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CUR124: Active Learning Experiences in Early Childhood

Handout

Welcome to CUR124

This course presents practical methods for integrating movement, active involvement, and group games across all curriculum areas, including art, language arts, mathematics, music, science, and social studies. Students will have the chance to discover best practices and effective strategies for engaging in active learning and gameplay with children of various ages.

Objectives:

By taking notes on the handout and successfully answering assessment questions, participants will meet the following objectives as a result of completing this course:

Define active learning and recognize features of active learning in early childhood education

Recognize the benefits of active learning experiences and group games

Identify the role of active learning in brain development and other domains of child

development

Recognize appropriate active learning experiences that reinforce learning across curricular areas.

Identify strategies for facilitating developmentally appropriate games and activities in the early childhood environment

References:

1. Armstrong, M. MD. (2020). "The Importance of Play: How Kids Learn by Having Fun." Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/health/the-importance-of-play

2. Bresson, L. (2018). "Bringing Active Play Indoors." Retrieved from NAEYC.

3. Marenus, M. (2020). "Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences." Retrieved from

https://www.simplypsychology.org/multiple-intelligences.html 4. Morrison, G., Woika, M.J., & Breffni, L. (2020). Fundamentals of Early Childhood Education,

9th edition. Pearson Education, Inc. 5. National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2021). Developmentally Appropriate

Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8, 4th edition. Washington, DC: NAEYC.

6. Paris, J., Beeve, K., Springer, C. (2021). Introduction to Curriculum for Early Childhood Education. College of the Canyons. Santa Clarita, CA.

7. Pica, R. (2014). Moving and Learning. Redleaf Press

8. Pica, R. (2018). Active Learning Across the Curriculum. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

9. Pica, R. (2019). Acting Out!: Avoiding Behavior Challenges with Active Learning Games and Activities. Redleaf Press.

10. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2019). Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition. Retrieved from https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Activity_Guidelines_2nd_edition.pdf

Additional Resources:

1. Grineski, S. (1996). Cooperative learning in physical education. Champaign, IL: Human

Kinetics. 2. Hannaford, C. (2005). Smart moves: Why learning is not all in your head. Salt Lake City:

Great River Books.

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3. Jensen, E. (2000). Learning with the body in mind. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. 4. Kohn, A. (1992). No contest: The case against competition. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Course Notes:

Use the space below to record important information from the course.

What is Active Learning?

Young children are:

Important Fact

Skills developed during early childhood can be separated into distinct:

Important Fact

Active learning:

Active Learning vs. Rote Learning

Important Fact

Rote learning

Active learning leads to:

The Importance of Active Learning

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Using the Senses

Important Fact

Gross motor skills

Important Fact

Fine motor skills

Kinesthetic Intelligence

Active Learning and Brain Development

Important Fact

Synapses:

Active Learning and Cognitive Development

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Cross-lateral movements:

Active Learning and Social-Emotional Development

Cooperative Learning

Important Fact

Cooperative learning, or cooperative play:

Steve Grineski, the author of Cooperative Learning in Physical Education and Physical Activity, says the social skills needed to promote cooperative learning include:

In No Contest: The Case Against Competition, Alfie Kohn identifies a great deal of research demonstrating cooperation's positive effects on both social and emotional development:

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Active Learning Across the Early Childhood Curriculum

Visual Arts

Language Arts

Suggested Language Arts Activities

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Mathematics

More Number Awareness and Recognition

Music

Learning Basic Music Concepts through Movement

Science

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Suggested Science Activities

Social Studies

Suggested Social Studies Activities

Games and Group Activities

Games and Classroom Management

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Guidelines for Effective Games

Choosing Developmentally Appropriate Games

Important Fact

Developmentally appropriate activity:

Understanding the Needs of Children in Your Group

Group competition:

Providing Effective Instructions and Objectives

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Establishing Boundaries

Trial play:

Important Fact

Safety:

Making Play Optional

More Tips for Organizing Developmentally Appropriate Games

Keep Rules Simple and Enforce Them Fairly

Keep the Game Light and Fun

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Support the "Underdog" to Improve Self-Esteem

Focus on Fun, Not Competition

Encourage, Encourage, Encourage!

When you have to correct a child:

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CUR124: Active Learning Experiences in Early Childhood

Activity Ideas

Try This!

Indoor Tag

Many outdoor games promoting physical development can be adapted for indoor play to assist the creative teacher with energy releases on rainy days!

The popular game of "tag," in which one child ("it") chases and tries to tag everyone else, safely adapts to Indoor Tag. Instead of running, children sit with legs outstretched and "inch" around on the floor. There is no falling or running, but there is still movement and fun, as well as the development of gross motor and social skills. Prepare for lots of joyful squeals with this one!

Try This!

Active Shape Activities

To explore shape with toddlers, begin with simple comparisons between straight and round. Show the children straight objects (e.g., rulers or the lines on ruled paper) and round objects (e.g., a ball or a globe); ask them to create these opposite shapes with their bodies or body parts.

When the children are developmentally ready, challenge them to take on various shapes (e.g., wide, narrow, crooked, high, low, etc.) with their bodies. This is fun and challenging, and it also builds vocabulary and spatial awareness.

Try This!

Active Line Activities

To focus on the concept of lines, use a jump rope or similar object to demonstrate the differences between vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, and crooked lines. Can the children use their bodies to replicate the lines you have created with the rope?

Try This!

Active Color Activities

Shape and colors can be explored in tandem by providing pictures or examples of objects in various colors (e.g., a yellow banana, a red apple, a green plant) and asking the children to demonstrate the shape of each object.

An alternative is to mention a color and ask them what it brings to mind. The children can then demonstrate their interpretation of the color through body movement (e.g., if the color green reminded some children of frogs, they could depict the movement of frogs).

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Try This!

Active Texture Activities

You can explore the concept of texture through movement by gathering items of various textures for the children to see and feel. Examples include rope, satin, burlap, feathers, a beach ball, seashells, stuffed animals, and carpet samples. Talk to children about how each item feels or makes them feel (i.e., feathers might make them feel ticklish). Then ask them to demonstrate the feeling through movement.

Try This!

Play-Acting

Acting out the meaning of individual words from stories, poems, or even spelling lists can lead to greater understanding. Through movement, children can begin to comprehend suffixes and, thus, the distinction between words like frightened and frightening. They can better grasp the meaning of action

words (verbs) like slither, stalk, pounce, or stomp, or descriptive words (adjectives) like graceful, smooth, or forceful.

Preschool children can work in pairs to demonstrate the meanings of simple opposites like sad and

happy or up and down, with primary grade partners challenged to demonstrate possibilities like tight versus loose or open versus closed.

Try This!

Math Moves

Movement is an ideal, tangible means of conveying quantitative concepts to children.

Activities involving levels and body shapes can demonstrate the concepts of:

big and little

long and short

high and low

wide and narrow

tall and short

highest, lowest, and even

the same length and longer than

Concepts related to force (light, heavy, strong, weak) can also be conveyed through movement.

Children can work together to explore these concepts through movement. Throughout the movement activities, teachers can pose questions and challenges like:

"Which body part has the most possibilities?"

"How many ways can you find to... (move the chair, pick up the crayon, etc.)?"

"Repeat the action once more."

Try This

Positional Concepts

Positional concepts can be demonstrated by asking the first or last child in line to perform an action.

You can ask children to stand in front of or behind a person or object or between or in the middle of others.

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Props and obstacle courses are excellent for demonstrating such positional concepts as over, under, around, and through.

Children experiment with these concepts through movement and build their working vocabularies.

Try This!

Blast Off

The children must hear the numerals often to develop number awareness and recognition. The simple activity "Blast Off" is appropriate for toddlers as well as preschoolers. The game can help them advance from rote memorization of numbers to actual comprehension.

With this activity, the children squat low, pretending to be spaceships on their launching pads as you count backward from 10. Then, when you say, "Blast off!" the children "launch" themselves upward. It is simple, fun, and effective.

Try This!

Geometry

You can begin acquainting children with geometric shapes by giving them blocks, puzzles, and other manipulative materials.

The children work along or with others to form lines, curves, points, and angles. Later, they can advance to forming geometric shapes. They can move in straight, curving, zigzag, and diagonal lines and advance to moving in circular, square, rectangular, and triangular patterns.

Try This!

Statues

Asking children to move in the way the music makes them feel may confuse or intimidate young children. However, making a game out of putting movement to music can free children of their natural inhibitions. "Statues" is a great game for this purpose; plus, it develops listening skills and helps children differentiate between sound and silence.

Instruct the children to move in any way they like while the music is playing and freeze into a statue when the music stops (you pause it). To take the children by surprise and inspire various responses, vary the time you allow the children to move and freeze. To expose the children to various music styles and rhythms, use a song with a different feel (a march, a waltz, rock and roll, etc.) each time you play.

Try This!

Musical Bodies

Children love to make noise, and making noise with their bodies can be a great introduction to rhythm. Ask the children to discover how many sounds they can create with different body parts (e.g., hands, feet, tongue, and teeth).

Can they move about the room, accompanying themselves with these sounds?

Can they use different parts of the room (floor, walls, chalkboard) to create new sounds?

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Try This!

Gravity Games

Is it possible for human beings to float in the air? No, because of gravity.

When we jump, hop, or leap in the air, the force of gravity pulls us back down, just as it pulls down any object (e.g., a beanbag or ball) we toss in the air. But the higher we toss the object, the longer it takes to reach the ground. Challenge the children to discover how many times they can clap or turn around before the beanbag or ball returns to their hands or the ground.

Beanbag Tossing

As you read through the "Beanbag Tossing" activity, see if you can discover a way to change the activity once children have mastered it.

Ages: Toddler to 8

Ready: Gather at least 3 beanbags (purchased or homemade), a cardboard box, or hula-hoops, balls, and buckets.

Set: Cut holes in the box for children to toss bags into. A simple animal or clown shape with a BIG mouth is great.

Go: Have children take turns (3 tries per turn), seeing who can throw the beanbag through the hole.

More Beanbag Tossing Fun:

Use hula-hoops instead of a box, especially for younger children who need a bigger target to

hit.

Hang hula-hoops from trees outside or the ceiling inside for a higher target.

Hang a beach ball and call a color for children to try to hit.

Hang a bucket for children to land the beanbag in.

It would be appropriate to extend this activity by creating different holes of graduated sizes. You may even want to create a point system for older children. These extensions will challenge the child and keep them coming back for more!

Try This!

Homemade Beanbags

Simple Version:

1. Gather old socks, dried beans, a needle, and thread. 2. Cut the toe off the sock to make an appropriately sized beanbag for children. 3. Fill it with dried beans and stitch the open end shut.

Alternate Version: Same as above, but use pretty colored socks or felt pieces and a pretty pattern such as frog, bear, shape, etc. Children ages 4 and up usually enjoy making their own.

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Keep it Up

Ages: 2 to 12, working in groups of 2 to 10

Ready: You will need a large soft ball or beach ball.

Set: No advance preparation is needed.

Go! Have a group stand in a circle or spread apart at least arm′s width. Toss the ball high in the air

and have children try to keep it up by batting it with their hands! Count the number of hits the group makes to keep the ball in the air. Set a goal and have the group try to meet it or try to break their last record. Give "gold medals" to the whole group when they break their record.

More Keep it Up Fun: Have the children add kicks and "heads" to keep the ball in the air. Make certain there is plenty of space to avoid injury!

Field Hockey

Field Hockey can be used with younger children without competitiveness and with older children with a moderate level of competitiveness.

Ages: 2 to 8, playing in pairs or teams

Ready: Gather small brooms or plastic rakes, a "goal" (cardboard box with one side open or a laundry basket), and a tennis ball or small plastic ball.

Set: Place the goal at the end of the field of play. This can be played in a gymnasium or yard but is inappropriate for most classroom arrangements.

Go! Children use the brooms or rakes to hit the balls into the box. Many will have fun with individual

play, but older children will probably want team play. School-age children will enjoy adding a second goal and dividing into 2 teams for more competitive play.

More Field Hockey Fun: Forget the balls and rake the leaves into the box in the fall. It is great fun and helps the groundskeeper!

Fish in a Barrel

Fish in a Barrel is a game that may be new to many children. Therefore, you will probably need to explain the game. As you read through the game, think about how you could best explain the game to the children in your class.

Ages: 3 to 12

Ready: No materials are required for this game.

Set: Have the children number off from 1 to 3.

Go! All the number 1s and 2s should partner together and hold hands to make "barrels." All the 3s should stand inside the barrel as the "fish." There should be at least one extra player; there can be 2. The teacher says "Go!" or uses a whistle, and all the fish leave their barrel to find another. The

"extras" also scramble for a barrel. The new extras move to the center, and the round starts again. Play several times until the "barrels" tire of their role and renumber, so there are new "fish."

More Fish in a Barrel Fun: Change the identity of the game with the season; play "Turkey in the Straw," "Elves in the Snow," "Shamrocks in the Meadow," etc.

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Scavenger Hunt

In this game, children search for items on a list to collect or take a picture of with a camera. As you

read, think about how you might introduce this activity to the children. What boundaries and limits would you set? What safety considerations should be made? What would be the consequences for stepping outside the set limits?

Ages: 4 to 12

Ready: Gather materials for children to find and hide them around the classroom.

Set: Prepare clue cards and a list of things to be found. For younger children, use picture cards along with the words.

Go! Divide into teams of 4 to 6 children and give each a list to find. Let the winning team share their success story.

More Scavenger Hunt Fun: Have a Camera Scavenger Hunt. Send each team out with a camera to bring back a picture of objects on their list. This one is fun outside. The teacher can control one camera, and each team can borrow it as they locate an object. Items like bird′s nests, anthills, dandelions, earthworms, etc., become fun items for this game.

Bottle Bowling

This game provides a good example of a game some children may hesitate to play if they are not confident in their ability to roll a ball. Bottle Bowling could be set up as a learning center option during morning center time. Since it is a learning center option, children who are not interested can choose

other centers. The teacher could also encourage a hesitant child to try rolling balls on the playground first. However, the teacher′s long-term goal is to have all children develop the skills needed to play the game. As you read, think about the children in your classroom. How would you make playing this game optional? How would you encourage children who might be hesitant to try it?

Ages: 2 to 8

Ready: Gather 10 plastic soda or water bottles and a rubber ball (soft beach or Nerf ball for inside play or a soccer ball for outside play).

Set: Label the bottles with points for older children who want to "keep" score.

Go! Have children set up bottles in bowling pin formation and roll the ball; let them bowl against themselves for less competition.

More Bottle Bowling Fun: Spray paint the bottles with colors and graph the colors that are knocked

down on each roll. Add water to the bottles for outside play; these bottles will require a strong roll to knock them over. It is also fun to see how far back the children can stand and still hit the bottles.

Kick and Run

Ages: 3 to 5

Ready: Gather a large kickball or soccer ball and base markers and find an open area to play.

Set: Mark 4 bases like a baseball diamond. You may also choose to use fewer bases as an adaptation.

Go! Position yourself as the "pitcher" and give each child a turn kicking the ball and running the bases. There are no outs, foul balls, wins, etc., just practice kicking and running the bases. Have the players treat this as a relay race: they line up, kick the ball you roll, and run the bases. Practice having the entire group cheer as the ball is kicked and the runner comes back "home."

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More Kick and Run Fun: As children develop kicking and running skills, gradually add back the traditional kickball rules and try having teams play. Some children will not be ready for this competitive play until school age, but some will enjoy the challenge to keep playing.

Relay Races

Ages: 2 to 12

Ready: Divide the group into teams of 5 to 10 players. You will need an adequate outdoor space for running races. A basketball court will suffice, although a grassy surface will be safer.

Set: Establish a start line, "tag" line, and running lanes for each team. Players should line up in single file and run from starting point to tag line and back. When they get back to the starting line, they tag the next player in line.

Go! The first team to have all players back is the winner. For younger players, you may want to clock the team time and encourage them to beat it the next time.

Exercise Poker

Exercise Poker is a game that children enjoy playing both outdoors and indoors. It is noncompetitive but active and keeps the energy flowing. As you read, think about how you would use this game with your group of children.

Ages: 2 to 12

Ready: Gather paper (stiff construction paper works best) and markers.

Set: Make a set of playing cards with words and pictures that describe various exercises: sit-ups, jumping jacks, lunges, jogging in place, etc. Have at least 10 exercise cards. Next, make another set of cards with the numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10. Have at least 2 of each numeral.

Go! Have all the children who want to play gather in a circle at least arm′s width apart. Have one child draw an exercise card and another draw a number card. Then the 2 children lead the group in the exercise for the number of times printed on the numeral card. Then 2 more children come forward to draw the next cards. Continue until children tire of the workout!

More Exercise Poker Fun: Use dice instead! Make dice out of a foam square or a square box. Write exercises on one die and the numerals 5 to 10 on the other.

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