Why “Hot Wathers” is a Win: Invented Spelling in Early EAL | EarlyChildhoodEduNet Why “Hot Wathers” is a Win: Invented Spelling in Early EAL Understanding invented spelling in early EAL became real for me on a chilly Tuesday afternoon in Melbourne, watching my five year old daughter sit hunched over our kitchen table. Her grey…
Mapping Identity and Belonging: Why EAL Progress Starts at the Home Core | EarlyChildhoodEduNet Mapping Identity and Belonging: Why EAL Progress Starts at the Home Core Five year old Zara sat on the edge of the mat, her hands tucked neatly into the lap of her dress. Around her, twenty four kindergarten children were singing…
Identity and Belonging: How a Multilingual Child Processes Their Expanding World | EarlyChildhoodEduNet Mapping Identity and Belonging: How a Multilingual Child Processes Their Expanding World The morning chatter in the kindergarten room was loud and cheerful, a flurry of boots being unzipped and wet raincoats hung onto low wooden pegs. Five year old Zara stood…
What Should I Wear Today? EAL Weather Vocabulary Routines | EarlyChildhoodEduNet “What Should I Wear Today?” Using Weather Drawings to Build Daily Conversational English Building practical EAL weather vocabulary in early childhood rarely happens by sitting down with flashcards or memorising lists. For young multilingual children, real language takes root when words are tied directly…
Early EAL Learning: How Moving Climates Build Environmental Vocabulary | EarlyChildhoodEduNet Early EAL Learning: How Moving Climates Build Environmental Vocabulary Our journey with early EAL learning began the moment we stepped off the plane in Melbourne, swapping the warm, predictable rhythms of Jakarta for a cold October drizzle. Back in Jakarta, weather was a simple…
From Jakarta to Melbourne: What My 5-Year-Old’s Drawings Taught Me About Early EAL Learning | EarlyChildhoodEduNet From Jakarta to Melbourne: What My Five-Year-Old’s Kindergarten Drawings Taught Me About Early EAL Learning The rain in Melbourne hits the tin roof differently than it does in Jakarta. In Jakarta, downpours are loud, warm, and brief, a sudden…
How to Bring Play-Based Learning In Without Losing Structure | EarlyChildhoodEduNet Story-Based Learning How to Bring Play-Based Learning In Without Losing Structure On why play and structure keep getting treated as opposites, when they’re not. Play-based learning gets misread two different ways, and both miss the point. One version pictures kids just wandering around a…
The Storytelling Wheel: A Simple Template for Narrating Stories | EarlyChildhoodEduNet Story-Based Learning The Storytelling Wheel: A Simple Template for Narrating Stories On blank-page freeze, and why a little structure helps a story come out. Ask a small child to “tell me a story” and you’ll usually get one of two things. Either dead silence,…
How to Build Literacy Skills Without the Drill-and-Kill Feeling | EarlyChildhoodEduNet Story-Based Learning How to Build Literacy Skills Without the Drill-and-Kill Feeling On repetition, why it stops working, and what to do instead. You’ve probably seen it happen. A child traces the letter A once, cheerfully. By the third time in the same sitting, the…