Since the
rainy season, you can see a rainbow in the sky often. Whenever children see the
rainbow, they were pointing, cheering, jumping and describing it in their own
way. I noticed that our children were so curious about rainbow. Especially,
child A, H, M, N, T and Z. So I plan to
follow their interests and help them to explore and extend the understanding of
rainbow.
Te Whāriki says “children
develop reflective and creative thinking as they contribute ideas and try them
out with others”(Ministry of Education, 1996, p.96) I help the
children to browse the Web. We found that: this meteorological phenomenon
usually occurs right after the rain, when the sun comes out again. At that
moment, the sunbeams go through the raindrops still suspended in the air, and
this causes the white light the beams are made of to deflect and split into
different colours. So in technical words, it’s called light reflection, then reflection
will creates rainbows (Web).
A rainbow
is composed of 7 colors (violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red).
The red is always on the outside of the bow. The bend of the bow is due to the
round shape of the water drops the beams go through. At last, to have the best
opportunity of watching a rainbow, you’ll have to position yourself so that you
turn your back to the sun, and you stand facing the rain clouds. Children’s
development is expanded through “experiences and understanding of people,
places, events and things” (MoE, 1996, p.21). Through observing and searching
from Internet, the children widened their horizon and intuitively knew about
the rainbow.
As we know, children are inherently curious and
interested in exploring new resources, materials, experiences and
occasions. They play and create with no end in mind. When children became
familiar with the rainbow, they want make their own one. So I provided CD,
torch and silver paper for them and made our own rainbow. They felt so
exciting. Although our rainbow was not gorgeous, but the successes rainbow made
must be get strong sense about scenic and technology. 
Carter, M.
(2010, July/August). Drive through training. Exchange, 61-63.
Craft, A.,
& Jeffrey, B. (2004). Creative
practice and practice which fosters creativity. In L. Miller & J. Devereaux
(Eds.). Supporting children's
learning in the early years (pp. 105-112). London, UK: David Fulton.
Ministry of Education. (1996). Te whāriki, he
whaariki mātauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa : Early childhood curriculum.
Wellington: Learning Media.
Mumford, M.
D. (2003). Where have we been, where are we going? Taking stock in
creativity research. Creativity Research Journal, 15, 107–120.
What's a
rainbow? Google research retrieved on 12 September from http://dit_papa.pagesperso-orange.fr/us/dprep04u.htm
Nihao Hui
ReplyDeleteRainbow wow!! I really enjoy reading your blog. It is really interesting to see how much learning children get from the technological experience. I admire the way you extend children’s interest on the rainbow by providing them CD and torch. It was great learning experience for children as well for you. I personally learnt a lot from your reflection about the rainbows. I realised that non digital and digital technology can enhance early childhood practice when integrated into the environment, curriculum and daily routines. Reading through your post I have realised that as a teacher it is very important to work out teaching strategies about appropriately implementing technology in our daily practice to meet the social, physical, and cognitive needs of young children. Before taking the course, my understanding of technology was very narrow and limited only to electronic and digital resources. From the class discussion and readings about technology, my perspectives on technology changed and now I feel that technological materials and resources are helping us teachers and children as well in our daily teaching and learning. I really love your blog and I want to implement this learning experience with children in my centre.
Good work!!
Kiaora MIT Hui.
ReplyDeleteNice reflection I like the way you have extended children’s learning from nature to science. Well done, being a science student, I always want to do something related to science in my centre. After reading your blog I thought it was a very easy way to introduce such areas of learning. And it was only because of technology. I can remember the day when I used to go to school and saw the rainbow first time. I asked my grandma, what it is, She said, “It is a bridge that God has made”. But it so good to read your blog about rainbow. You have given such a logic way of learning things Good work. I like the way you incorporate technology as a tool of learning things. You gave the children an opportunity to see rainbow on the internet and made them understand by experimenting with them using torch and CD. As TeWhāriki states that children experience an environment where they learn strategies for active investigation, thinking, and reasoning (Ministry of Education,1996). You can extend the children’s learning by doing some colour mixing activities, by teaching Maori names for the colours. You can also extend their counting by questioning “how many colours are there”. And you can also encourage the children to make use of technology on their daily basis.
Hi Hui, your rainbow concept is bit impressive than the normal technology. Generally children knew about the rainbow, whereas you have gone ahead to explain in detail. You helped to extend our understanding of how rainbow linked to technology. I like the way you extended children’s interest in the concept of describing nature in the form of technology and art. These moments could be valuable teaching and learning techniques as teachers can learn alongside with the children through a variety of technologies. The way you have encouraged the children reality into creativity to design rainbow themselves which enhances children’s capability to draw pictures. I was just thinking further the children’s skills at the painting table. Allow the children to design their creations by drawing. By doing this children will get the independence to bring their internal artistic skills or drawing skills which promote more literacy. I think it is really important to give children the opportunity to use skills such as thinking, problem solving and questioning as a way of being able to express their ideas about the rainbow and its creation. You have given such a huge insight on how technology is everywhere and available to the children.
ReplyDeleteHello Hui
ReplyDeleteI found your blog about rainbows very refreshing because it was something that I had not actually given much thought. I like the way that you supported children and introduced to a wider knowledge base through the use of the internet. I thought it was great, the way you shared information with the children without the assumption that they might not understand the scientific terms. This blog had a lot of learning for me because in the last couple of weeks I had heard the toddlers discussing rainbows because every afternoon we had rainbows form on our walls due to the sunlight passing through the curtains but till I read your blog I would never have actually thought of extending that interest through the use of internet. When I think about it and read your blog it make absolute sense and I think to myself why did I not consider something like that and now I realise that that I have some reservations about using internet with children because I worry about inappropriate sites opening up. Your blog has enable me to become more proactive and actually explore more ways of making internet more accessible to children and me educating myself about how to make internet safe and fun for children to use. Thank you very much Hui because I am so motivated now to encourage other teachers to join me and explore how the use of internet can actually enhance our curriculum.