A Suitcase of Memories – how a preschool group built an understanding of concept, and put this into process. Shevawn, Dee and Denise (Handprints Killara)

The memory project can be seen as an attempt to extend our four year children’s metacognitive thinking in relation to the development of their “knowledge” and “regulation” of cognition. (Chatzipanteli, Grammatikopoulos & Greforiadis, 2014). Knowledge of cognition refers to the “declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge” that the children engaged in as they explored the concept of memory, time and the developmental milestone of transitioning to school.

As they explored their identity as learners in engaging in the task of gathering their collections of favourite objects in their “memory bags” they engaged in the active strategy of how to choose and store significant items of their Preschool experience. By recording those items through their drawings in the “Memory Book” they could observe the documentation of those significant objects for future memory recall. While Schneider and Lockl (2002) state that four year old children seem to have little understanding of the concept of memory we attempted to make this understanding more concrete and meaningful for our children by returning to the Nursery Room where some of the children had begun their enrolment. By recalling their experiences and observing and engaging with the babies in play, we could link this experience to the memory bags and memory books to recall their time as pre-schoolers.

As the children were finally able to observe their work being presented to their parents on graduation day they could observe how they had been guided through the process of cognitive regulation which enabled them to be involved in the process of planning, selection of strategies, task performance, awareness of comprehension, and the observation and appraisal of the child’s effective learning about the metacognitive skill of memory.