Food in the classroom

This is a very sore point with me. No, not really sore, but it is something that I stand firmly. I have yet to be swayed the other way and very regularly sway others mine:

Food should ONLY be used in the classroom for cooking projects!

For the most of my career, I have worked in low income centers. There are people out there who can't put food in their child's mouth, yet we send them home with rice glued to the paper. These parents walk in and look at a sensory table filled with macaroni noodles that would last them over a month! But they can't use it because those dirty hands have been all over it, the pieces have flecks of paint all over them, and they are no longer edible.

For those children in a center that don't come from these types of centers, there still is an awareness that other people in the world (other children just down the street) can't put food in their mouths, so we don't play with food.

Another argument for my side that I hear is: we don't play with our food, yet we let them play with their food. That's a weak argument, but it still stands.

My point to every teacher that asks me, "Well, what if we string cheerios on yarn and then they eat the cheerios off the necklace?" is this:

If you want to string something on a string, sting beads. You are getting the same fine motor skills accomplished. Eat cheerios for a snack! Leave the two separate!

There is NOTHING you can do as an activity in the classroom with food items that you wouldn't be able to get accomplished without food. String beads, make collages with pictures, tissue paper, rocks, beads, and all sorts of other things. Put birdseed in the sensory table, not rice and beans!

They don't need to glue macaroni to paper to create art.

You want to do an activity with food? Bake a snack. Cook lunch. Make a fruit salad. You really want to "string" food onto something, make fruit-kabobs (fruit stacked on a long toothpick like thing). You want to "creatively" use food as art; make mini pizzas and let them put the shredded cheese and pepperoni creatively on their dough or english muffin and then eat it for lunch.

Other than that, leave the food for meals!

Circle Time Routine-continued

Yesterday we looked at gathering time, today we are going to look at circle time. Remember, at the gathering time we did:
Roll call, weather, calendar, flag salute, and question of the day

Circle time is reserved for those daily lessons that are different. Basically, what concept are we focusing on this week and how am I going to discuss that with the group. This is the general Circle Time outline:
Gathering Song
Concept Game
Book
Lesson
Dismissal

This is the same routine no matter the age, but the length will differ depending on the age; and of course the depth of the lesson as well.

First, the gathering song. This is the place where you grab their attention. Maybe it's another roll call song. Maybe it's a very active song that pulls them in. One of my favorites is ram-sam-sam. I also like head shoulders knees and toes. I start off singing it normal. Then I have the group sing it really LOUD! Then we sing it really fast. Then real slow or real quiet. I always end it in such a way that everyone is sitting and listening intently.
Then we do a concept game. This can be as simple as singing icky-sticky bubble gum where things get stuck to different parts of the body. Or, play a matching game where you have different colored bowls and pass out beanbags and have each child take a turn tossing the bean bag into different containers. Really what you are doing is teaching the children to wait their turn in the group, though they are also learning a concept at the same time.
The we read the book.
After the book, I point out the vocabulary words of the week in the book and we discuss what they mean. Then we have our lesson for the day; whatever that is. Again, this isn't so much a matter of teaching a lesson so much as the children learning to increase their attention span paying attention to the teacher and sitting in a group without disturbing others.
Last is the Dismissal. This is also always some sort of transition game; again to teach them to wait their turn and follow directions and routines.

Note, whichever book I read, I read the same book all week. I may change it up and read different versions of the same book. For example, if we were reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I might bring in different versions. I also might not read the book everyday, but might do a storytelling rendition or a flannel story or have the children act it out. As long as they get the experience of the book, that's what matters.

So, this is what a typical circle would look like with me:
Gathering Song: Ram-sam-sam
Concept Game: Simon Says
Book: Parts by Tedd Arnold
Vocabulary Words: Panic and Brain (Panic means a sudden feeling of fear; Brain is the soft matter in our head that helps our bodies function) These are the definitions that I use with the children. Then we use them in a sentence. By the end of the week, they should be able to use them on their own in regular conversations
Lesson: Discuss particular parts of the body (maybe joints or muscles) and talk about where they are and what they do.
Dismissal: Crawl in a box

Are there any questions from these last two days?

Circle Time Routines

I got an interesting questions from Penny and thought you could all benefit from it. She wrote:

Hi.I was very interested in your entry about circle time length. I teach Year 1 students and sometimes find that the circle time really stretches over a long period if you include all six elements: check in, mixer, activity, debrief, energiser, check out. Is this what your circle time is like? I've written about my circle time experiences at www.teachingchallenges.blogspot.com

So, here's my answer:

I actually break up circle into two separate times. I have what I call a gathering time and then a circle time. We'll go into what I do at each group, but basically we typically have gathering time, breakfast, then circle. However, some classrooms don't acclimate to this schedule because it is too much time of "controlled" activity. When this is the case I have breakfast, gathering time, free choice activities (which includes skill builders*) and then circle time.

Okay, now on to what we do at each group. First, gathering time. This is really the time that we do the mundane tasks (or what I call mundane). I include roll call, weather, calendar patterning, the question of the day, and the flag salute. It changes a bit for different age groups as appropriate.

A general outline for a three year old gathering time:
Start with a roll calling song ("Where is ____" sung to Where is thumbkin is a great one because it's a call and response; I also like "_____is here today" for the beginning of the year when they aren't used to the routine yet).
Next we do the weather. I'll assign one person a week to be the "weatherperson" and they can bring in the newspaper report everyday if they like and they get to put up the weather, check out the window, etc...
We then sing the days of the week. This is immediately followed by what day is today? We ONLY discuss yesterday, today, and tomorrow at this age level; it's what's appropriate. We take yesterday out of the today slot and move it to yesterday. This gives them the hint as to what today is. Then we move that from the tomorrow and then figure out what tomorrow will be.
If I am doing this before breakfast, I then begin dismissing them for breakfast. If I am doing this before free choice, I let them know what is around the classroom to do (skill builders, new toys, etc...) and dismiss them and ask, "Where are you going to play?" Note: This does not tie them into that space, it only gives me an idea of what they are thinking and how far along they are in their thought process (If they say to the blocks and they get side tracked on the way there to the art table, they still are working off impulses).

For 4 year old classrooms, this is how group gathering runs:
Roll call song. Once a week at the beginning of the year and two to three times a week towards the end of the year, I do this strictly as a call the name, raise your hand and say "here". This is to get them in the practice for kindergarten.
Again, we do the weather and then sing the days of the week. Again, we do yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
However, we then follow this up with the calendar pattern. THIS IS A PATTERN BOARD. This is really the reason why we do the calendar; to make a pattern. Yes, we count the number of days, but every month we work on a different pattern. The first couple months we might do a simple two item pattern. But, as the year progresses we may make it more complex.
Then we sing the months of the year and then discuss today's date. This is as far as we go discussing the date. They really don't, developmentally, grasp the concept of the date, so the most important is the yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
We then look at the question of the day. I make this part of their coming in routine. The question is already up and as the parents bring them in they sign in, then take their parents to the question of the day and answer the question with them. At gathering time we look at the question that was asked and how the group as a whole answered. Which has the most, which has the least, etc...
At this point, if it's before free choice time, we discuss the choices available.
Then we stand and recite the pledge of allegiance. The children are dismissed after the pledge to whatever is next (breakfast or free choice); again asking where they will be going and possibly what they are planning on doing.


Since this post has been so long, I am going to cut off now and tomorrow I will continue with what circle time consists of.

*skill builders are those planned activities that build on a particular skill such as letter recognitions, patterning, fine motor work, language and literacy, etc...