Sarah Riddell, early childhood teacher and blogger, returns to Amplify with this consideration of technology in documentation. While some in the sector remain vexed about the use of image captures for documenting children’s learning stories, Sarah takes a strongly practical approach and examines how educators could make technology work harder for them. With most of […]
Category: Provocation
Does ‘safe’ bush kinder lose meaning?
Amplify has often explored ways of thinking about outdoor education, with stories like this one on excursions, this one on nature and anxiety, and this one on children’s attitudes, among our most-read. We’ve also carried many reflections and provocations that point out the elephant in the room: trendy approaches that could do with deeper consideration, […]
Did you miss it? Top five from 2018
Welcome back to Amplify in 2019. We’re starting the year in traditional style, looking forward and back. Looking ahead, there’s a story tapping into the New Year resolutions many of you are making to improve your own and the children’s physical activity and guess what? Research is saying that improving educator and parent activity is […]
Australia vs the G20 on early childhood education’s value
Jennifer Ribarovski recently took a break from her 2018 Australian work travels and headed to Italy where she visited Reggio Emilia, and, among other things, had time to follow international news on the recent G20 summit. Her observations, penned in a transit lounge in Doha, are that Australia remains sadly out of step with other developed […]
Take a look at your book nook
We’ve reflected on at mud kitchens lately with fascinating results, so how about another must-have feature of the modern early childhood education service: the book nook? Like water play, quiet reading areas have been around for decades. But just as water play now often presents itself within the hip recycled timbers of a mud kitchen, for […]
Preschool graduation days, part two
Preschool Graduation Last week, Danielle Bopping shared part one of this two-part reflection + advice article about the practice of early learning graduation ceremonies. In the first part, Danielle set the context for graduations through the ages and the dressing up – for adults and children – that accompanies them. That article looked at the […]
Preschool graduations – who are they really for?
‘Tis the season to graduate preschool, or move ‘up’ a room… Danielle Bopping is one of Amplify’s original contributors and we’re always glad when she has time to put fingers to keyboard and share her thoughts. This is part one of a two-part reflection + advice article about the practice of early learning graduations. Are […]
Do you stand by the hand (print)?
Creative craft activity or craptivity? Another season, another round of educators vigorously sharing ‘so cute’ handprint craft activities in online professional groups, with an equally vigorous howling down from those opposing the practice as adult-directed and anti-children’s agency. It seems like a simple enough argument but the complications include this kicker frequently used by defenders of […]
The problem with mud kitchens is…
Nobody else but the rosebush knows How nice mud feels Between the toes. From the short poem Mud, by Polly Chase Boyden Mud, mud, glorious mud, goes the old music hall song*, and mud play in mud kitchens has become a standard feature of many early childhood services. ACECQA’s document for the Early Years Learning […]
Panoptica: workplace cameras
A new writer for Amplify, Ruth Harper, this week shares her view about the growing number of services with closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) to monitor activity inside the service during the day, not just for security out of hours. Ruth, of East West Childcare and Kinder in Fitzroy, Victoria, tested out her views on […]
