Importance of ECCE Kit/ TLM/ FLN TLM
There must be adequate access to materials in order for activity based approach to be successful, and some teaching learning materials are absolutely necessary for teaching of certain concepts. During the time set aside for free play/ guided work with materials, children will gradually learn various concepts through the repeated use of materials readily accessible to them in the preschool, eventually achieving the expected learning standards. If the necessary materials are not available, it will be almost impossible to complete the activities expected in the routine.
• Many of the materials can be gathered from the surroundings, such as seeds, leaves, buttons, empty bottles, containers etc.
• Many TLMs can be made with discarded materials, such as empty matchboxes can be covered with coloured paper to create colour matching pairs. Empty boxes of various shapes and sizes can be used to introduce concepts like big and small, tall and short, seriation by size etc.
• Many materials can be prepared with some simple materials such as mount board, scissors, glue, markers etc. examples include letter and number cards, picture pairing cards made with the help of a pair of posters with the same pictures, outline picture boards for placing beads, etc.
• Commercially available paints can be very expensive and unsustainable in the long run, It may be better to think of locally available materials that can be used as colour solution for various art and craft activities, for example, aalta, sindoor, turmeric, fabric whitener (neel) etc.
• Puppets can be made in many simple ways. Stick puppets can be made with pictures pasted on cardboard and mounted on a stick. Simple dolls/ puppets can also be made by stuffing old socks, paper bags, pillow covers etc. with cotton or fabric
• Every anganwadi centre is to be provided with a TLM kit including various age appropriate books, charts,
cards, blocks, toys to enable the daily transaction of activities in the preschool