Nursery World - Building Your Curriculum: Knowledge, Part 2

Thinking and talking about curriculum in early childhood education involves recognising, valuing and building on children’s knowledge, explains Professor Elizabeth Wood

Children learn in multi-modal ways, including sensory perceptions. Photos at N Family Club, London Fields by Anna gordon

The week my daughter learned to crawl, she made her way into the hall and towards the kitchen. She stopped abruptly at the threshold as her hand touched the unfamiliar vinyl on the kitchen floor, then spent some time repeatedly touching carpet-vinyl, first with one hand, then the other.

This was a moment of deep concentration and focused attention, and she gradually moved both hands, then upper body into the kitchen, each movement followed by a pause, as if checking that the new surface was different in texture but had the same property, as in ‘OK to crawl on’.

I went into the kitchen, knelt in front of her and mirrored her movements. I am not sure if she needed this scaffolding of emotional reassurance, but she moved across the threshold and began the next adventures of exploring another interesting space with any number of new possibilities.

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