The children’s interests and questions lead the daily planning in K4. Children frequently ask questions and share some experiences of their home life and families, as well as develop their PSED and CL skills in school. All this while having loads and loads of fun!
During Bilingual time one day, Olivia wanted to talk to the class about a photo her Daddy had emailed in, which showed she had been making sweets from different coloured playdough at home.
We all agreed they looked good enough to eat even though they were not really sweets!
Some of the children wanted to make some too so we made playdough of our own and set up a tray of corn flour and water. Corn flour and water creates a beautiful viscous texture for children to experiment with and has the added bonus of changing completely overnight as it dries hard. More water magically transforms it as it becomes viscous again. In fact, it looked so delicious, some of the children decided to add brown paint to make it ‘chocolate sauce’.
During play, some of the children asked how real sweets were made, so we asked them what ideas they had. The list was long:
They are mixed together.
They have much sugar.
They come from the candy place.
It goes in a bowl.
You have to cook them.
Flour. Flour is in them.
There are lots of different sweets.
Chocolate is different.
I like chocolate but I like candy too.
Sweets are candy. It’s a different word.
We watched a short film of boiled sweets being made in a factory and read a lot of books. The children were fascinated with the way the sugar changed texture when it was boiled and they loved watching the sweet makers cutting the mixture with scissors. This became a new favourite occupation with the playdough mix. We were all amazed at how much sugar goes into making sweets.
Worried about how bad sugar can be, Emma brought in a book to share about a little boy who didn’t clean his teeth. This was a big help for us to remember why we clean our teeth, especially if we have been eating sweet things with sugar in. Now, a lot of children have decided to keep a toothbrush and paste at school to use after lunch. What a good idea!
As the children played, they talked about what made a sweet a ‘good’ sweet. Taste was important but they also said the sweets must look nice. So, we made a batch of green, red and blue playdough and divided into three teams. The children chose a colour each and set out to make their own sweets. As they worked, they decided what flavour their sweets were.
The Green Team said their flavours were dumpling flavour, kiwi flavour, apple, watermelon, rose flower flavour and surprise flavour!
The Red Team had strawberry flavour, red apple, vanilla flavour and raspberry.
The Blue team chose blue chocolate, minty flavour, pizza flavor, blueberry flavour, vanilla and mint flavour.
In the end, we decided the blue sweets were the best because they were the smallest and looked most like real sweets. “They would be easiest to sell,” said Alexander. What a good idea…
‘But if we sell them, they would have to be real,’ he added.
‘Well we can make some for real,’ suggested Maizy. ‘It would be easy!’
‘How much would you sell them for?’ the teachers ask.
‘One!’
‘A hundred!’
What good ideas…time to have another discussion!
It was a lovely time for us all to learn factual information and used our vivid imaginations. We developed our fine-motor skills and learned about the real world. We got creative, competitive and came up with lots of new ideas.
Oh, and if you want the recipe for playdough, just ask a 4-5 year old at YCIS!
K4B Co-Teachers – Anna KING & Kiwi CHEN