Time to get back to basics!
Now, who doesn’t love basic?
Teachers and early childhood educators are being encouraged to get back to the basics by focusing their teaching methods to a holistic approach to support early childhood development.
Like most of us, we learn best when we are feeling motivated and inspired. Children are the same.
Check out how you can inspire children in early childhood education.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane and imagine you are back in your childhood; jumping in puddles, playing in the mud, building sandcastles, finding insects, exploring, discovering how things work - all the fun stuff! That’s what being a kid is all about… right? Exploring and discovering!
And that’s what the holistic approach is– learning and interacting with the natural world and opportunities for challenge, risk-taking, and social development.
This approach involves children exploring and discovering as a way of learning by becoming highly engaged and actively involved in their interdependence between people, plants, animals and the environment. By supporting the holistic development approach, teachers and childhood educators are creating a safe, interactive and positive environment in their community to support childhood development.
What is Holistic Development?
Holistic Development is an approach to learning that emphasises the importance of the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of children, particularly in early childhood.
The Early Years Learning Framework [EYLF] of the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR] encourages early childhood educators to focus on the holistic approach to their learning technique, rather than focusing on the traditional academic milestones of intelligence. By focusing our attention on the connectedness of a child’s mind, body and spirit we are embracing the real and authentic developmental opportunities regardless of children’s culture, socioeconomic background, gender or age.
In other words, early childhood educators use the holistic approach to connect children’s development with their natural environment and build strong relationships through active learning and social activities.
How can I support holistic development?
A few quick tips on how you can support and encourage the holistic development in early years as an educator, teacher, teacher aide or parent are:
Learning is experimental. By asking open-ended questions, you are allowing children to think for themselves, and explore their thoughts with cognitive thinking rather than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Let them explore their train of thought and see how their thinking develops.
- Build Strong and Trusting Relationships
Children engage and communicate better when they can connect with people they trust. By building a strong relationship with a child, you are creating a strong and safe community and improving connections between children, parents and other educators. Teacher Aides, in particular, are great for connecting with children individually and developing strong and nurturing relationships, especially children with special needs.
- Identify the Child’s Interests
Understanding an individual children’s interests and understanding what motivates them will help guide children to discover their identity and purpose in life through their connections to the natural world and spiritual values. By identifying children’s interests, you can take a small idea and expand on it by broadening its learning opportunities.
For example: A child loves planes. A great early childhood educator will take that opportunity to expand this child’s learning by researching into planes. How planes are made, how many different types of planes there are, why we use planes, when were planes invented, and the list goes on!
Take a child’s passion and turn it into a learning opportunity!
- Create an engaging and inviting environment
Create a comfortable and safe environment for children to connect and be themselves in. Make it inviting with the use of colour, child-friendly furniture, interest corners, and areas for individuals, small groups, and space for creative play.
Supporting children as they learn at their own pace is important for their early childhood development and we should encourage and take every opportunity to explore their interests in a comfortable, natural environment. The holistic development approach is becoming more recognised throughout early childhood development and a ‘hands-on’ approach for teachers, teacher aides, and early childhood educators.
Supporting children as they learn at their own pace is important for their early childhood development and we should encourage and take every opportunity to explore their interests in a comfortable, natural environment. The holistic development approach is becoming more recognised throughout early childhood development and a ‘hands-on’ approach for teachers, teacher aides, and early childhood educators.
If you are interested in taking your interest in Early Childhood to a deeper understanding, Foundation Education offers a range of highly relevant online courses in early childhood education with specified units that foster holistic development in early childhood.
So whether you want to take this further and into a new career or simply want to be a better parent, we can help get you there. Find out more about our CHC30113 Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care course or check out our range of other Education and Care courses.Enquire Now and speak to one of our career advisors for more information.
Recently, especially in light of new targets and expectations, schools have been accused of having narrow curriculums, choosing to focus on core subject development [ the subjects the school is judged on]. Forest School offers an ideal opportunity to take a holistic view of the development of children and adults. Essentially, by holistic we mean the whole of an individual, focusing on how we develop every aspect not just one. e.g. just literacy.
Before we start looking at the whole child/adult we need to have a basic understanding of the different aspects that create the whole. The diagram below shows a summary of these different potentials that make up the whole. Click on the diagram for a printable version with more detail about each area of development.
Holistic Development in a Forest School Setting
A forest or woodland is ideal for holistic teaching as there are a huge variety of different activities that can be organised to develop all areas of an individual. As with learning theories, open ended activities will often allow learners to pick and choose which area they are developing and they may develop several areas at the same time. However, if a client is often doing the same time of learning you may wish to plan activities that expose learners to different areas of development. Below are a few examples:
Physical:
- Moving activities – moving through the woods, climbing trees, balancing on logs, moving items between locations.
- Fine Motor Skills – building shelters, woodland craft, learning knots, building fires, using hand tools, cooking
- Just experiencing the woodland environment can help develop physical senses.
Emotional:
- Setting tasks that require perseverance and resilience through having another go. A prime example for this is lighting fires.
- Enhance calmness through not pressuring time restraints.
- Setting actives that give a sense of achievement when finished: fire lighting, building a shelter, woodland craft.
Social:
- Working as part of a group.
- Many woodland activities incorporate working as a group: shelter building, collecting fire wood, building woodland crafts.
- Setting groups projects/challenges.
Intellectual:
- Again working in groups: shelter building, collecting fire wood, building woodland crafts. Introduce an element of discussion to allow clients to talk about the task and the best way to complete it.
- Creative activities: making art using the natural materials around them. Give them a specific objective for the art.
- Encouraging reflection following an activity, discussing what we achieved and learnt.
Moral/Spiritual:
- Playing different games and then allowing children to develop their own. Children will have to develop rules that are fair and just.
- Respect and love for the woodland. Teach how to care and protect the woodland, considering the long term impact for future generations.
- A chance for quiet meditation.
Active Examples:
Below you will find a number of examples, where I have planned and delivered sessions that involve a number of the elements highlighted above:
- Mini villages: I enjoy this activity and find it an excellent way to start a series of sessions. It provides an opportunity to address a number of elements related to holistic development. You can adapt the related the story to suite the group, leaning towards emotional, moral and spiritual elements. The building of the village helps develop physical, social and intellectual elements. The reflection element provides another opportunity for emotional, moral and spiritual elements.
- Woodland Arrival: I have also found that allowing a group to set up camp on arrival can access a variety of this elements to holistic development. Independently the group can work as a team, divide activities, complete physical activities and review their performance at the end, allowing you to see holistic development at its best. You have to be careful with this activity if an alpha child becomes to over powering, you may wish to intervene and discuss leadership skills with this child.