Circle Time - Peer-to-Peer Conversations

 


As part of my professional learning I am working towards this goal: 

By Week 5,  try some different ways of promoting peer-to-peer conversations during 'making time' so that our students felt comfortable sharing their ideas with their peers.

The early childhood resource "Talking Together" from the Ministry of Education gave me some great tips:

Environment: 

- Provide activities that are creative and open. 

- Choose activities that connect with the students culture and experiences

- Small groups are most helpful for encouraging talk

- The spaces should be calm and quiet without background music 


Teacher prompts: 

- Listening to a child talk and then responding with, "That reminds me of a time… does it remind you of a time…. "

- Story telling - listening to a child’s story, recording and retelling (possibly with prompts) with other children joining in. 

"That’s an idea I hadn’t thought of George. Has anyone got a different idea?"

Using puppets to encourage students to share stories....i.e. have the child tell a story to the puppet.

So I tried it out...

Three kids were sitting at the table -  J, A, and M. I brought over some animal toys and made them talk like puppets and the kids straight away started to engage with the animals. 

One of the puppets told a story about making new friends at the park. One of the students suggested playing "Mums and Dads". The puppets had to learn how to play the game and the kids told the animals what to do. In the game of "Mums and Dad," the "Mum" was cooking a cake. The kids told the puppet how to make the cake. I noticed that the kids had detailed knowledge about cooking with different students chipping in ideas. 

The best bit was when I handed the puppets over to the the students. They continued the cooking story together. Student A was giving feedback to Student M about the cooking while Student M was acting with the puppet toy. Student J came along with this toy and joined in the interaction. 

This reminded me how important role play is for helping students interact. I think having a known context (cooking) and being able to act it out through a toy made this a comfortable environment that enabled peer-to-peer interaction. Also, as I started by modelling and then handed over the toys, the students were able to continue in a natural way.  

Let the learning continue. 


Comments

  1. Gretchen11 November 2022 at 16:47

    kia ora Simon, this is a great description of creative and dialogic learning with our tamariki. I love how students have so much voice in these sessions. It's great you're using the excellent resources like Te kōrerorero to extend the talk and build connections.
    I can imagine how this sort of dramatic play would be awesome in studio learning - like if you were learning about measurement - the play and talk could include some 'can I have half a cup?' Though this would have a bit of a 'teacher's agenda/bias' possibly - where the freedom and openness that comes with creative circle time means it can be more child led - if that makes sense? Elevating student talk in any context and area is vital.
    Thanks so much for sharing and putting so much thought and care into this mahi. Circle time and those creative moments are a 'golden time' for me and I think for our students too. How are you finding the different space?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simon Cossey15 November 2022 at 15:31

      Thanks for those encouraging comments. Yes, I think there are so many opportunities to bring learning into dramatic play with a little bit of teacher guidance. And, as you mention, it's nice for the kids to have a chance to play sometimes with no teacher agenda!! Play can be the teacher alone. I like the new space because it is closer and purpose made for art and break out groups. I think the kids like it too. There can be some distractions.
      Looking forward to listening into more conversations with these kids. :)

      Delete
  2. Alida13 November 2022 at 08:40

    This sounds amazing, I'm curious, how old where the students? It was interesting for me to see how older students responded to the puppet during circle time, even when I was a bit shy about using a puppet in the beginning, because I thought they would think it's "dumb", but they respond quite nicely to it and I had no reason to feel a bit self conscious. I want to improve my oral language activities before I jump into new work especially in writing, maybe this is something I could explore.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simon Cossey15 November 2022 at 15:33

      These were 5 year olds, so play comes very naturally. It was cool to hear the seniors responded positively to the puppet. In my experience, the kids like using the puppets too (with appropriate boundaries). I think seniors would enjoy creating comedy shows using puppets and it would be a great connection to oral language and writing.

      Delete

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