Child-Inspired Curriculum

If your child is a Bluebird, you might find her telling you, "At 10 o'clock, we eat snack."  Or your Bluebird son might bring home his drawings of clocks.  You might ask, "so your teacher thinks that it's high time you learnt to tell time?"  But you'd be wrong!  The Bluebirds have decided it's time to learn to tell time.  For the past month, the Bluebirds have been asking what time it is now, when do we go outside, and what time Mommy is coming.  They have been asking me to draw what the clock will look like when it's time for snack.  So, for the next few weeks, we will be spending a little time every day talking about clocks.  We will read some stories about daily routines and learn the school schedule.  Eventually, we will even make a big poster of the schedule with clock pictures instead of times, so the children can refer back to it.  Mostly, we will be focuses on the hours, but we'll try to do at least a little on quarter after, half after, and quarter-to the hour.  At first, I thought it might be a little difficult to teach time to children, especially in English.  But so far, they are really focused and enjoying it.  This is because they showed me they were ready and interested in learning to tell time.  Children are much more likely to learn something and learn it well if they have an interest in it.  At school, we try to watch the trends of the children.  What are they doing in free play?  What really interests them?  What books do they ask for over and over?  We try to take their interests and run with them.  And believe me, with a group of kids as creative and bright as we have, we'll never be at a loss for topics!