Activity Plan

Preliminary Information:

Name of Student Educator: _Grace Boden_____________________________________

Curriculum Area: Dramatic Play___ Developmental Domain: Social-Emotional___

Descriptive Title of Activity: Crazy Cars and Construction

Indoor: ______ Outdoor: _ Yes__

Age of Children: __2 ½ - 4 ______

Date of Implementation: _Thursday February 23 , 2017__

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Resources Used to Prepare Plan (in APA format):

Beechey, J. (2017). Week 11 class #2 and week 6 class #1: Dramatic Play and Wrap Up

Dramatic Play. Retrieved from Durham College, Curriculum Development II.

Ontario. (2007). Early Learning for Every Child Today: A framework for Ontario early childhood

settings. Toronto, ON: Ministry of Children and Youth Services.

Children’s Resource or Storybook (in APA format, to be used as part of activity-

before/after/extend/enhance learning):
Litton, J. (2014). Zoom. Wilton, CT: Little Tiger Press

Part I – Planning
Rationale for the activity (sentence form):
The children seem to be interested in building structures out of blocks and playing with cars,
sometimes they will play with cars on top of the structures they have built. My aim with this
activity is to expand upon those interests in cars and constructing things, combine them, and
provide them with new and different materials with which they can use, pretend and play with.

Cognitive: Representation
ELECT 4.3 (page 52)
Specific Skills: Pretending to be someone else, dramatic playing with plot and imaginative
features, constructing 3D models, Using a variety of materials to build with and express their
ideas, generating alternative ideas, recognizing their own work and the work of others, taking a
role in socio-dramatic play; cooperating and negotiating rules with others, and sustaining and
extending their socio-dramatic play with language, additional ideas and props.

Social/Emotional: Co-operating
ELECT 1.6 (page 44)
Specific Skills: Exchanging ideas and materials during play, taking part in setting and following
rules and inviting others to join them in play, listening, thinking and responding appropriately as
others speak during group time, engaging in group decision making, and accepting that what
the majority want will be followed by the entire group.
Physical: Gross and Fine Motor Skills; Walking, Jumping, Hopping, Galloping, Riding, Tool Use
ELECT 5.2 & 5.3 (pages 58-60)
Specific Skills: Increasing in coordination, sped and endurance, beginning to walk with opposite
leg-arm swing, jumping increases in co-ordination, hopping on one foot increases, galloping and
on-foot skipping emerge, steering riding toys, riding in a car smoothly, and using tools.

Learning Materials needed:

Toy cars and other vehicles, plastic scooping and building tools, real tools, nails, screws, nuts,
bolts, thick wooden boards, construction toys, drivable toy cars, wearable box cars, pretend
hand-held street signs, big pylons, small pylons, toy blocks and roads to build with, sensory
table filled with dirt with attached digger.

Description of Set-Up:
This activity will consist of three different activity centres and a road for the drivable and box
cars. The first activity centre will contain the real tools, wooden boards, nails, screws, nuts and
bolts. This centre will need constant, consistent, involved supervision from a teacher and
should be on a table. The second activity centre will consist of the sensory table of dirt with
attached digger, the construction vehicles and some of the plastic tools. The third centre will
consist of the various building blocks and roads, the small pylons, the smaller toy cars and the
rest of the plastic tools. The second and third activity centres should be relatively close to each
other to allow the children to combine the materials however they want to if they want to. The
first centre however should be separate from the other two and the real tools should not leave
the table. The road pathway should be completely clear and (hopefully) dry to allow the children
in their cars to drive along. This part of the activity will also contain the handheld street signs
and the big pylons. The activity centres should be and remain completely clear of the road path,
but should be viewable from the road.

Guidelines to Foster Self-Regulation:

-Keep all of the real tools at the table.
-Be careful of others in their cars and walking around.
-Make sure to look both ways when you cross the road.
-Keep the toys off of the road.

Health or Safety Considerations:

-Ensure that the real tool centre is constantly supervised by a teacher in an involved way.
-Ensure that at least one other teacher is monitoring the rest of the activity centres and the road.
-This activity should only be done in nice weather (not cold, snowy, raining or extremely windy).

Part II – Implementation

Invitation (aimed at getting children’s attention and interest):

As and before the children are getting ready to go outside tell them that there is a special
activity waiting for them outside. When the children get outside show them all the various
activity centres, teach them the the Guidelines written above and then let them go to whichever
activity they would like to go to.

Teaching Steps (detailed and clear):

1. Use the invitation to get the children’s interest before they go outside and to explain the
guidelines to them.
 2. For as long as there is at least one child at the real tool activity centre, a teacher needs
to be actively supervising and involved at that centre.
3. The other teacher(s) should monitor the other activity centres and the road, ensuring that
the children are playing with the materials safely.
4. Engage with the children, play with them and follow their lead. Also ask them
wonderment questions and suggest new ways to use the materials.
5. When the time to be outdoors is over ask the children to all clean up what they were
playing with, putting it all away in the appropriate bins, bags and boxes, then have the
children line up at the fence to go inside. Once inside, talk to the children about what
they just did and read them the book.
6. Use the closure and transition to dismiss the children to unstructured play.
Wonderment Questions:
1. What can you build with these?
2. What can you do with that tool?
3. What can this machine do?
4. Where are you going in your car?

Closure:
“In this activity we built things out of blocks and made roads, we played with little cars and big
cars that you got to go inside of and move around in! We used fake tools and even real tools,
and we dug in the dirt with construction machines, diggers and shovels.”

Transition:
When the book is over, state the closure and then one by one ask the children what they did
outside with the materials. Once they have stated what they did they are dismissed to either
wash their hands for lunch or begin engaging in unstructured play in the classroom.

Ways in which the following are incorporated into this activity:

i) Creativity:
This activity promotes creativity because the children could use the materials provided to them
however they wanted to. They can build whatever sort of structure or design they want to out of
the blocks and street pieces, they could interact with the tools, cars, and dirt however they
wanted to and use their imaginations to come up with whatever they want. This activity merely
provides the materials and guidelines, it is entirely up to the children what they do with them.

ii) Inclusiveness:
This activity fosters inclusiveness because there were multiple different activities which the
children can engage in depending on where their interests lie. If a child likes to build, they can
build, if they like to play with cars they can, if they want to run around and be a car they can, if
they want to pretend to be a construction worker they can, if they just want to play in the dirt
they can, if they want to see what it’s like to use real tools they can do that as well. There are a
variety of different things which the children can do with these materials, this activity is entirely
open-ended.
C –Self-Reflection of Student Educator’s Learning / Performance

**Must be completed before the cooperating teacher’s evaluation

Strengths:
(how did the student impact the success of the activity minimum of 2)
This activity ended up having to be done inside and I feel that I adjusted to the new situation
well. I had to make use of entirely different materials than the ones I was planning on using
outside, despite this the activity still went very well and I’m happy with how it turned out.

I feel that I set up the activity well, setting out the materials for the children one by one, clearing
away activities in the classroom which they were no longer interested in and setting out my
materials for them. This is how a real activity plan would be implemented in my own classroom
and I enjoyed having that sort of experience.

Recommendations:
(what can the student do differently to change, improve, enhance the experience
– minimum of 2)
If I ever decide to implement this activity again I would really like to actually try it outside, as it
was originally intended to be implemented.

I would have prefered to get more involved with the children as they were playing, I spent much
of my time surveying the classroom and fixing the children’s cars and I didn’t really get to
interact with them in their play as much as I would have liked.
_________________________________________________________________________

D - Cooperating Teacher’s Evaluation: (Please include signature and

date)
**To be completed after the student has self-reflected.
Part III Reflective Practice
The Learning Story:
Zoom, zoom, zoom!

Cognitive: Representation
ELECT 4.3 (page 52)
The children seemed to have a lot of fun pretending to be cars, running around the classroom
and pretending to be construction workers. Some of the children even brought some tools
over to a different centre where there were blocks set up and began pretending to build them
while wearing construction hats.

Physical: Gross and Fine Motor Skills; Walking, Jumping, Hopping, Galloping, Riding, Tool
Use
ELECT 5.2 & 5.3 (pages 58-60)
The children ran around the classroom in the little cardboard box cars I made for them. All of
the cars were always being used at all times. The children handled the tools very well. They
used the plastic tools in the appropriate ways, they hammered with the hammer, pretended to
cut with the saws, twisted things with the wrenches and turned the screw drivers. They used
their fine motor skills very well.

Social-Emotional: Co-operating
ELECT 1.6 (page 44)
The children (for the most part) cooperated very well while engaging in this activity. When
they were finished using a boxcar they would either bring it to me or give it to another child
who wanted it. The children shared the tools with one another and began to solve their own
problems regarding what materials they wanted to use. The children respected what others
had built and did not destroy them, instead engaging in play with other children and what they
had already built.

Analysis of Learning:
(What did the child(ren) do and understand during this experience?)
The children built with blocks and train tracks, they used plastic tools, they ran their toy cars
across the ground, tables and structures they built, and they ran around inside of painted
cardboard cars. During this experience the children learned what they were capable of creating
and and that they can pretend to be whatever they want to be.

Extension of Learning:
(What opportunities will the student educator provide to extend on this experience?)
I left the box cars I made at the centre for the teachers in the room to continue to use and utilize
to further the children’s learning.