SMART CHOICE
SMART CHOICE
What you need
- A small range of task that focus on different areas such as:
- Literacy based tasks
- Fine motor skills
- Topic driven task
- Problem-solving
- Creative tasks
- Mathematical thinking
- Scientific thinking
- Notebook to record ideas
The idea of smart choice is to help your child(ren) develop focus and choice-making skills. It can also help your child(ren) develop skills that enable them to move beyond the
- ‘I’m bored’
- Requirement on you to entertain them
Develop a routine during the week where you put out 3 -5 things to do. Over a period of time (depending on your child(ren)s age(s) encourage your child
- To repeat something that they did yesterday. (Refine skills and re-jog thinking)
- To choose something new that interests them (Encouraging self-driven inquiry)
- To try something that they might not know anything about or think might be challenging.
*You may even get adventurous and have an outdoor smart choice. It can include things like
- Messy play
- Treasure hunt
- Observations and drawing
- Gardening
- Building
After they have done each of the things, have them record in the notebook/journal what they did. The reflection needs to be simple. A drawing of what they did and you can scribe some their ideas. As your child(ren) get more practices at smart choice, they will begin to self-monitor and change tasks. Giving you more time to do the things you need to do.
As your child(ren) get more experienced at reflecting and recording ideas, you can ask them to add a drawing that indicates what some of the things they did to explore during smart choice. Examples
- I used my hands
- I used my eyes
- I talked with someone
- I put pieces together, etc
