Learning Story
Creative Day’s Pre-School
‘Car Race’
The children were playing with cars in the garden. Daniel brought the gutter pipe to
the sand pit and laid it into the sand. The children took turns pushing their cars along
it. Louis placed his car in it and lifted the end up high. ‘It goes fast!’ he said. The
children decided to put the end of the guttering on a chair to create an incline. ‘Lets
have a race’ said Zac
Teacher asked ‘How will they know which car is the fastest ?’ Zac said ‘we can count’. The
children counted ‘how many’ it took for the car to go to the end of the ramp. The
teacher suggested there is another way we can count time with a ‘stop watch’. Zac said
‘can I do it’
The teacher asked how will we record the times of each car ? Ava said ‘we can write it’.
Teacher helped Ava write the names each person wanted to call their car for the race and
the numbers for the time it took the car to reach the finish line.
Some cars went ‘fast ‘and some cars went ‘slow’. All the children had turns. The children
discovered the ‘small’ cars were the ‘fastest’ and the ‘big’ cars were the ‘slowest’.
We put the record in our class book with the photographs of the race. The children
all get turns to bring the class book home to show their Family.
The next day it was raining so we had a car race in the class room. We used the car mat
and put it up high with the easel .
Zac and Christian recorded the times of each car.
Learning and Development
Social Development
In this activity the children co-operate and work together as a group. They take turns, listen to each other
ideas and assign roles.
Emotional Development
The children are taking part in role play which builds their self esteem and confidence. They are sharing
ideas and experiencing being listened to by peers.
Cognitive Development
The children are developing problem solving skills as they think of ways to hold the pipe up and record
time. They are exploring concepts like speed, time , length and numbers. They make discoveries like small
cars go faster.
Physical Development
The children are developing their gross motor skills through carrying large pipe, bending and lifting. They
are also developing fine motor skills like hand-eye co-ordination , pincer and palmer grasp.
Language Development
The children are expanding their vocabulary through learning new words like ‘stop watch’ . Mathematical
vocabulary like ‘fast’ ‘slow’ ‘big’ and ‘small’. They are communicating their ideas non-verbally /verbally and
practising ways of recording. They are experiencing writing as purposeful and important.
Aistear and Siolta
Well Being
This activity gives the children the opportunity to
‘be strong psychologically and socially’. They
experience making choices about their own
learning and development. Discover, explore and
refine gross and fine motor skills. Express
themselves through a variety of types of play.
Show increasing independence, and be able to
make choices and decisions.
Aistear and Siolta
Identity and Belonging
This activity helps to build respectful
relationships. It helps the children feel they
have a place and a right to belong to the
group. They interact and work co-operatively
and help others.
Aistear and Siolta
Communication
In this activity the children are developing skills like
‘understanding and using non-verbal communication
rules ,such as turn taking and making eye-contact’.
They are using language with confidence and
competence for giving and receiving information ,
problem solving and imagining roles. They are building
an awareness that a variety of symbols (print ,
numbers) used to communicate , and understand that
these can be read by others. They are having
opportunities to use mark making materials in an
enjoyable way. They are developing counting skills and
mathematical language in different situations.
Aistear and Siolta
Exploring and thinking
The children are experiencing opportunities to engage,
explore and experiment in their environment and use
physical skills to manipulate objects. They are
developing a sense of time and coming to understand
concepts like height, length and speed in enjoyable
ways. They are using their experience and information
to explore and develop working theories about how
the world works. They are developing higher-order
thinking skills such as problem solving, predicting,
analysing, questioning and justifying.
Aistear and Siolta
Siolta
This activity demonstrates ‘The rights of the Child’ as they children experience their ideas being
valued and listened too.
This is an example of quality ‘Environments’ as they children have the outdoor space and materials
needed for this type of play and exploration.
The activity can also be used as an example of quality ‘Parents and Families’ as the children get an
opportunity to share this experience with their families through our class book . Parents and
Families views are valued and are encouraged to write comments in the book . This is also an
example of how we consult with parents and children around curriculum.
The children are given opportunities in this activity to experience positive ‘interactions’ with their
peers and adults. They are treated with respect and are given choices.
We practise a ‘play ‘based emergent ‘curriculum’ which is under pinned by theorist like Vygotsky
,who see children as interactive learners.
This is an example of the value of ‘planning and evaluation ’ as we give the children the space to
continue the ‘car race’ activity the next day. They also experience evaluating their own learning
through the class book and personal journey books.