Making Choices in the EYFS

The Learning environment plays a very crucial role in how children get to learn and discover the world around them. In the EYFS at Braeside Thika, continuous provision helps with stimuli that helps the children engage with the environment.

Through choice-making, children get to practice how to compare outcomes and also get to work out options to make decisions. These techniques help to develop independence, decision making skills, critical thinking and enhance problem-solving skills, which are recognised as important in the EYFS. Overall, the children then become confident individuals.

This is a day-long process at BTH Early Years Stage. When children come into the setting in the morning, they start off by choosing an area to work at. They also get to think through their play such as what they are going to build with the different resources such as building towers with blocks or building a fort using sticks, what colours to use in their painting to help with their self-expression and also what to have first at snack time.

It is also interesting to note that they also come up with a storyline to the stories that they narrate through the day. Every task through the day is geared at helping the child achieve at the different learning areas.

By providing opportunities for children to make choices, one is then able to help them develop important life skills and a sense of autonomy