410 k4d942
 

k4d942 the importance of creativity in learning and in enabling children to discriminate and make connections between different objects and experiences

can anyone put this in simple terms - does it mean the difference experiences ie if playing with playdough they may say they can rolling and describe how it feels, whereas say playing with gloop its runny, slimy, gooey, i can roll it

Am i on the right lines or not

any help much appreciated -

if i can be of any help on 401 and 402 just ask as both units been passed off

Maria

Hi, yes in a way.

There's a fine line between all children's discriminating for choice, their making decisions, judgements, knowing about equality, anti biased practice/actions or behaviour, not being prejudice, acting on impartial information.

This knowledge appears to explore or ask why children would choose one thing over or against another and what that choice would be based on - experience, a preference for and against and personal knowledge, all of which is accessed through creative activity and learning.

The word discrimination isn't always negative when applied to choice and inanimate objects/situations, it helps risk taking and avoiding harm eg. a child with a group of friends may choose to play on the playground's slide rather than the swings and be overly defensive/apologetic/uncertain if challenged over that decision - until asked objectively why, their reasons for descrimination/discriminating against the swings may never be known. In this example it's possible that local cats and dogs frequent the chipping floor using it as a toilet, cleaning up doesn't seem to happen and the child had had the experience of standing in some.

To link this to k4d942 the objects in this example would be: poo, the flooring area, swing, slide - the connections are that something/cats or dogs have pooed on the floor beneath/around the swings and the experience could be that standing accidently in poo smells bad, causes negative/unwanted reactions from others, is hard to get rid of, prevents continuing with play. Resulting in the slide being a prefered choice and the swings being descriminated against.

Other smaller more focussed activities could be creative play and learning about using fixative resources - sticky tape, sticky paper or labels, glue, foam pads, paint, paper folds, string. Having experienced what each offers on previous occasions children can make decisions that disciminate more reasonably against individual fixatives and their attributes, capabilities and properties. eg. Stickers won't stay put on the surface of a fine sand collage so would be discriminated against as a choice for naming the front of a sand picture.

For dough play, you may find dough is discriminated against because of its appearance - colour, texture, smell, size, it's temperature or maybe the quantity provided for the group or for invidiuals.

Object = dough - connections could be the child's knowledge of knowing its doughplay day! Everyone played with blue dough last week, making rolled out seas and pirate princess boats, an activity/experience they would very much like to repeat, but this weeks dough is red has glitter in it and smells funny. It would be very easy to falsely discriminate against the red dough thinking it wouldn't offer the same opportunities for enjoying creative/imaginative play.

One importance is being able to help children distinguise between discrimination that protects, safeguards and discrimination that puts up barriers to taking part or being a part of.

Hope this all helps a little xx

K4d942
 

many thanks ruth for answering my question
i have gone back to this question after further research and questioning my own practice and can now see the wood for the trees so to speak and your explanation makes much more sense now in the light of review what you have stated
such things as different colour playdough have noticed the children's reactions like you say

many many thanks :With love: