Thursday 27 November 2008

Map of Europe

Little-N is still engrossed in his map work. He's been learning countries all over the world, but I have focused more on Europe so that he knows the countries around him [Also because he has a mix of European blood and its fun to find all the countries in his ancestry] . Two days ago he took out the labels for European countries and labeled a blank map. Both I and my boss were speechless. How is it that he can read words like Portugal, Lithuania and Switzerland? How is it that he know where all these countries are were us as adults are still confused. To be honest I don't know and I never taught him that, all I did is give him the learning that lead to this. Now that he's reading and attempting writing, I realise he no longer needs my guidance as before as he is able to teach himself what his heart and mind desire.
The other day I noticed Little-N walking around the classroom with a piece of the Africa puzzle in his hands, he was showing it to all the children and naming it. I stepped closer to hear and he was saying this is 'Sudant'. He meant Sudan and had read it from the Atlas, however we have a boy in the nursery class called Sudant, so I guess Little-N was a little confused with how the name of the country is pronounced. It such a pleasure to see that he's learning on his own and teaching himself.
The pictures aren't very clear :(. The first shows some of the countries Little-N had matched by reading the named of the countries and matching them to a map of Europe without any clues. The second picture is a close up of the labels, I'm not sure if that is clear or not.

1 comment:

Annicles said...

What would you do next? At what point, as a directress do you step in to say "The next thing you could do is....." and how do you encourage the child to engage and when do you back off?!

I am very interested in this as we are balancing Montessori with EYFS and this can be the hard bit!!