Planning

for Play - Learning Centre Plan

Introduction
Through play experiences, children are exposed to a range of opportunities to learn.
These opportunities are developed through the support of educators as they
encourage and extend the children’s ideas through play. When these ideas are
extended and encouraged, the children will be able to develop more knowledge and
understanding. As a result of the running record of Sarah and Megan in the Home
Corner, the educator will be able to support, encourage and extend the children’s
learning. In this play scenario, Sarah and Megan were portraying the role of mother
and friend. Sarah was pretending to be a mother as she was nurturing her baby.
Megan however, was portraying the role of Sarah’s friend. They were both exploring
the different roles and actions that go with these roles. They also came up with ideas
such as going shopping and going on a picnic. Through expressing these ideas, the
educator will be able to extend on these ideas to enhance their play experiences.

The educator can further extend Sarah and Megan’s ideas through different
learning centers and these include:
• Grocery store where the children will be able to create the materials
required for their picnic. They will also use open-ended materials such as play
dough, pipe cleaners and more.
• Picnic area that will allow the children to understand what is required, what
they need to do to set up and how to prepare. Items that will be included are
picnic blankets, basket, pretend food, plastic cutlery and more.
• Nursery where the children will be exposed to a range of baby materials.
These include cots, nappies, clothes, dummies, blankets, toys, change tables
and more. This center will allow the children to practice their nurturing skills,
as they are interest in caring for babies.
• Literacy centre will provide children with an opportunity to write their own
shopping lists. They can explore different magazines and select items that
they like to take on their picnic. Children can also write their own recipes for
the food that they wish to make for their picnic.
• Mud kitchen will allow the children to explore their senses whilst also
creating food for their picnic. They can create the food as well as sell it.

The learning centres that will be extended on even further in this learning centre
plan include the grocery store and the picnic areas.

The educator will be able to support the children through different play
experiences as they:
• Scaffold the children’s learning through questions, prompts and cues. This is
closely related to the theories of Vygotsky as he emphasizes the importance
of educators providing ways to add to their understanding of a concept.
• Provide open-ended materials that the children can use during play
experiences. These include natural materials, interesting materials and more.
 • Allow the children to work at they own pace. For example, the children might
want to stay at a particular center for long periods at a time.
• Provide children with opportunities to take risks. For example, if the children
are in a new situation, prompt the children towards that situation. Only do so
if the situation is safe.

The educator will stimulate/ encourage the children through play experiences as
they:
• Provide endless opportunities to use their imagination.
• Show enthusiasm towards the centre by modeling how to use the materials
in the centre.
• Provide cues and questions that are relevant to the centre. This will allow the
children to become engaged with the centre.
• Relate the centre to prior knowledge. For example, explain to the children
that the grocery store will provide them with an opportunity to role-play
actions and languages that their parents use in the grocery store.
• Consider each child’s ideas and interests when developing a center. For
example, the educator should only develop a centre if the children have
shown a clear interest in the particular concept.
• Provide enough time for each child to participate in the play experience.
• Set the centers up in an area according to the sound and group involvement.
For example, if there are numerous children playing in the area, the centre
will not be placed next to a quieter centre.
• Are facilitators of the children’s learning. For example, being a facilitator
means that the educators makes the learning easy to understand and
provides all the materials needed.
• Are participators of the learning. This means that the educator will not
hesitate with getting involved with the children’s learning.
• Are observing the play that is taking place. This means that the educator is
observing the children to see if they are engaging with the materials and
information provided. This is also a time for educators to assess on the play
experiences.

Intentions Behind the Grocery Store and Picnic Centre
The educator’s intentions behind creating the grocery store and picnic centre were
influenced by the running record of Sarah and Megan in the Home corner. In these
centres the educator hopes that the children are able to engage with themselves
and others to improve their social and emotion wellbeing. They will also encourage
the children to build self-confidence as they discuss roles and how they feel about a
particular subject. When the children are participating with others they will be
encouraged to self-question and risk take to improve their understandings of picnics
and Grocery Stores.

Questions
The questions asked within these play scenarios will be open-ended and will
reinforce content and learning. The questions will scaffold the learning that will
occur and guide students to achieve the objectives. The two play scenarios are child
directed rather than a teacher directed activity. For this reason the questions asked
before, during and after play are extremely important to extend the student’s
learning and thinking while playing.

The questions below are an example of the types of questions that will be asked in
the grocery store and the picnic centre.
Key Questions – Grocery Store/ Picnic
Before
• What would you like to do in this grocery store/ Picnic?
• What objects and materials do you see?
• What do you think will happen in the grocery store/ picnic?
• Who do you think might go to a grocery store/ picnic?
• Have you ever been to a grocery store/ picnic?
• Have you ever seen one of these items before?
• How are they used?
• Have you ever seen a cash register being used? How do they use them?
• Have you seen this type of money before? What do we use it for?
• What roles have you decided on? Who is going to be who?
• Where should you put the rug?
• What colour should the rug be?

During
• Who is in charge of the cash register? What are you playing as?
• What type of food are you going to make for the shop?
• How are you going to make this food? (Chopping or stirring)
• Can I please have a milkshake and a piece of pie?
• How much will this milkshake and pie cost altogether?
• How much are your cakes?
• Do you have anything on sale?
• Who cooks your food? Who is the chef?
• What do you like about this shop?
• What do you like about this picnic?
• What is inside of your picnic basket?
• How many cups and plates do you need for everyone on this picnic?
• Who is the mum and who is the friend? What re the roles on this picnic?

After
• Did you like the set up of the Grocery store/ Picnic?
• What materials would you like for next time?
• Will you be changing roles for next time?
• Anything interesting happen at your grocery store today?

The teacher will monitor, assess and document the children’s learning
and participation through:
• Observing children at play and writing notes on what they are doing.
 • Asking questions to see if the children are engaged. The teacher will record
the children’s answers in a question book with their name, date and an
explanation.
• Taking anecdotal notes and mapping the children’s development through
video recording.
• Adapting a running record and hyperlinking the key objectives from the
curriculum and inputting it into running record.
• Mind map of each child. This will include dates and anecdotal notes,
extension ideas and key concepts of child’s learning.
• Language spoken by child and ideas taken onto an ideas chart. This will then
be linked to each child in the play scenario.
• Group work and the communication between children. This will then be
recorded through anecdotal notes.