Daisie – ducks and geese Scroll to learning area

Two year old Daisie is out on a walk with her childminder. It’s a walk they’ve taken many times before and the things they see are becoming very familiar to Daisie. They chat about the ducks, geese and birds.

Good for looking at

• Supporting speech and language
• Sustained shared thinking
• Understanding the world
• Learning outdoors
• Going for walks

Two year old Daisie is out on a walk with her childminder. It’s a walk they’ve taken many times before and the things they see are becoming very familiar to Daisie. They chat about the ducks, geese and birds.

Notice

• What cues can you see that shows what Daisie is interested in? (Look out for non-verbal and body language as well as spoken language)
• How is Daisie learning? Which areas of development, engagement and characteristics of learning can you observe?
• In what ways is the adult supporting Daisie’s learning?
• How does the environment support Daisie’s learning?

Reflect

What are your thoughts about:

• How Daisie was trying to communicate?
• The role of the adult in this interaction – how did she support Daisie?
• The value of this type of conversation for Daisie?

Respond

What would you do to:

• Support Daisie’s communication and language development?
• Extend Daisie’s learning – e.g. what other animals could you explore?
• Model behaviours for young children and show how useful they are? For example having genuine conversations with young children, possibly where you learn something and so do they

What next:

• Do you need to encourage more of this kind of talk and conversation for the two year olds in your setting? Try to be aware of not asking too many questions that you already know the answers to, e.g. “What is that animal called?” “What colour is that?” and make it more of prompts such as “I wonder what that is?” or “I wonder why that happened?”