Play Based Learning

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

Kindergarten parents, rest assured, your boys are in good hands with teachers, Samantha Fisher and Teri-Ann Kladal. Working together for three years at The King’s School, Preparatory School and having the same goal at heart, these like-minded ladies have made it their mission to reach a new teaching standard for the Kindergarten students.

As an International Baccalaurete World School, utilising the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Prep School is known for its integrated learning, which provides students opportunities to learn in ways that best suits them. Within this style of teaching there is a big push in the early years for students to learn through interactive methods. However, the challenge arises when contemplating how to create a program that is structured enough to meet the curriculum, yet is fun and engaging enough to meet the students’ needs.

Pre-Kindergarten teacher, Anna-Claire Coore has already been doing a great job introducing a play based program for her class – a system that Samantha and Teri-Ann have been working on adopting. “When we met with Anna-Claire to see how our program could evolve, we were inspired and wondered how we could make that a possibility in Kindy, while also meeting our outcomes,” said Teri-Ann. integrated play. We look at our units, while implementing engaging activities that can be student driven – all the while having that curriculum background,” says Teri-Ann.

The Kindergarten teachers find play based learning to be extremely beneficial for this age student, especially for boys. “They shouldn’t be on the floor listening to us for more than 10 minutes,” says Samantha, “You need to switch it up after that to keep their interest in learning.”

Instead of a 50 minute lesson where it’s sit down, pen to paper, the class is broken up into shorter segmented learning sessions. For instance, when learning about money the class discusses the general topic on the floor; they then break off into stations set up around the room, where they can explore different ideas on their own. Samantha and Teri-Ann then facilitate the boys’ learning, but give them the initiative and space to come up with their own answers. A final group discuss and play is then had – emphasis on play. Playing, role play, customers at the ‘Class Shop’, the boys fill their buckets up with items, calculating how much money they have, how much change they need and more. Its real life situations taught at a Kindy level!

The play based learning program, has been a passion of theirs for many years. After applying for The King’s School Academic Grant, they were thrilled to be selected, meaning they could further their professional learning journey. They now have the capacity to share this knowledge with other King’s teachers, while also collaborating with other schools to learn from them.

But it hasn’t been all fun and games for the Kindy teachers. “ It’s a lot more thinking and backward planning taking place on our part,” says Samantha and Teri-Ann, “We have a skeleton program of what we need to teach to meet the curriculum points, but then the boys go off centre or instigate another point of investigation, so we can be agile and tailor our teaching to them.”