Orientation
Course Project: Strategies Box
Focus
As a child care provider, it is essential that you understand and plan activities that promote children’s physical, intellectual, language, social, emotional, and creative development. Where you can, you should promote children’s development in multiple areas at the same time.
As you work through CCS3130, you will be given some prompts to add to the strategies box you started in CCS3120. It is your responsibility to continue working on your strategies box, regardless of whether or not you see a prompt. You will work on your strategies box throughout the course, and you will submit it as your project at the end of the course.
Directions
Important: As you read about prop boxes in Providing for Play later in this course, consider how you might decorate the outside of your strategies box in ways that reflect the purpose of a strategies box and that are fun and engaging for children.
Step 1: As you work through CCS3130, you will continue to construct the strategies box you started in CCS3120. This time, the items and strategies included in the box need to focus on all areas of SPICE of Life: social, physical, intellectual, creative, emotional, and language development.
As you learn about children’s social, emotional, and creative development in CCS3130, look at the items and strategies you created in CCS3120. Consider how those items and strategies might also impact children’s social, emotional, and creative needs. In addition to revisiting the items and strategies you created in CCS3120, you will need to add new items and strategies to the box as you progress through CCS3130.
This is an example of an item that could be included in a strategies box. The strategies would be as follows:
- Read Bertie’s Big Blue Binoculars with the children. While reading, ask open-ended questions about the book, such as, “What do you think Bertie might see next?”
- Provide the materials needed for children to make pretend binoculars.
- Take the children on a nature walk so they can use their binoculars to view examples of nature, such as birds, flowers, leaves, and so on.
These activities will promote development in the following areas: social, physical, intellectual, creative, emotional, and language.
Step 2: Upon completing CCS3130, your strategies box should include items you could use with children to promote their physical, intellectual, and language development.
Your box should meet the following requirements:
- The box is the right size to fit the contents.
- It is able to safely hold the contents.
- It is clearly identified as a strategies box—this does not mean that the box must be labelled “Strategies Box.”
Your box should include a minimum of 20 items that are
- creatively constructed from everyday, household objects (The items must not be purchased from a store.)
- appropriate and safe for use by young children who are under supervision in a child care centre
- reflective of course content (They are relevant to the developmental areas and milestones.)
- original
Important: The 20-item minimum is inclusive of items and strategies you developed for CCS3120.
For each item or strategy, you must do the following:
- Explain how the item can be used with a child or group of children who are between the ages of 0–6 years old.
- Identify which areas (physical, intellectual, language, social, emotional, and creative) will be developed as the child interacts with the item. If it is a physical area that is being developed, indicate whether fine or gross motor skills are being developed.
Your strategies can be communicated by any of the following mediums:
- written or spoken words
- pictures or diagrams
- demonstrations
- a combination of some or all of the above
Step 3: As you work on your strategies box, review the Student Rubric for Course Project: Strategies Box. Assess your work and make any necessary adjustments.
Important: Your peer or friend does not need to be a classmate in your CCS3130 course.
Step 4: Share the items and strategies included in your strategies box with a peer or a friend. Give your peer or friend the Peer Rubric for Course Project: Strategies Box. Have your peer or friend assess your work, and then make any necessary adjustments.
Checking In
At the end of this course, save your self-assessment in your course folder. Share your strategies box and your
self-assessment with your teacher.