I vividly remember Oscar, a preschool child in my class, jumping up and down excitedly during an activity as he called out, ‘I’m helping!’ Oscar knew that not only had he learnt that helping others was a nice and good thing to do, but he could also put it into practice. For him, it was like learning any other skill, such as writing his name. As Nobel Economics Prize winner, James J Heckman, proved, these values, or social and emotional skills, can be taught and developed through early childhood education and greatly impact life outcomes. As the children learn English and engage with the characters and adventures in courses, they also learn essential life values, like inclusion, togetherness and helping each other. In this blog, using the example of the ‘There’s a Giraffe!’ story in Toy Team, the new preschool course from Oxford University Press, we’ll look at effective stages to teaching values.
Introduce the value in a story
When teaching values, the best way to introduce them is within a story. This puts it in a clear, relatable context. The children’s love for Archie and the Toy Team characters increases empathy and gives insights into their motives, and the gradual story build-up adds excitement and fun.
For example, the ‘There’s a Giraffe!’ story in Toy Team presents the value of helping others. Archie and Doll meet a toy giraffe from a puzzle who’s sad because she’s lost her puzzle friends. Archie, Doll and Blue Bird offer to help, and together they venture on an exciting search of the house and garden to find the giraffe’s companions.
Highlight and focus on the value
We can highlight the value by focusing on the story frame that best represents it. We can then ask, using our native language as needed, a series of child-friendly questions like: What has happened? How does the giraffe feel? Why? What do Doll and Archie decide to do? Is this a good thing to do? What do you think will happen next?
We can also make the most of the children’s identification with the beloved Archie puppet as a vehicle to create empathy. For example, we can have Archie worried about the giraffe. The children can be encouraged to comfort Archie, explain the situation and suggest what to do: help her find her friends.
Find personal meaning to deepen understanding
For children to really understand the importance of the value, we need to help them see its personal relevance to their lives and the world around them.
We can go back to our story and, once we’ve made sure that the class is focused and listening to each other, we can use the suggested guided questions in the Teacher’s Guide. For this story, using our native language as needed, we can ask: Do you help others? Can you remember when you helped a friend or somebody in your family? What did you do? Were they happy? Did they say anything to you?
Act out the value
Children learn through play, and using the pop-outs provided in Toy Team will add fun to their play acting as they team up and act out the story. In this way, they feel more involved in the emotions of the value.
Use a visual to consolidate the concept
A visual for teaching values helps clarify the meaning to the children. The stickers in each unit consolidate the value concept. As they stick them in their books, it gives children a sense of pride in their learning achievements.
The images from the stickers could also be made into medals, bracelets, badges, and cards, which can be used to decorate the class, to give out for praise when a child demonstrates the value unprompted, or they can be taken home to take the learning beyond the class.
Additionally, the Archie stamp in the Classroom Resource Pack serves as a great encouragement tool. It reinforces the values and provides extra motivation for the children.
Extend the learning
Children also need time to reflect on their learning, see it in wider contexts and of course, like Oscar, get the chance to practice their new skills.
Toy Team provides plenty of play-rich activities such as projects, crafts, and collaborative games to create opportunities for children to develop their values as they participate with their friends. We can seize on these instances of positive behaviours as they occur. For example, when a child helps another, we can use this chance to point out the value to the class, remind them of the story, and give lots of praise.
Do you have any favourite ways of teaching values?
