Page 15 - LESSION 11.pmd

Play and Early Learning

Objects fostering pushing-pulling, throwing, catching, pedaling, crawling,
jumping, stretching, walking, rocking, swinging, sliding, rolling, hopping and
kicking are activities undertaken for the development of physical and large muscle
Notes
coordination.
Also, some activities advised for fine motor development are stringing of wooden
beads with large holes and different colours, free hand moving exercises, thread
printing, leaf or vegetable printing, working with paper (tearing, cutting, collage
making), making different shapes using clay and constructive play with sand and
mud. In addition, free painting, drawing, cutting, pasting, folding and clay modeling
also facilitate psychomotor development

All these activities should be planned on a regular basis and children must do all
these in a playful way and in a happy environment.

11.6.1 Planning Play Activities Across themes

There are a variety of themes related to the environment of children like trees,
animals, birds, flowers and insects. Various activities are planned and developed
across themes.
Small children always like to play. We cannot impose any knowledge through any
subject. Therefore, theme based play activities are the best way for this purpose.
The theme must be planned according to the age and interest of children. The
topic for the theme should have a close relation to the environment of the children.
It will give an opportunity to promote their innate capacity to broaden ideas
about which they are very familiar. They express their opinion from their first-
hand or concrete experiences and experiences from sensory perception. It presents
the possibility of an extremely useful and enjoy able preschool programmes
essentially for meeting their developmental needs. The activities related to
themes can be organized for a week or two such as:
a) Child and her/his environment: Vegetables, animals, fruits, pollution, vehicles,
sky, sun, moon, festivals etc.

b) Child and people around her/his: Family members, neighbours, friends, school,
community helpers, etc.
Topics/themes which provide concrete experiences to children could be :

1. Myself

2. Mother
3. Father

4. Food

5. Water

30 EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION