What to do with children’s media interests
About this resource
This flowchart offers advice to educators, parents, and carers about developing and extending children’s media interests.
Age range for this resource
For educators, parents, and carers of children aged 12 months to 5 years.
Goal of this resource
To engage young children in play and learning activities based on their media and popular culture interests.
To promote collaborative learning between young children, and between young children and adults, based on their media and popular culture interests.
To encourage positive transitions for young children between screen-based activities and non-screen activities using their media and popular culture interests.
How might educators use this resource?
Share this flowchart with colleagues. Use it as a conversation starter to brainstorm ideas for understanding children’s media interests. Understanding children’s interests can inform meaningful curriculum decision making. For example, invite a child to share their interests in a favourite television show. Build on responses through open-ended questions and engaging children in discussion. Maybe co-read books or research online with children about the topic. This can lead to integrating a range of multimodal play opportunities to extend children’s media interests in meaningful ways.
How might families use this resource?
Use some of the ideas on this flowchart to extend your child’s media interests to all sorts of imaginative play opportunities. For example, you could start by co-viewing your child’s favourite movie, television show, mobile application (app), or digital game. Engage your child in conversations about the media, maybe suggest a related drawing activity or play dress-up to replay events and characters.
How might organisations use this resource?
Provide a link to this flowchart in your newsletter or communication to families. Highlight how Belonging, Being, and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0 (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022) encourages adults to act with intentionality in play-based learning by facilitating the integration of children’s media and popular culture interests. Prepare a short statement for sharing such as: ‘Use your child’s media interests to extend ideas relating to popular culture. This can promote deeper understandings and facilitate ongoing inquiry and investigation at your setting.’
What learning might we see?
Educators, parents, and carers understanding how to develop and extend young children’s media interests through investigative and imaginative play.
Young children engaging in collaborative play activities with their peers and adults.
Practice
Acknowledging
Adults notice and recognise children’s interests in and experiences of using digital technologies and interacting with digital media and popular culture.
Area
Play and Pedagogy
Young children have opportunities for play and pedagogy in digital contexts. Play and pedagogy involve children using a range of digital devices for exploration, meaning-making, collaboration, and problem solving. Educators engage in active decision making about the use and non-use of digital technologies for learning.
Connection to relevant standards
Belonging, Being, and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0 (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022)
Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity
Children feel safe, secure, and supported (e.g., Children explore aspects of identity through role play; Educators give children their full attention, showing interest, understanding, and attunement).
Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience, and agency (e.g., Educators encourage children to make choices and decisions).
Children develop knowledgeable, confident self-identities and a positive sense of self-worth (e.g., Educators build on the funds of knowledge, languages, and understandings that children bring; Educators provide rich and diverse resources that reflect children’s social and cultural worlds).
Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy, and respect (e.g., Children engage in and contribute to shared play experiences).
Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world
Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of their reciprocal rights and responsibilities as active and informed citizens (e.g., Children broaden their understanding of the world in which they live).
Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
Children become strong in their social, emotional, and mental wellbeing (e.g., Educators build upon and extend children’s ideas; Educators are playful and promote a sense of enjoyment).
Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners
Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination, and reflexivity (e.g., Children follow and extend their own interests with enthusiasm, energy, and concentration; Educators build on the funds of knowledge, languages, and understandings that children bring to their early childhood setting).
Children develop a range of learning and thinking skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching, and investigating (e.g., Children use a range of media to express their ideas through the arts, e.g., clay, drawing, paint, digital technologies).
Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another (e.g., Children practice and imagine relationships and experiences in their daily lives through pretend or symbolic play; Educators scaffold children’s understandings of how skills and ideas can be transferred to other activities through conversation and questions).
Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies, and natural and processed materials (e.g., Children experience the benefits and pleasures of shared learning explorations, investigations, and imaginary play scenarios).
Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators
Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts (e.g., Children view and listen to printed, visual, and multimedia texts and respond with relevant gestures, actions, comments, and/or questions).
Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media (e.g., Children experiment with ways of expressing ideas and meaning using a range of media).
Children use digital technologies and media to access information, investigate ideas, and represent their thinking (e.g., Educators acknowledge technologies are a feature of children’s lives and, as such, will be a feature of their imaginative and investigative play; Educators integrate technologies across the curriculum and into children’s multimodal play experiences and projects).
National Quality Standard (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, 2019)
Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice (e.g., Each child’s current knowledge, strengths, ideas, culture, abilities, and interests are the foundation of the program; Educators are deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful in their decisions and actions; Educators respond to children’s ideas and play, and extend children’s learning through open-ended questions, interactions, and feedback; Each child’s agency is promoted, enabling them to make choices and decisions that influence events and their world).
Quality Area 3: Physical Environment (e.g., Resources, materials, and equipment allow for multiple uses, are sufficient in number, and enable every child to engage in play-based learning).
Quality Area 5: Relationships with children (e.g., Responsive and meaningful interactions build trusting relationships which engage and support each child to feel secure, confident, and included; The dignity and rights of every child are maintained; Children are supported to collaborate, learn from, and help each other).
National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018)
Principle 8: Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.
Explore More
If these ideas are new to you, explore these related resources:
This website provides a broad range of educational and entertaining television programs for parents, carers, and educators to co-view with young children.
Everyday learning to build young children’s digital technology skills
This webinar explores how early childhood professionals can support children’s conceptual understandings of, and skill development with, digital technologies.
For more ideas, explore these related resources:
Staying active in the digital playground
This article invites parents, carers, and educators to promote children’s participation in physical activities using the PLAYback strategy. PLAYback sees trusted adults video recording children participating in physical activity then co-viewing the footage with children to reinforce, support, and build skill development.
When the dinosaurs came to kindy
This video presentation explores how early childhood educators can connect with children’s interests using digital technologies.
If you would like to read some research, explore these related resources:
Edwards, S., Mantilla, A., Grieshaber, S., Nuttall, J., & Wood, E. (2020). Converged play characteristics for early childhood education: Multimodal, global-local, and traditional-digital. Oxford Review of Education, 46(5), 637–660. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2020.1750358
Grieshaber, S., Nuttall, J., & Edwards, S. (2021). Multimodal play: A threshold concept for early childhood curriculum? British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(6), 2118–2129. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13127