The Aeon Learning Journeys Blog

The past year has highlighted the importance of mental health for all of us*. Our structured, busy and technology-driven world doesn’t leave much space for winding down and tuning in. At Aeon we seek to nurture every child’s creative spark and we believe that Nature Play & Creativity are the best tools for the job.
Following the science and our hearts we provide opportunities for extended Nature play, which encourages the joy of movement, nurtures wild imaginations, experimentation, and social connection with real academic benefits*
By encouraging creative exploration we support children to find enjoyable ways to express their thoughts, feelings and ideas through art,  storytelling & roleplaying.
Our Creative programs don’t push students to ‘be the best’ or ask them to put on a show for others, instead they allow children to explore who they are, and how they see the world and to appreciate themselves as active agents in their own learning journeys.
Your kids can reap all these benefits while at home too. Take the time to help them collect some natural materials while out on a walk. Let them use whatever art materials are available at home and give them a little bit of mess friendly space, then let their imagination soar. For more inspiration let them explore the creative gems at Aeonline.
* the National Wildlife Federation, Back to School: Back Outside (Coyle, 2010).
* come to our Good Times in the Garden open day Saturday 30th October.

“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity”

 -Kay Redfield Jamison

The ‘Sparks’ children have enjoyed the ‘Market Place’ activity this term. The aim was to create a supermarket setting using play food, empty food containers with prices, play money, and toy cash register.

This grocery store dramatic play is always a huge crowd-pleaser for our Sparks since they are familiar with this routine. They often have rich life experiences with it and are able to act it out in complex and engaging ways. 

During group time, we learnt about the value of dollars and cents. We started by introducing the proper use of monetary values as would be used in real life situations, which includes some concept of the mathematical process of getting change out of an amount and why. Single digit prices have been successfully used, for example getting two dollars back after purchasing an item that cost $3 from a $5 note. Although the Sparks children are well aware of the use of money in real life, many of them for the first time appreciated the concept of budgeting a limited amount of money to use for their needs. In this way, we use mathematics in a practical way that allows children to see how useful numbers are in their everyday life.

 By engaging in dramatic play, children in Sparks have enhanced their social skills and their ability to negotiate spaces and roles, cooperating to keep the play happening, acting out roles and situations. Furthermore, they are developing their literacy skills by asking and answering questions, using language related to a role they are playing e.g., “May I take your order?” or “How much is this”. 

During this experience children have questioned the option of paying using their phone and credit card as they were imitating what they were experiencing at home which demonstrated their ability to adopt what they have learnt from one environment to another. 

What next: We will continue to incorporate dramatic play experiences such as market place with the aim to build mental flexibility – an important executive function skill.