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?

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?

Let's round out the series

Okay, you have collected your evidence; organized it; and put it into your assessment. As I promised, I am going to now help you make a classroom curriculum that is can be made for each child in your classroom. If you really want a quality classroom, this should be your goal.

Anyone can throw a bunch of activities onto a lesson plan; but to make a quality lesson plan, it should take a little bit of thought. Rule number 1: put things on the lesson plan that are pertinent to the observations and goals you have for your children. Basically, don't put some activity on the lesson plan because it's cute and you got the idea from a book last night. Put some thought into your plans.

First, look for an area of your assessment that your children need to improve upon. (Let's say that your preschool children are scoring low on patterning). Maybe 40% of the children scored low.

Now, out of that 40%, choose 2-4 children to target in that area. These children are not the only ones that will be invited to this activity, but these are the children that you are going to use to base this activity on. (Let's say that three of your boys are inseparable and spend most of their time in the block area building roads). So, you are going to target these three boys.

Now, ask yourself this question: if these were the only three children in the classroom, what would I do to help them understand patterning? Well, we know they love block play and building roads. Maybe you have some of these. They would be perfect! Maybe you have a bunch of cars in solid colors. This will help them learn patterning.

Next, go to your lesson plan form. Find the area that this activity will be implemented: blocks; maybe manipulative or math; whatever works for you. Decide what the activity is. In the example we have been using (three boys who love the blocks and cars who need more patterning) I would do one of two or both of the following:

Block Area: Make roads for cars. Have cars go through the intersection by color patterns.
Manipulative: Use Neon Snap Track. Make patterns with the color of the road connections

Continue with all areas of development and areas of the lesson plan. Keep a list of the children in your classroom at hand as you are doing this as well. Make sure that there is at least one activity the will enhance each child's development daily (weekly for some activities); and make sure there is at least one activity a day that each child will enjoy.

This process will take a while to begin with. It may take you 3-4 times longer than when you just threw things on a paper. However, after a while, the process will become quicker and easier. As you get more comfortable with your observations and assessments, things will come quicker; ideas will come to you as you are doing an observation. Lesson plans will become easier and will actually right themselves. You will see the quality of your classroom soar! Work through this tough beginning; it is worth it!

Has anyone started using this process? How's it working?
Do you have any questions? How can I help?