[Hadiya]

Cater to their interests and dive deeper. They seem to enjoy music? Let’s look at/ listen to different kinds of instruments and music! Let’s all play or sing a song together! Maybe learn a simple song in a different language? Let’s read a book about music! Let’s explore different music from around the world!
Taking an interest and finding creative ways to really dig in to that topic will hopefully keep them engaged and excited to learn more!
Always ask open ended questions to get them thinking and talking more! Yes and no questions are not going to help you dive deeper.

[Timothy]

Provide a real-life example of something: find bug while on walk, for example. Then discuss the bug with open-ended questions, what do you notice about the bug? what do you think about it? point out feature and ask what you think that is for? What does bug need to survive, etc.

[Lauren]

I think it is important to learn about each child and their likes/dislikes and needs. Learning about every child can help you lesson plan because then you have an idea of what they are interested in and you can make lesson plans and modify them how you think they would like to learn based off of your observations of the children.

[Maria]

To involve the child in the creative process, you need to praise the child for his work, then, so that he accepts new information, we ask a question to which the child answers. After that, the teacher complements the child by giving him new information.

[Tawna]

You could have them take turns with activities. You could model the activity to them so they have more confidence in completing the activity.

[El Sollman]

Some creative ways to get children engaged in learning is to find out what they are interested in learning about and create a lesson around that genuine interest.

[Personal]

Some creative ways to help kids engaged is by using different mediums and involve kids in the process. For example, during fall months take children outdoor and ask them to collect a few leaves of different colors and shapes and bring them in the classroom. Inside, you can ask kids about the different colors and different shapes of their leaves. You can teach them that the tree colors change during autumn and eventually most tree leaves fall out to welcome a new season. You can also do a mini lesson of how to use them as stamps. By using white paper, watercolor paint, and leaves show them how to make beautiful and colorful art projects. Set children in small group and while supervising, let the children choose different paint colors and let their creativity bloom.

[Haley]

I believe the best way to get children engaged is to allow them to choose what work interests them. Switching out the works can also help children not get bored of what they are working or playing with. This can be a great thing to do at home with your children by switching out their toys every two weeks. Not buying new toys, just rotating what toys they already have. Another way to help engage children is to introduce new work and teach a lesson on it before leaving it on the shelf for them to work on.

[Jailee]

It is important to observe each child and get to know their preferences to help come up with ideas to get them engaged in learning, such as understanding a child’s interest in animals and using that information to have them engage with activities such as reading or building puzzles with animals. I believe also that if a provider presents an activity to a child with excitement and interest, it in turn will get the child to also be excited and interested in the activity.

[Caitlyn]

I think that understanding a child as an individual or supporting activities or knowledge that your specific class or groups within the class show interest in. Maybe this could be developing a field guide with child drawings and a scavenger hunt in a nature place that your class has access to or if they show an interest in space or rockets maybe designing an activity where children get to interact with a variety of materials (maybe repurposed?) to create their own.

[Ella]

Some ways you get get children engaged in an activity is by making it interactive and give them a chance to be creative and effect what you’re doing with the group

[Alyssa]

I agree that this is something that would benefit from documenting observations of each child. This will allow you to find a child’s specific interests or preferences and allow you to present your topic or lesson in a new way that involves their interest. This may encourage them to engage by choice with excitement

[Meghan]

You can engage children in learning by involving their interests in any activities you plan. If they are say, interested in dinosaurs, and you want to teach them counting, have them count dinosaurs in different pictures

[Amber]

One way to get children engaged is to connect the learning activities with things already happening in the children’s lives. If the majority of the daycare celebrates Christmas, connecting activities done around that time, to the holiday, can give children a personal connection. This also opens up the door to bringing in other cultures, by talking about how different places celebrate Christmas, or what other holidays are celebrated during that time.

[Kiley Kaye]

I have had the best success when encouraging the children to dance. I’ve loved being able to get onto youtube and find a children’s song they know that’s been tweaked enough to make it into something they want to dance to. Playing along with them is huge in getting their engagement in a positive way, and helping them control their body movements through demonstration, so as not to hurt peers around them.