I often ask teachers to describe emergent curriculum or play-based learning. Most teachers will tell me it’s about following the lead of the child, or some version of this.
When I ask how do you do this, or what does it look like, I get blank stares.
Most people like order. Most people want to feel in control. But early childhood programs often feel like chaos. The children don’t listen. They don’t know how to use materials. The parents make demands, and they’re usually not developmentally appropriate or aligned with your program’s philosophy or policies.
Non-early childhood people visit our programs and see children randomly moving around the room and toys all over the floor. It’s loud. There’s probably a child crying somewhere in the room. There’s probably a child getting a diaper changed or with their pants at their ankles because they just finished using the potty. There’s usually at least one child singing a random song.
CHAOS! But to us, this is organized chaos!
What emergent curriculum is not
Great! I’m all for that.
Then, she showed me what they had created the day before. It was a list of weekly “themes” they were going to use to ground their curriculum. Each week of the year was assigned a theme. The entire school year was mapped out and looked something like this:
- All about me
- Pets
- Space
- Transportation
- Holidays – inserted throughout the year
- Insects
- Arctic animals
Ruh-roh.
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