Mud Glorious Mud!

Today was the first day of school after a rainy day.  Here in San Diego, it POURED rain on Monday (we had Monday off).  It is expected to rain the rest of the week; therefore, we need to take advantage of every opportunity to get outside.

One center, as I was arriving, was going on a walk around the apartment complex in which they are located.  The children were having a blast jumping in puddles!  It was very apparent that this teacher has no problem with the children getting wet and messy…they children were comfortable and uninhibited in their adventures and very matter-of-fact when they got back in their wet clothes and just began calmly changing.

Another center I was at obviously had a bit of a different outlook…I quickly changed that :)

When I went out to the yard, there were exactly 2 of the 45 children in the HUGE sandbox area.  There are typically about 20 children in there on a sunny day.

One little boy was filling his bucket with mud and told me, “I’m making strawberries!”

One little girl found a sinkhole that was in the back of the sandbox.  She was attempting to walk OVER it without walking THROUGH it by walking wide legged over the top.  It’s important to note that this sinkhole was not filled with water, it was simply a big dip in the sand.

They both looked up at me wide-eyed when I first approached but quickly got back to what they were doing when I crouched down next to the sink hole and wondered aloud how that happened.  That got the conversation going!

Eventually, this sink hole became the place where she was “making blueberries” (which I found funny only because of this post over here yesterday)  She was crouched over the edge of it watching, shovel in hand.  Occasionally she would reach out with the shovel and rearrange some of the mud, but I can say that making blueberries mostly involves crouching down and watching.

Her teacher came over and interrupted her play to “go get your jacket”.  Really unnecessary, but I wasn’t going to take the teacher’s authority away from her so I offered, “would you like me to watch over your blueberries while you go get your jacket?”  She nodded.

By the time she got back, there were 4 more girls hanging around, but they were NOT digging in the mud.  They looked at me as I watched her and her blueberries; then they pointed to the boy making strawberries and said, “We can’t play with that!  We can’t play with the water!”

To be fair, it wasn’t water…it was MUD!

I commented, “Sure we can!”

They looked at me warily.  They looked at me in amazement.  They hesitantly said, “No, we aren’t supposed to play with the water.”

I commented, “Sure, he’s making strawberries, she’s making blueberries.  It’s just water.”

Again, the looks of amazement!  The looks of awe!  The slow steps to go get their own buckets and shovels. 

They were a bit hesitant at first as they dug that first shovelful of dirt.  Then, they realized that I really meant what I said…you CAN play with the mud!  It’s okay!

Soon, there were more than the typical 20 children over there.  They were mostly making castles, their words, not mine, and a couple of other children were helping to make blueberries (still mostly involved crouching, watching, and on very rare occasion, rearranging the mud). 

It was a GLORIOUS sight!  I love mud!

What do you do with mud?

Make it personal

One of my favorite things to do in the classroom is to bring the children into every area.  I don’t mean by physically dragging them over to the blocks or dramatic play areas.  What I mean is make each area personal for everyone.

Children love to see themselves, don’t they?  A great way to bring them into the areas and activities is to bring in pictures of them.  Here is a simple list of ideas that I enjoy:

Make block play people out of their pictures.  Print out pictures of the children making each child about 4 inches tall.  Glue those pictures onto cute and sanded 2x4 blocks that have been cut to size.  You can even take intentional pictures of the children and ask them to pose however they want.  Don’t tell them what it’s for.  They will get a kick out of it and love to play with each other’s blocks.

Recreate Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Using pictures of the children, write your own book having each child on the page.  Write the words as in the book, substituting the children’s names for the animals. “Suzy, Suzy who do you see?  I see Alyssa looking at me.”  I did this once in a toddler classroom and used laminated pages so that when a child left and a new child came it was easy to change the children’s names on the pages as necessary.

File folder games!  There is so much you can do with this.  First is a matching game.  Real simple, a picture of John matched a picture of John.  There is the puzzle one where you glue half the picture to the file folder and they have to match the other half.  Use their pictures for this!  For a bit more creative, take pictures of the children in specific numbers of group so they match the picture with the written number on the file folder board.  If they are getting more advanced in letter sound recognition, have them match the child’s name to the letter on the board.

Make lacing cards with their pictures glued to cardstock, teach them how to wave them together to make a long line of classmates together!  Have a stack of pictures where they can sort by color shoes, boys and girls, color of shirts, etc…

What other ideas do you have to integrate pictures of the children into the environment?

New classroom of children

Okay, maybe I should have posted this a few weeks ago; bad timing on my part. Many preschools are starting this week; those that are academic year. And one issue that always needs to be addressed is this: How do I set up the classroom before I know the children?

How do you make sure that there is enough interesting things to do for everyone, but that's not overwhelming? How can I make sure that each child has something that they are interested in so that they will be less apt to cry when mom leaves the room? How can I get them interested in something? Not only that, but how do I get ALL 24 INTERESTED IN SOMETHING?

It's not an easy task. It's daunting! You have no idea who these children are. But, you do know one thing: each classroom has "one of those" children. Translate "one of those" children into:

One of those who loves cars
One of those who loves dinosaurs
One of those who loves dress up
One of those who loves puzzles
One of those who reads books all day long
One of those who is active
One of those who is quiet
One of those who need one on one
One of those who needs to touch; is very tactile
One of those who hates to get messy
One of those who........(fill in the blank)

So, set up something for everyone. Make sure you have books about cars, dinosaurs, princesses, etc...

Put out farm and jungle animals in the block area; along with the large cars.

At the art center, do car painting, have crayons, markers, paintbrushes. Have it all!

In the sensory table put in birdseed and spoons, cups, small funnels. Add some small treasures like buttons, jewels, or other items to find in the birdseed.

Put some shaving cream on the table with table building blocks and small cars.

Make sure to have princess dresses in dramatic play; plenty of baby dolls and play food in housekeeping; and stuffed animals all around.

Even though you don't know the children, you know the children. There may be one that doesn't fit the mold, but when he or she comes in, take out what he likes.

If possible, poll the parents before hand. Have a questionnaire that gets filled out by the parents while they are enrolling that asks what they are interested in. What is their favorite thing to play with? What is their favorite food?

Make sure there is something for everyone. Will there still be a lot of crying? Yes! But having something for everyone will make the first day much more likely to be a success. Make sure to have everything available that first week. After that, then start to fine tune the curriculum accordingly.

For those of you who run a year round program and have children starting one at a time randomly throughout the year, make sure to have something special for that new child on their first day. This goes for children new to the center as well as those who are transitioning from the younger classrooms. Make them want to come back. Make each child feel like you did everything just for him or her. They will all want to come back because here they feel special.

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!

Labeling your Preschool Classroom

I don't know why I haven't hit this topic before today. It's not that I assume everyone knows this; because I clearly remember the day my mentor teacher told me this. I see it in many classrooms (preschool and older) done the wrong way. So, here is the one thing that every teacher needs to know and, for some reason, never seems to be brought up in any college classes:

Always label your classroom in lower case letters!

You are teaching children to read. You want them to read successfully. We don't write or read in all capital letters. For the most part, we read in lower case letters. The capital letters are relatively rare to the lower case. We have adopted the practice in our program to introduce only the lower case letters. We will introduce the capital letters as they come up, but we focus on learning to read and write the lower case letters.

When I walked into a classroom the other day, the teacher was so proud that she had just labeled her entire classroom. It took a lot of work. I could tell! However, it was done in all capital letters. When I pointed this out to her, she understood what I was saying but commented that she had never been told otherwise. She has been a teacher for several years.

So, I beg of all of you, please label your classrooms appropriately. On top of that, teach the children to write in lower case letters first. Yes, the capital letters are easier (they are more direct lines and curves); but they need to learn the lower case first.

Do you have any classroom tips that seem like everyone should know, but really no one thinks about until they are told?

Rejuvenating the outdoors

A while back I posted this about how simply moving a toy can make all the difference in renewing it's purpose. Well, I was surprised yesterday at something else. We had a volunteer day on Saturday where we had managed to get community members to come and spend 4 hours bettering our yard; part of this included adding a new layer of sand to our depleting supply.

This is bright, white, playground sand. It is fabulous! It took us 2 and a half hours to get it all moved into the area and raked across and all, but it was worth it. It was even more so when I walked out an literally saw children rolling in it! They were burying themselves in it and sitting in it and so much more. I think every child was in the sandbox at the same time.

So, in conclusion, I have determined that there is a whole new way to rejuvenate the area: add new sand

Of course this was an expensive way to rejuvenate (over $1000 for the entire area), but yesterday morning made it all worth every cent.

Outdoor Play...it's important!

I was going to tell you all about the play in our brand new sand today; but I am saving that for tomorrow. Why? Because I was appalled when I read this today.

First, I was amazed that any teacher wouldn't allow their classroom outside to avoid basic behavior issues that are easily curbed with some simple redirection (and buying of supplies like balls, shovels, and buckets). Then I was floored when I read how short people were talking about their outside time: 15-30 minutes! So, now I am discussing appropriate outdoor time and curriculum.

First, the fact: It takes a child about 20 minutes to find an activity in which to become fully engaged. Yes, some children reach this moment long before that 20 minutes, others may take a bit longer, but 20 is a good strong average. Watch a child wander the yard; just observe.

Maybe he goes running to the tricycle first, spends 1 minute riding around then is quickly sidetracked, jumping off the bike (leaving it in the middle of the path) where he runs to the monkey bars. Here he spends 6 minutes pulling himself up, hanging upside down, and just hanging around. He quickly notices that there are children "baking" ice cream in the play house and goes to join them; he stays there for another 5 minutes where he slowly moves over to the play "car" where he drives to the store for another 3 minutes delivering ice cream. This is when he notices that there is a rope tied to the top of the slide and he can climb up the slide pulling on this rope. This is his "task" for the day: Learning how to climb the slide using this rope, taking turns with others who are engaged here as well, and figuring out the best ways to accomplish this task.

What is he learning? Conflict resolution and teamwork; he needs to solve conflicts with others as they take turns and, most likely, these children will work together and help each other out in getting to the top. Gross motor skills; he will use different muscles in pulling up the slide with his arms and feet than just climbing normally. Self confidence; I can do it! What else can I do?

It took him 15 minutes to find this task, and he stays at this activity for 40 minutes mastering all these skills. Other children have taken different roads to their final tasks, but in the end typically settle on one or two that accomplish other skills: social, gross motor, dramatic play, math, reading, science, and so much more! All this because they are given the time to do so.

If we only allowed them 30 minutes to go outside what would they accomplish? Maybe 15 minutes into the time they would settle on an activity, that leaves 15 minutes more. After another 5, the teacher calls out "5 more minutes to clean-up". This causes the thought "I have to hurry and play before I can't play anymore" and that interrupts a little more than necessary as well. Then of course comes the 5 minute clean up. So what value does the child get from this short amount of play?

The question you need to ask is this: What do I want the children to get out of their play?

Once you answer this question, you will allow for long blocks of uninterrupted play (both inside and out); however, today we are talking about outside. There are some things that are out there that you have no control over them using or not (monkey bars and slide for example); and you want them to use these things. The question is how can you get them to learn and enhance their play. This is answered by what tools you provide.

Remember that rope on the slide? I added that because children were constantly climbing the slide and we had been given a bunch of jump ropes as a donation. The jump ropes were being used to tie each other up; so let's find a better use for them. What happens when we dig a hole and fill it with water? Put up an obstacle course for bikes? Hopscotch? Sidewalk chalk?

What we, as adults, choose to add to the environment, will enhance and change the play of the children. We must observe and make decisions ahead of time to do just this. Bug boxes, pendulums, hula hoops, etc... The outdoor environment should have everything you have inside in addition to the gross motor items. And it should be a well thought out and planned environment, just like the indoor environment.

Do we have problems with appropriate shoes? YES!!! When they come in we tell the parents, "These shoes are not very good for active play and their feet may get injured. We can't stop them from playing so it would be best if you could bring in a more suitable pair." At this point, if they are completely adamant that they can't go get some sneakers we find some socks to put on, at least they are a little protected. We used to have a policy that the children couldn't stay without appropriate attire; however we just changed the parent handbook and accidentally left it out and haven't amended it yet.

Do they throw wood chips? YES!!! We redirect them and help them find a more appropriate activity: throwing balls, climbing slides, filling buckets with wood chips, etc...

15-30 minutes is just not enough time. Yes, we have the advantage of sunny weather year round (San Diego!!!); but on a rainy day we take a rain walk. Years ago we asked for parents to donate rain boots to the center and rain jackets. We have enough for one full class. I can't imagine not taking the children out to play in the snow; especially if they had the appropriate attire. I'm not saying it would be easy; but I think it would be totally worth the fun!

Old toys made new

Remember this item? Well, it was sitting, unused again, still out in the yard. Children would walk around it, but they were pretty much done with it. Instead of putting it away, the teachers moved it. They moved it from the wood chips area to the sand area. The children are all over it again. They are still doing the same thing: finding trucks and riding them down; but the novelty of it has changed because they are now in the sand.

Sometimes simply moving an item from one area to the next is all that is needed to make something interesting again. You should be rearranging the outdoor area regularly. We set up curriculum areas daily with activities. Every month, or at most every two months, we rearrange the tables and interest areas. Sometimes all it takes is moving the table by 90 degrees.

Inside should also be changed regularly. Toys on the shelves should be rotated weekly. The furniture should also be rearranged. Sometimes it's difficult with the size of a classroom, but even if you just switch the block area with the dramatic play area it's enough change to get those creative juices flowing again. You'll find, if you do this right, that behavior problems will go down as well.

We'll be looking at room arrangements and outdoor environments in the next couple of weeks.