In my last blog, I introduced the green Extend button.  Going by the feedback, it is clear that lots of educators have noticed the Extend button but hadn’t stopped to investigate what it does.  Now many wished they had investigated this green gem earlier😊.  So, this week I thought it might be helpful to extend on the last blog and show how you might use Daily Communications to inform the program using the Extend button.

• You notice a child (Aiden) becoming very distressed when served any raw food. You record this observation as a comment in Daily Communications: “Aiden got very distressed today when we served celery and dip at morning tea.”
   
• The family sends you some feedback as a comment in EarlyWorks: “Since my surgery, I haven’t been including raw food in our family diet.  I didn’t realise the impact this has had on Aiden.  I’ll try to include raw fruit and veggies in his diet at home.” (Aiden’s Mum)
   
• You use the Extend button in Daily Communications to turn Aiden’s individual comment into the narrative of an observation.  You might also add Aiden’s Mum’s comment to the narrative.
   
• Together with the other educators in your room, you plan experiences for the whole room where children can explore foods of different textures and colours. Link these experiences to Aiden’s individual observation by ticking it as the preceding observation when you add each experience:
   
  • Let’s be food explorers: What colour is it? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? What does it look like? What does it taste like?
  • Make fruit and veggie faces
  • Sort foods according to colour
  • Food stamping: make stamps out of different fruit and veggies and make pictures
     
• When you create group observations of children engaged in these fun food experiences, note Aiden’s responses/participation/changes in food behaviour in the individual outcomes and outcome comments for Aiden.  These comments will only be seen by Aiden’s family.

Using the Extend button, we have shown that our Program is Child Centred (1.1.2), and all aspects of the program including routines are organised in ways that maximise opportunities for each child’s learning (1.1.3).  We have also shown that we value collaborative partnerships with families (QA 6).