Matty is at home with his mum looking at photos in an album. He draws his mum into conversation by referring back to the family events that were happening when the pictures were taken. He comments on a car that features in a photo and asks mum, 'Didn't we have a black car?'
Mum helps him remember the family cars he has known, and refers to them by colour. They talk about what happened when the old car was taken away and the new one arrived. The conversation switches easily from the past to the present as Matty makes links with the car he can see outside the window, and poses questions (and possible answers) about where daddy will park the car when he returns home from work.
Good Practice
1 Personal experiences are fundamental to conversations with children of this age.
Matty draws his mum into the conversation by pointing to the photos and commenting on what he remembers. Mum is soon looking at the photos with him and this joint attention leads to an extensive conversation about cars and trucks - a topic in which Matty is clearly very interested.
They are able to draw on their shared experience as mum helps him to remember the sequence of family cars he has known.
The strong relationships that grow between children and their key carers outside of the home are just as important for building shared memories. Think about how you record and document happy times in your settings, in ways which are readily accessible to the children and can be shared with their families. How do you encourage parents to share stories from home about events and experiences, so that you can respond knowledgeably when children want to talk about them with you?...
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