Babies in preschool love playing with life-derived loose parts! Fantastic sensory play with messy stuff, assisting them to discover the world.
(by Maria Gryllaki, teacher in babies class in Athens)
play
There is a ghost in our school…
There’s a ghost in our school that spooks us all!
We’re making a scarecrow to scare it away…..
Getting ready for Halloween!
(by Claire Hadjinikolaou, English teacher in Athens school)
Play in toddlers’ class
Play, is:
- Two painter balls in a box
- Building towers using glasses
- Meeting your friends under the table
- Wearing strange metal shoes
- Wiping the salt
- Playing music
- Inventing a way to reach the balloons up in the ceiling
- Spreading the clothes
- Talking with your best friend
- And after all these exhausting things, go to sleep!
Play is life. Children’s life.
(by Jenny Diamantopoulou, teacher in toddlers’ class in Athens)
There is no such think as free play?
(from the Ip-DiP magazine for the professionals of play)
When I grow up, I want to be a ……
If you want to be a doctor, first thing you have to do is to learn about the human body.
What’ s a better way than experimenting on your friends, during kindergarten English class?
Have their heart, ears, mouth, legs and arms checked!
(by Claire Hadjinikolaou, English teacher in Athens school)
Looking deeper
Drawing with cars is not just a fun activity for babies.
Looking deeper, someone realizes that through this activity babies interact one another, gain socialization skills, taste the car, throw it down to listen to the sound, and more….
We teachers, the only think to do is to observe all these different behaviors.
Just by evaluating children’ reaction in any activity, we learn so many thinks.
(by Anastasia Kouroubali, teacher in babies class, in Athens)
The ball through the hoop
Marrying Teacher Chryssa
Learning occurring through play based on real life situations, is in the core of life-derived learning. Here is a perfect example:
Kindergarten kids visited a fashion house specializing in wedding gowns! They were excited (ok, it goes more for the girls!) and coming back in school decided to perform a wedding!
Teacher Chryssa was convinced to be the bride, so play started! (FYI, they took it up to the end!! 🙂 )
Playing with Meynell
Our friend playworker Meynell visits our Athens school!
Bubbles in the water
Playing with water is babies’ favorite thing to do, especially during their first days in school…
To make it even better, we tried to add liquid soap into the water. Babies loved it!
They made waves in the water with their hands and suddenly, lots of bubbles popped up!
Bubbles we can touch & taste, even bubbles we can dress with!
(by Anastasia Kouroubali, teacher in babies’ class in Athens)
Life-derived Learning 