Joining In

Child/Tama: Mohammed Teacher/ Kaiako: Naema. Date: July/Hōngongoi, 2019

Mohammed, your last story was about how you have developed the understanding of the
centre’s routines and have been showing interest in taking responsibility to look after
yourself. Now you are putting your lunch box and drink bottle away without any assistance
and also helping the teachers to tidy-up. Today when you looked around and found the
Alphabet and the Arabic mixed letter blocks, you started stacking them on top of each
other. You found an odd wooden block alongside Fareeha and Abu-Bakr. You looked at it
carefully and said, “Teacher.” I asked “Yes, what is it Mohammed?” You said, “This.” I
encouraged you to look for the box where we put the wooden alphabet blocks. With some
support you found the box and put it there. I noticed you repeating a few words after me
like, “What is this?” and “wooden block.’

Today I was building blocks with Garen when you arrived. You stood by the sliding doors
quietly. When I greeted you I asked if you wanted to join us. You nodded your head I
encouraged you to ask Garen, “May I play with you?” You were very shy to ask but Garen
invited you to play with him. I saw a spark in your eyes. You joined in and put a few blocks
together I asked what you were building. You took out a small dinky car and drove through
the hole in the block on the other side. Garen got happy and said I am building a road. You
added a few more blocks and said, “Teacher look, this road”. I admired you having a fun
time playing alongside Garen and sharing your car with him. Then you found a pram and you
said, “Baby.” And put it on the blocks. I asked you what you were going to do with the pram.
You said, “walk.” Then you found a marble and rolled it through the hole to Garen. You put
the block in front and said, “Gate”. I asked what happened to the gate you said in Pashto:
“Bannd shoo.” (means closed.) I praised you for how you were building your imagination
and enjoying your play with Garen and added that I liked the way you rolled the marble to
Garen and closed the gate. I noticed you repeat the sentence. “close the gate.”

What is happening?
Observation shows Mohammed, you have been developing confidence in yourself to
communicate with the staff and children as you are using some words and nonverbal
gestures to make requests. You are able to express your ideas by sharing your toys enabling
you to extend your imaginative play alongside Garen.

How can we extend this learning?

Mohammed, your learning pathway for this term is to develop more confidence in yourself
to communicate with all the staff and children and gain confidence in expressing your,
needs, feelings and ideas. Staff will continue supporting you to gain confidence that your
first language ‘Pashto’ is valued, and you will be encouraged to increase your ability to use
English as a second language to communicate with others.
Parent’s contribution: