This month the toddlers at RisingOaks Early Learning | St. Nicholas have shown a major interest in letters and wanting to create words, while others have appeared to enjoy sitting on the carpet and singing the alphabet song.
One morning a provocation of magnetic letters was set out for the children to explore. They were first set on the table, and shortly after the children observed the letters, they took it upon themselves to bring them to the black board. Many of the children were pointing to the letters. Educator Gerri approached the children and started asking questions such as “What letter do you see?” and “What sound does that letter make?” Elyas, Julian, Dipo and Wyatt were our four friends that were extremely curious of what letters were on the board. Julian pointed to the letter S and shared, “S.” A Conestoga placement student jumped in and responded back, “Yes Julian its an S. What can you think of that starts with a letter S?” As Julian began to think, he listened closely as the Conestoga student started to slowly pronounce words that have the letter S, then he shouted very loudly, “SNAKE!” They both clapped and continued on looking at other letters that were on the board.
During our group time, the children would gather on the carpet and start shouting, “Lets sing A, B, C’s.” Many of them would chant for an educator to play one of the ABC songs they enjoy listening to, and educator Ruth was able to find and play the song for them. The children would shout or sing loudly, and even laugh while singing the ABC song. Educator Ruth then wanted to try something different and sing the song without using background music. The children started off singing loudly and confidently; they would gaze at each other and nod their head while singing. The educators in the toddler room have even noticed that they are still singing the song during their free play.
Looking at the learning aspect of this interest; we can observe that this helps support their child development in the social, cognitive, communication, language and emotional areas. With social development, they are taking a social interest by observing and imitating peers and beginning to play in small groups. With emotional development we observe an expression of feelings, when children are feeling happy and excited that they know some letters, they tend to express through music and singing. With cognition, their memory plays a roll when reading a book, they’re looking and observing the letters that are written all over. Perhaps we can begin looking at some name recognition or forming small words with the letters they know.
