Jiorjiina
27-07-2014, 11:12 PM
A Cautionary Tale about Exptnnding Children's Learning:
Once upon a time, a Good childminder looked after two little boys who were got very interested in rockets. Like all Good childminders, she searched high and low for ways to extend those mindees interest into other areas. First she got a cardboard rocket they could play in (which they loved, and played in until it fell apart), then she found a chunky little playmobile one (which they fought over quite a lot, because she was an idiot and forgot to buy a second one).
Then one day they all sat down and watched an episode of of an old TV show called Thunderbirds. Because it also had rockets in it.
Oh, how she lived to regret that particular decision. Because the mindees didn't love it. They became obsessed with it. They demanded it every time they came. They learned all the names and numbers of the machines, and their pilots, and the other machines that needed rescuing, and every damned detail of every plot of every single ****** episode.
And they learned to do the countdown from 5 to 1 (which the childminder duly noted in their learning journals, because they were only two and a half so she was actually pretty impressed). And they performed the countdown at every available opportunity. Loudly. And one of them learned to sing the theme tune. Badly. And he sang the the theme tune (badly) for almost every single second, of every single hour that he was at the childminders (and most of the time he wasn't, according to his poor parents). Those were the dark times.
And in that time of great need, the childminder and the mindees parents called upon the powers of the mighty youtube and smartphone for aid, and were rewarded with many clips and edited videos of Thunderbirds, so the mindees could watch their favourite bits over and over again and see whole videos solely devoted to the machines. And the childminder and the parents gained brief respite from the onslaught of International Rescue
And the one day, at the end of a video, one of mindees touched the screen to 'replay', hit a different spot on the screen and watched a video called 'Stingray'...
Once upon a time, a Good childminder looked after two little boys who were got very interested in rockets. Like all Good childminders, she searched high and low for ways to extend those mindees interest into other areas. First she got a cardboard rocket they could play in (which they loved, and played in until it fell apart), then she found a chunky little playmobile one (which they fought over quite a lot, because she was an idiot and forgot to buy a second one).
Then one day they all sat down and watched an episode of of an old TV show called Thunderbirds. Because it also had rockets in it.
Oh, how she lived to regret that particular decision. Because the mindees didn't love it. They became obsessed with it. They demanded it every time they came. They learned all the names and numbers of the machines, and their pilots, and the other machines that needed rescuing, and every damned detail of every plot of every single ****** episode.
And they learned to do the countdown from 5 to 1 (which the childminder duly noted in their learning journals, because they were only two and a half so she was actually pretty impressed). And they performed the countdown at every available opportunity. Loudly. And one of them learned to sing the theme tune. Badly. And he sang the the theme tune (badly) for almost every single second, of every single hour that he was at the childminders (and most of the time he wasn't, according to his poor parents). Those were the dark times.
And in that time of great need, the childminder and the mindees parents called upon the powers of the mighty youtube and smartphone for aid, and were rewarded with many clips and edited videos of Thunderbirds, so the mindees could watch their favourite bits over and over again and see whole videos solely devoted to the machines. And the childminder and the parents gained brief respite from the onslaught of International Rescue
And the one day, at the end of a video, one of mindees touched the screen to 'replay', hit a different spot on the screen and watched a video called 'Stingray'...