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During my visit I realize that the project approach is possible in a school age program.
The children are old enough to direct their own learning and with the materials available
seem readily able to do this. Rose and the other teacher in the room do not seem to be too
involved in moving the project along in terms of recording children’s questions,
predictions and conversations. There is not a meeting time planned the day I visited. I
know from my interview with Rose that this is usually done at the beginning of a project
to discuss possible topics. With the time constraints of a school age program and the
intrusion of homework and the real need of these children just to play and socialize (i.e.
the card players) I realize that there are limitations to doing emergent curriculum with
school agers. However, I think with reflection Rose can think of some ways to get around
this and it would be interesting to bring a deeper level of documentation into the project.
Narrative of Experience
Visit to XXXX Child Care Centre
March 12, 2004
When arrive in the room at 9:30 am I find myself struggling to record my observations as
there is so much happening at once. The room is beautiful in its design. There is a natural
ambience created with the use of fabric, colour and natural materials. It should have
calming effect but what is going in the classroom is anything but calm. The activity level
of the children is high; they move around the room, they engage in conversation with
each other and the teachers Mary, my research participant and Franca, the classroom
assistant. There is also a supply teacher in the room that I suspect was brought in to
provide support to Mary because of my presence. The children overall are very physical;
they crawl, roll, flop and move around at what seemed to be a constant level. I am
relieved when Mary calls the children to the carpet for a meeting time which begins at
9:40 am.
The children gather on the carpet. Some in our field would describe this time as “circle.”
Mary calls it “our meeting time.” The children are not in any particular formation. The