down, had little conversation with her, ask her why she scared of me and told her that I am here to help her. After that she is not scared of me anymore and always asks me for help. Before she was really quiet and never told us what she wants and what she needs, but now she is gaining more and more confidence, speaking up for herself which made her happier than before and communicates more with everyone.

I see that a lot of people have used encouragement as a way to help children learn. I agree with this as it helps the child see your interest in what they are doing and they can feel like they are doing something right. I have noticed this at my centre when I encourage some of the children; they open up and start to tell me stories about what they played yesterday or about their family. I also use patience, questions and demonstrating for the child if they get stuck. The other day in my centre I was drawing with a little girl and I drew a rainbow to show her. When she wanted me to do one for her I said “how about you try drawing one, you can use mine to help if you want to”. The little girl drew a rainbow like mine except it was on its side but she seemed pleased with it and made the comment that she “loved it”. I had patience while the child was drawing as you should not rush them when they are busy with an activity. It is so important to try remaining calm and open to whatever the child creates or how they talk to you as they can sense when you do not want to be around them or if you are annoyed. I like to observe children first to make sure that I react the right way so whether they need someone loud and enthusiastic or someone calm to sit with. I do this so that the child can choose if they want to come to me for help or not. One other thing I do is always listen to questions children have and I answer them as best as I can even when they keep saying why. I do not ignore children even if it is a silly question because they might not come to you with something important if you do not listen the first couple of times.
 * __ Sharyn Griffen __**

Jayne McCullough How do I help Children learn? Through my own experiences with young children I have found that they respond in a positive way when shown support, love and encouragement. Children also need praise when they accomplish something by themselves, otherwise they will not know they have “done good”. One of my experiences that I think highlights these things is; One day I was looking after a young child *Lisa, she was watching me write and draw pictures with her older sister *Laylaa she was curious as to what we were doing so she came and sat next to us. Lisa was watching and asks to join in too. She asked me to write her name on the a piece of paper, I asked her if she wanted to write her name just like her sister was doing when she said “I can’t” I said to her that of course she could I’d help her she agreed and together we wrote her name and who the picture was for, she was so ecstatic that she was able to write her name that she wanted to try by herself, she tried twice and even though it didn’t look very much like her name I still praised her we did a HI-5 and she was extremely pleased with herself and it wasn’t long before she was writing her name her parents fostered what we had began that day and she was so proud of herself that she was encouraging her younger brother to write his name and was helping him. I like what Sara Beazley has said about practising the ‘hard letters’ with her eldest daughter because I think that as the old sayings go “practise makes perfect” and “try and try again” are really true because without try and try again we wouldn’t accomplish things everyday. My father was of the method when I was learning to ride my bike without training wheels for the first time that “there is no such word as can’t in my dictionary” and if I said I couldn’t he would say i could and encourage me to try and try again. I also like what Kushla said about the children in her centre listening to Mozart I think music is a great learning tool because children can learn so much through music; tonal change, the loudness of voice, hand-eye co-ordination and they can even learn maths through music. The children in my centre are lucky enough to have a whole half an hour of music time, that is spread throughout the day the children in my centre learn the days of the week by a little rhyme and action song that they all know through repetition and it is a fun song.

Siale Palanite There are many ways in which early childhood teachers support the children’s learning in centres. In the centre where I voluntarily work, I talk to the children when they are playing, read them books, show them pictures, ask questions about their drawing or painting, sing them songs and also let them write their own story even though they do not know alphabet or letters but their scribbling have meanings. Playing provides reasonable ideas for children which the teacher may help out in making it real.

Children in early childhood centres learn through using their senses to explore and discover new things around them and this activity will be successful if the learning environment is handy. Teachers are needed to prepare and plan activities before the children arrive at the centre. Not only that but trying different activities will motivate the children’s interests in learning. Hanging or displaying their works encourage them to talk to their friends in school, parents or teachers about what they have done that day. Praising is another way that teachers and parents use when assisting children in their learning.

The children may have different ways of learning but the teachers’ positive attitude towards them could help with their learning.