Preschool teachers participate in education course
For some people, a preschool education is little more than learning to colour between those potty training trips to the bathroom. But as News Five’s Kendra Griffith reports, those first years are crucial to a child’s overall development.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
These toddlers may be playing, but according to the experts at the Early Childhood Education and Development Centre, they are also learning.
Delda Blades, Resource Coordinator, ECEDC
“We need to realise that for a young child they learn by playing, so play is the child’s learning at that age and it’s through playing that they learn to develop their finer muscles, like when they play in the sand area or water area.”
For the past four weeks, thirty-two preschool teachers from across the country have been learning how to set up play areas as part of courses in early childhood development; social, physical and cognitive development; and arts and crafts.
Sherilee McKenzie, CDC Preschool
“We learnt a lot of things that we didn’t know about children, like how they develop and how they grow, different learning styles that you could teach to them and so on.”
Delda Blades
“It’s a part of the requirement for them to teach in the preschool, so they had to come in and do this training. And today we are displaying some of the works that they’ve done throughout the five weeks and they also have what we call the setting of a model pre-school. The different activity corners are set up here. These are some of the things that we are expecting to find in a preschool when we visit.”
Leoni Taylor, Coastland Community Preschool, Dangriga
“Our corner that we displayed today is the water area, which is a very good area for the children. They love the water, like to play in it, they like to splash, they like to make bubbles.”
“Since I came to this training I learnt a lot and I learnt that all of the corners are very important because the children have independent choices to play at different times.”
Sherilee McKenzie
“When they get enough from playing all the areas and they want a place just to relax, they can come over to the quiet area, they could go and take a nap, they get any storybook of their choice, they picture read, and they could play games, and puzzles to enhance learning.”
Kendra Griffith
“Is it difficult being a preschool teaching handling so many young children?”
Sherilee McKenzie
“It is not difficult, but it’s a lot of work and you have to have a lot of patience and you have to love your job.”
Esther Savery, Light of the Valley Preschool, Dangriga
“The reason why they misbehave sometimes is because you don’t have things for them do, so if you keep them occupied they more than likely will just be a little more relaxed.”
“The size of my preschool might not be enough to hold all these corners, which is expected because since we’ve been here they have been telling us that these corners are the corners that they are expecting to see when they get there, but then we’ll just try to incorporate with the space that we have.”
According to the Ministry of Education, children as young as two years nine months can enrol in preschool. Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.
The preschool training programme is held annually for teachers countrywide.
