Top 7 Steps to successful Aistear

Teaching the skills of successful learning through play!

How you introduce Aistear from the beginning is fundamental to it’s success for the rest of the year. You can have the most inviting and playful Aister areas set up but if the children do not have the basic skills to play successfully they may not be reaching those curriculum goals. 

As children mature so do the expectations we place on them. You need to allow children the time they need to adjustment from one learning environment to another. Just like every other area of a child's learning, there are stages to their learning development and developing their play skills is no different. 

From the start...

Avoid overwhelming children with rules of what they can and can't do. I take a back seat for much of the first month and allow spontaneous, unstructured child-initiated play experiences. If you saw me in my class during Aister in September you would quite often see me sitting quietly in the corner just observing discretely with a clipboard and pen in hand at all times. I do not interfere unless I need to. I just watch. You see, I am like David Attenborough observing the children in their most natural environment, and it is during this time that you will get to know your class best. You will very quickly learn who is shy, who is confident, who likes to take the lead, who struggles to communicate. Every kind of behaviour will come to light if you keep in the shadows those first weeks. The information you will gather by doing this incredibly valuable and will inform the development of your Aistear play. This is the most important focus of Aistear in the early days. If you really want to know what your difficulties will be, find them first. 

Step 1 - The Basic set-up

My first topic is a simple one - Myself and My Family. I keep the play areas basic in the first few weeks. Involving language that is already familiar to them and playful environments that they have likely experienced before. Nothing too new here. 

• A home role-play area
• Sand
• Small World
• Construction
• Playdoh

As the month passes the play areas evolve naturally. One very important rule is to allow them freedom to choose wherever they want to play. I do not assign groups to an area. If you want to observe true behaviour they need to be given freedom. So grab  your clipboard, sit back and watch... (I'd like to point out here that the best teaching does not involve you always leading the conversation, but you already know that of course) 

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” 
― Benjamin Franklin

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Step 2 - What to observe?

You will often hear me call The Aistear Hour, "My Assessment Hour". Good Assessment is key to good teaching, without it you may as well be teaching blindfolded. In the early days I try to focus on one or two observations a day using a simple check list and the occasional quick note. Below is an example of a few assessments I took this week.This is neat for me, normally my assessment sheets are annotated and covered little comments, a typical working document!

Here are a few observations I make in the early days. 

• Does a child play on their own or with others (this is often a worry parents have in the first days and weeks. So if they ask you if little Jimmy is playing with others you will be able to say straight up yes or no. If I had a cent for every time a child goes home and tells their grown-up no one played with them today...) 
• Does a child seem nervous?
• Can a child share?
• Can the child problem solve on their own?
• Can the child play gently with the toys?
• Can the child communicate using language or gestures?
• Can a child solve a conflict?
• Does the child move around different play areas?
• Does a child stick to the one area?
• Is a child mixing well?
• Can the child take turns?
• Who tidies up when asked and who continues to play?

You can download a copy of the assessment sheet here. Stick it to a clip board. I have various different assessment sheets depending on what I want to observe. They all follow some sort of check list/objective style. 

It's likely that some children will be super skilful players and some will struggle. Aistear will be the most beneficial way of learning for every child's style and there is nothing more rewarding than watching a child's confidence grow and communication skills develop.

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Step 3 - Have a focus skill for them to work on.

During the Aistear Hour the children nearly forget I'm there. Which is great because the classroom really becomes their own child-led learning environment where they feel comfortable to be themselves. Once you have identified problem areas in their play, select one or two to be the focus of the next Aistear Hour. E.g. Explain to the children that today you want them to really try hard to...
1) Try to play in a group of two or more (I tell them they have a much better chance of learning something new today if they have someone else to learn from)
2) Use topical vocabulary we discussed in a teacher lead role-play scenario in a previous language lesson.
When I'm doing a observation day with a focus, the only time I speak is to make 'Spot Praise' If I see a child modelling a good behaviour I immediately throw praise their way. What I said today included:

"Well done Mark! you're using the 'family words' we learnt! I heard you say aunty and uncle" (important to repeat the focus vocabulary back)
"Peter, well done for playing in a group today! I'm really proud of you!"

At the end of a focus session allow a few minutes for Focus Goal Feedback. Let the children know who did well and what it was they did well. Dish out some stickers and make sure they tell their grown-up what they did well today. We want these skills to be brought home!

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Step 4 - **Tidy up** - Aistear won't happen until they get this happening!

Teaching the children to tidy up properly may well be the breaking of you. Get this right from the start and Aistear will become the highlight of your day. I always tell the children "If you can do it right once, you can do it right every time!" 
So here is what I do for any time of day where we have to tidy up. Assuming you have already observed who is good at tidying up and who is likely to continue playing, you will have a "watch list". 

• I give the children a 2 minute warning so they can finish up any play (use a timer on the board if you need to). It is important to allow them this time. 
• I have my clean-up Jingle bell (I only use this bell for tidying up, I have two different bells that make different sounds, and mean different things) the children know to stop and freeze when they hear it.
• While the children are frozen I say the same thing I say everyday:

"Remember... However long it takes you to clean up today will decide how long we spend on clean up tomorrow. If it takes you a long time, you will have less Aistear tomorrow. If you clean up well, you will have extra Aistear tomorrow."

• Set a timer on the board if you need to, add a countdown if you want to encourage them. But quality of tidy up is important. If you spot a child continuing to play take note. If certain children are really good at tidying up tricky areas take note (you may later assign them to that area). Help model good tidying up. If they tidy up well let them know it and spot praise anyone who is doing well, others will copy! At the end of a tidy up that was performed well, tell them they can give themselves a pat on the back... they will be getting extra time in Aistear tomorrow! If they don't do it quickly and quietly then make sure you follow through on the time plenty the next day, reminding them that they need to spend more time on tidy up today because they did not clean up well yesterday. They very soon get the idea and will make the effort. Any children that you spotted playing during tidy-up, explain that they will receive a 'Time Plenty' tomorrow and make them stand out for a minute at the start of the next session (they won't get first choice of their favourite toy and this should be enough to make them think twice next time). NOTE: always make sure you leave enough time for a proper tidy-up so you're not stressing and rushing it.

Step 5 - Problem Solving during Aistear - Ask a friend...

You will probably find that children are always coming to you for solutions to their problems during play. Part of the benefits of play is to teach the children to become more independent. I have a procedure the children must follow if they come up against a problem. They must ask two friends for help before they come to me! My children know this off by heart... Say, "What do you do if you need help?" Children "Ask two friends and if you're still stuck ask teacher"

Today a child couldn't close the poppers on a baby grow. I was her first port of call, I reminded her of the procedure and this is what happened... 

This is what Aistear is all about... she asked a friend and they problem solved like pros! 

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Don't forget to give spot praise or review how well they solved a problem at the end of a session.

Say, "Jenny you did problem solving really well today, and you learnt how to do something new from your friend! Well done to the both of you!" 
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"Super problem solving Anna, you didn't need to get me, you solved that problem yourself!"
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You get the idea, but you need to be clear about what they did well, so others can mirror the behaviour. Check out the attempt to problem solve in the video below. This was taken mid year, last year so the children were well used to figuring it out themselves. I think they did very well!

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She got in in the end! :) 

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Step 6 - As Your Aistear develops...

Over the year there are many many ways my Aister will develop and incorporate various learning objectives and outcomes. Way to many to put in one post. But towards the end of September here are a few ways our play will begin to develop and grow. 

• Modelling Play: Follow the I do, we do , you do rule. I will begin to model good play in discrete language lesson, topical stories, role-play in discrete lessons, watch videos of other children playing within a topic (they learn way better from other children. This can be done while they are eating their lunch). Check out this video of shop play. It's so cute and they stay on topic so well. 

Shop Play from Ms Murray on Vimeo.

• I also model discretely during Aistear by sitting close to the focus child and quietly make  something or model playfuly and the child might choose to copy me. I want the children to learn that they can learn by observing others too. Learning from their peers is very important.
• Freedom to use  whatever is around the classroom: Teach the children that they can have control over how they resource their play. Although Aistear is different from work stations in maths and literacy, the children should know that they can use any resource from around the room to help them in their play. I do maths and english stations first thing every morning and today the children asked if they could use the box with the white boards and markers in them. Of course they could and in no time lots of children were drawing pictures of their family. 

• One of the EAL children asked could he play with our Irish puppet Roco... defiantly! He was using great language that I would never have seen him use had he not had the puppet. It obviously acted as some sort of comfort screen that helped him find the confidence to talk more. ​

• When I feel the children are ready I will start to introduce planning and review sessions before and after play. Incorporating the First Steps program into your Aistear is ideal here.  I use various methods to plan and review below is just one. Their Aistear copy. First Steps, recount: Who did you play with? I will post on this topic separately.  

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Step 7 -Always have your camera on hand

Photos and videos will be your best source of assessment, reviewing, planning, teaching, everything. I always have my camera on hand to catch things. Share them with parents and other classes in your school or beyond. They are an invaluable learning tool for other children. 

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Possible problems and sanctions

Thank you to the readers who took the time to share their own experiences of implementing Aistear in the early days. I am delighted to be able to share with you some of their thought and ideas below. 

• Teaching about personal space - One readers mentioned that the children find it difficult to play gently and often invade other children's personal space. I teach the children about their 'Personal Space Bubble'.

• Teaching in a multi-stream class - One reader found it challenging to implement Aister in her two teacher school where she teaches Junior Infants - Second class. But working together with their inspector they decided to include the older children in Aistear. That is really valuable learning for everyone involved and the older children were a great support in the children's play, especially writing and reading during play. Inviting children from older classes to support the younger children in their play would be valuable resource in any school setting. 

• Keeping the sand/soil in the sand box - This is a problem I'm having this year. Any suggestions on this one I'd really appreciate you sharing with me in the comments please. (The children ended up solving this problem for me actually... They brought their chairs and set the up around the sand box and hay presto... sand stayed in the box!) 
• Being rough with resources - remove the toy from the equation (make sure they know why it is being removed) I put it outside the classroom. Return them in the next session. 
• Shouting, big no no in my class - Warning followed by a time plenty for this during the session.

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If you have any other issues or ideas around implementing Aistear in the early days please share them here in the comments section. By sharing our ideas we have a better chance of making the most of time spent on Aistear in the classroom. 

Thanks for reading. If you want to make sure you are first to read my future posts, please subscribe by dropping your email into the subscription box to the right! 

Zara ​

You can also like me on Facebook and Twitter where I like to share lots of fun and playful teaching ideas. Or visit me on Vimeo to watch loads of super Aistear videos!

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