The current programme planning for the toddlers is on "Dramatic Play". When my head teacher went on leave we had just started the planning cycle for dramatic play (notice). As a teacher I had to find a way to build a strategic approach to the teaching techniques I could use to teach the bear hunt story. As an early childhood teacher who has a vision of the child as an active learner I decided to use the constructivist learning theory to best suit this educational vision "dramatic play". Drawing on this theory as a teacher I wanted to develop an overall approach to teaching young children in which there was a balance between teacher-directed and child-directed learning. So the teaching techniques I thought would best suit this was the specialist teaching techniques of scaffolding, and co-constructing and the general strategies of open-ended questioning, demonstration and suggestion. To use these techniques I also had to create opportunities for teacher-child interaction. There was also need for the environment to allow the children to actively explore and hence construct their own knowledge.

The learning stories show how I was able to evaluate the children's learning in a flexible way that include documenting, listening and open-ended questioning.

(TECHNIQUES for teaching YOUNG CHILDREN Choices in Theory and Practice, Glenda MacNaughton & Gillian Williams 2004 pg 360).