CHCECE018 Childcare: Building a Castle of Blocks for Skill Development

This CHCECE018 childcare assignment focuses on using building blocks to enhance various skills in children aged 2-3 years. The activity aims to develop creative, imaginative play, fine motor, intellectual, and cognitive skills through building a castle of blocks. The environment is arranged to provide easy access to materials, ensuring safety and hygiene. The activity is divided into three stages: demonstration, execution, and rewarding. The demonstration stage involves explaining shapes and sizes using artificial materials and real-world examples. The execution stage involves children building their castles, promoting teamwork and social interaction. Finally, children are encouraged to create stories about their castles and are rewarded with stickers and candies. The activity is reviewed for its effectiveness in fostering skills and development, exploring shapes, sizes, balance, and cultural understanding of different structures. The assignment also references various studies on social learning, teaching strategies, and cooperative learning to support its approach. Desklib provides access to this solution and many other resources for students.

CHCECE018
Childcare

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................4
Building Castle of Blocks...........................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY ......................................................................................................................................4
STAGES OF ACTIVITY............................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Building Castle of Blocks
Targetted audience - Above 2-3 years children
The Desired Outcome:
 The skills which are focused in this activity are creative, imaginative play, fine
motor skills, intellectual & cognitive skills. The desired outcome is considered to develop and promote growth of targeted skills
in children and improve their communication skills.
Materials:
 Blocks
 Small cubes, example- set of cubes, small coloured blocks.
 Artificial building materials
 Teaching aids
 Block materials such as people, cars, animals etc.
 Flash cards and Story books
 Motivational stickers Safety aids.
Time:
The time duration should be considered as for 45 minutes for one kid, for one set of four
kids at least 30 minutes.
MAIN BODY
How the environment is arranged:
 Play material within classrooms should be arranged systematically so that each and
every kid can able attain opportunities to consume. While staring activity each kid
should be allowed to come at front and can start building their selected shape.
 Classrooms and each toys should be sanitized by care givers as it can reduce
probability of reducing germs from spreading around.

 Bright lightening should be prefer while executing activity. The most desirable light
is natural light that comes from windows or doors. Temperature of room should be
kept moderated.
 The setup should be attractive for kids whereas the selection of blocks should not be
too complicated for them. The children are young in age, so there are possibilities of risk such as gulping or
eating blocks, so in that case, there should be strict inspection by teachers and care
givers.
STAGES OF ACTIVITY
Step 1- Demonstration
 The first stage of activity is to demonstrate the understanding of shape and sizes of
building and its material. Through the help of artificial materials, for example, “ See,
this what cement looks like, or this what brick is used to make building like our
school, in which, kids will allow to gain knowledge and learning of different types of
sizes, structures and shapes.
 To make concept more clear, use some examples which are present within the
classroom so it can provide practical vision to children. For example- “look, we will
construct a building similar to the shape of cupboard”, or “ we will make a castle for
child's name”.
 Allow them to speak and ask questions about concepts and respond to each queries
and also listen what they are interested to build. Moreover, prioritise children
preferences and choices while conducting activity.
Step 2- Execution
 The second step, introduce blocks and their structure to them, also provide
understanding how they get attach and de-attach and how to make bridge, straight
shape building etc.
 For better assistance, a teacher should make her own castle. It should be used as a
exemplary building for children and ask them to repeat teacher's steps, in order to
build their own castle as per their choice of colour and shapes.
 Meanwhile, a teacher should promote team work quality in children. Children should
be asked to work in a group.

 Elaboration of learning of leadership qualities, importance of social interactions
should be provided by teachers. Also, teacher can demonstrate the in understanding
and learning how people live in castle in form of story, that might be interesting for
kids to listen. Addition to this, provide ample of opportunities to kids to speak and express.
Step 3- Rewarding
 After they build their castle, allow them to make their own story of their castle
maximum four lines. In which they can speak about their castle such as, who lives
there, what they eat inside the castle, where they park their car and so on and then
reward them by giving stickers and candies as their winning price.
 It will make the activity more interesting and other kids will try to accomplish the
goal. Other questionnaire, that will include some questions such as “ who is standing
on top of your castle”, “who is going to guard your castle”, “ is that bridge in your
castle” and so on.
 It will allow several of opportunities to kids to take initiatives and speak in front of
class and may promote their self-esteem.
How the Activity will be reviewed
 The activity should be reviewed as effective because it highly aims on the goal that
is to foster skills and development of children.
 It provides ample of opportunities to each kid to explore a several forms of shape
and sizes, illustrating understanding of concept balance and stability through blocks,
building materials, determination of structures of homes in other cultures such as
Igloo, huts, buildings, bridges etc.

REFERENCES
Kendal, R. L., Boogert, N. J., Rendell, L., Laland, K. N., Webster, M., & Jones, P. L. (2018). Social
learning strategies: Bridge-building between fields. Trends in cognitive sciences, 22(7),
651-665.
Adediran, Y. O., & Ajiboye, J. O. (2020). Effects of Contextual and Service Learning Strategies on
Civic Attitudes of Junior Secondary School Students in Ijebu Land, Nigeria.
Multidisciplinary Journal of Language and Social Sciences Education (2664-083X, Online
ISSN: Print ISSN: 2616-4736), 3(1), 205-223.
Bensalah, L., & Caillies, S. (2020). High and low theory-of-mind scores of child-teachers: Which
teaching strategies are efficient?. Cognitive Development, 55, 100920.
Zbainos, D., & Beloyianni, V. (2018). Creative ideation and motivated strategies for learning of
academically talented students in Greek secondary school. Gifted and Talented
International, 33(1-2), 3-14.
Tran, V. D., Nguyen, T. M. L., Van De, N., Soryaly, C., & Doan, M. N. (2019). Does Cooperative
Learning May Enhance the Use of Students' Learning Strategies?. International Journal of
Higher Education, 8(4), 79-88.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Cook-Harvey, C. M. (2018). Educating the Whole Child: Improving
School Climate to Support Student Success. Learning Policy Institute.