Continuing to talk about adapting eclectically from a number of good early education curricula to suit your needs – and those of your parents, your whole class, and each child.

Mama Montessori – Go for a Montessori approach by limiting your materials and making them a bit more specific in their purpose. Encourage your children to stick to a routine and to choose it, use it, and put it away before going to the next item. Some children do well with this system as the self-discipline of order helps them think more clearly, concentrate, and focus.

Get Right with Reggio – The Reggio Emilia system is based on child ownership, control, and choice. It encourages problem-solving and the beauty of the environment allows and encourages children to express themselves in what author Loris Malaguzzi called the “100 Languages of Children”.

The Delicious Waldorf “Salad” – The Waldorf system is based on development of the Whole Child, through guided free play in a comforting home-like atmosphere. Waldorf teachers offer practical home-style experiences like cooking, baking, sewing, woodworking, gardening, and wonderful imaginative story telling, retelling, and dramatization with raw natural props for great literacy learning.

Inquiry-Based Curriculum??? – Most of these curricula use an Inquiry-Based approach to some extent. This just means being observant enough to hear and intuitive enough to understand what your children’s interest are, and then being flexible enough to make changes to your plan to match those interests. Doing this gives each child the opportunity to have his self-esteem boosted (the way to a child’s brain is through his soul); and makes the learning process more enjoyable for all.

Take It Outside! – Forest Schools are programs that use nature and the outdoor environment as the crux of learning. In them, the children design their play in natural settings outdoors or with natural materials in a classroom designed by child-interest. The teachers in Forest Schools document the learning as it happens, providing safety, but allowing developmentally appropriate risk, and offering language and fact only as needed.

Looking at Lakemont – This is an as yet unpublished curriculum I have developed for use at the Winter Park Presbyterian Preschool in Winter Park, FL. We are researched-based, Whole-Child development, and DAP-mandated with the philosophy that each child is good simply because he exists and therefore deserves our utmost respect and to be offered active child-centered learning experiences in an environment of physical, emotional, and educational safety that will lead to his natural attainment of developmentally appropriate strengths.

Sound familiar? In addition, we stress DAP-no worksheet-active literacy experiences, the inclusion of family in all phases of the learning process, and we insist that humor be used as a teaching technique and noted as a strength expectation for growth of Mind and Spirit.

Be comfortable in your flexibility. Take a look at the array of approaches and use what you, your families, your children, and each child need to make the early education process work for all.

Remember that Lou Bega song a while back? “A little bit of Monica in my life; A little bit of Erica by my side”

That’s what a good preschool curriculum should be like. A little Montessori on the shelves; A little bit of Reggio every day. Here’s why and how to adapt your classroom and your approaches to an eclectic but still developmentally appropriate system.

Why? – Because stuff happens and life changes and a preschool teacher must be flexible enough emotionally and professionally to meet the varying needs of the community and families; the class she has been given this year; and each individual little learner in that class. Know your neighborhood and families so that your plans meet their needs and expectations. Know your group as a whole – (some years you get five runners, five criers, and five who’ve never been out of their homes; some years you get a couple of readers, a few block builders who NEVER leave the Block area, and ten girls who ALL want to wear the Disney princess shoes at the same time) – so you can find a way to reach them as a group. Know each child so you can prepare for his interests, upsets, habits, and learning styles. That’s the job.

How? – First, get your program bigwigs to approve your sneaking in a few aspects of other curricula. Assure them that any changes you make will be complementary to your program’s philosophy, principles, standards, and educational goals (I call them Strength Expectations).

Then, go online or to the library and study a variety of early education curricula and approaches. Here are the ones I’d look into. They’re the ones I have ‘stolen from’ to create my unpublished Frankenstein approach called the Lakemont curriculum.

Take a drive down Bank Street – Pure DAP. Know your Child Development and observe each child at work to determine his needs. Teach Herbie Blockbuilder to do math while he builds and encourage the Disney princesses to make their own gowns from butcher paper and glitter.

Get Creative with Trister Dodge – If you need a clear system of goals and specificity of Centers, use the Creative Curriculum. It balances teacher-led with child-initiated experiences, designates 10 learning areas and offers a thorough system for assessment.

Get a View of High Scope – Organize your day around the Plan-Do-Review system. Have an appreciation for ACTIVE involvement within a structured routine. Many children thrive on this! It designates 8 Content Areas and 58 Key Development Indicators, so it is clear in its goals and expectations. Many Head Start programs are High Scopers.

Come See Kamii-Devries – Sometimes mixed age groups work well. K-D provides learning experiences through child-guided games in small and whole group situations. It suggests letting the “kids make the rules” as they play and it is not afraid of a bit of developmental competition. If you like Piaget, you’ll like Kamii-Devries.

Let me stop there and take this up in Mambo Number 5 (Part Two).

 

Children in Texas and Florida have been through an experience that needs to be used as a tool for both emotional and educational development – for healing and learning.

Most important will be offering your children many opportunities to express – at their own discretion, by their own times, and in their own ways – what happened to them.

If you had planned a unit on something other than the storms upon your return to school, I strongly suggest you postpone that theme and take a week to talk about, deal with, and learn from the hurricanes.

Greeting each child (and each of your coworkers) with a warm hug will be a good beginning. A Circle Time gathering in which each child has a chance to talk about his family’s experience is a way to start your classroom day. Sharing your personal experiences helps children share theirs. Do some relaxation exercises and reassure the children that even though their school yard or building may look different (or you may even be in a different location altogether) they are safe and you are all together for school again.

Having a relaxing few days of truly open-ended play without jumping into “lessons” will be good for younger children, but a developmentally appropriate return to the normal schedule is the right way to go.

Having children see the damage and take part in safe, age appropriate clean up of the playground and campus and maybe even the neighborhood will give them a sense of ownership, self-confidence, and community. Older children may  even be involved in helping with neighborhood projects like bringing in water or hygiene kits for people in need, and a nod of thanks and recognition to first responders will help the children feel safer.

As for using the storms as learning tools – go for it. The more we understand something, the less fear we have of it and more empowerment we have over it. When you and the children are ready, make Harvey and Irma into lessons on weather, building, shelter, needs, safety, nutrition, first responders, and the understandable aspects of this experience. Post hurricane words on your Word Walls, let the children express themselves in art, music, dance, and role play about their storm experiences. Expand your classroom’s Safe Space as more may need it more at this time.

Observe your children carefully and communicate to parents about children who may be more sensitive to their storm experience. Expect some inappropriate behaviors but keep your rules and your routines as they were before the storm.

Have appropriate books about weather and books about fear readily available to them. There are hundreds of books listed on Google and at Amazon.com.

Here is a sample experience plan I might use:

Hurricane Experience Plan

 

It is almost mid-September, so most preschool classrooms have been ‘set up’ for the year, but here are some thoughts on creating appropriate classrooms and spaces that take into account the basics.

Basically – Set up your room keeping in mind the basic growth areas of any good curriculum – Body, Mind, and Spirit.

Body – Physically, the room must be a place of safety and logical arrangement of space. The furniture and equipment must be in good condition and of age appropriate size and shape (so there’s no digestion of Play Doh or Legos up the nose). The spaces must be organized with simple common sense – separating Active & Quiet and Messy & Clean; locating activities that call for liquids (water tables & art) close to sink or water source; and making sure carpeting and area rugs are safely used.

Mind – Educationally, the room can be divided into what most teachers call ‘Learning Centers’, which usually match the educational skill objectives the program has for the children. Traditionally these are things like Fine Motor, Literacy, Math, Science, Social Studies, & Art, designated by names like Writing, Library, Manipulatives, Discovery, Blocks, Home Life, and Art. It is of no consequence at all what these Centers are called except for their use in building skills of memory and organization – the magnifiers may and should be used all over the place, indoors and out, but at the end of the day, knowing to put them back in the “Discovery Center” is a fairly valuable skill.

Please remember that Learning Centers should be used only for organization of storage and display rather than Centers of Attaining Educational Objectives. Learning in the areas mentioned above occurs all over the room, the playground, the campus, and the neighborhood, not only in a specific Learning Center.

What is important is not WHERE children learn, but HOW they are allowed and encouraged to learn through the Learning Methods – Movement, Sensory Exploration, Manipulation, Construction, Role Play, and Expression.

Spirit – For Emotional and Social development, the room should have spaces for individual, small group, and whole group work and should have a Safe Place for children who need a moment of peace – NOT A TIME OUT, PUNISHMENT, OR NAUGHTY SPOT!

I like  a curriculum called Lakemont. Here are their “rules” about Classy Classrooms:

• Rooms must be appealing to THE CHILDREN (not teacher, parent, or Pinterest).
• Less Disney Décor and more Kid Creations
• More natural and raw materials and fewer ‘one-use’ toys so children can imitate, imagine, create, and truly learn
• Less “stuff” on the shelves so choices are evident but not overwhelming (and therefore of greater value, brain-wise)
• More age appropriate ‘loose parts’ of ALL KINDS
• Fewer primary-colored plastic things
• BOOKS AND WORDS IN EVERY CENTER

 

 

 

DAP ALL THE TIME! – During Center/Choice Time, as we do in ALL aspects of Early Education, try to use a developmentally appropriate approach when you interact with the children.

We know that offering language as the children play is important, but remember the rule of the Hokey Pokey and know when to put your whole self in and your whole self out.   The teacher’s job at Center Time is to float & facilitate – like a lovely cloud of knowledge – so that you ‘rain’ at the right times on those seeds of learning growing down there.For Babies, who need concrete information, we say, “Oh! You’re playing with the brown monkey! He says ‘OOH, OOH, OOH’! and we gesture with our hands scratching at our armpits in the traditional monkey manner (bringing smiles and laughter).

With Toddlers, who need less concrete and more ownership of the learning, we say, “What is that you’re playing with? Is that a brown monkey? What does he say?”, hoping the child will say ‘monkey’ and possibly do the gesture with you.

With Twos, who need to have choices and make decisions, we say, “Is that a monkey or at cow?, hoping for ‘monkey’ as a response, honoring that response with a ‘Yes it is’, and taking it further with, “What does he say?” and again doing the physical gesture together.

For Threes, who need open-ended questions and a request for more detailed thought, we say, “Where do you think that animal might live? Do you like any of the same foods he does? Can you show me how he moves?”

With Fours and Fives, who need open-ended questions and expansion and expression of their knowledge, we say, “Are there any other animals like the brown monkey? Can you show me on the map where they might live? What would happen if we ran out of bananas? Can you tell a story, draw a picture or write any words about this animal?

And for ALL ages – there should be lots of monkey books in EVERY CENTER of the room so the children can refer to pictures and words about their work and reinforce the vital literacy connection of language-action-idea to print.

The term “rigor”, used by education reformers, is one of the worst (as if there can be a ‘worst’) parts of Common Core as it is used and misused throughout our country.

Rigor – the bigwigs tell me – means to encourage a sense of challenge so that children learn at higher levels; it means to create an environment in which students achieve more; it means to use teaching techniques that engender higher quality learning.

That’s not awful. High quality learning is a good thing. It’s what every parent and every teacher wants for every child.

BUT

What ‘rigor’ has come to be defined as, is stricter structure, less namby-pamby self-esteem building, more and more and more and more testing, and extremes in developmentally INAPPROPRIATE practice, especially for children from birth to age 8.

Little children are having nervous breakdowns, good teachers are leaving the field, and parents are having to become hard-core political activists to assure their babies of 20 minutes a day for recess and 15 minutes a day to eat their lunches in a way that does not make them vomit.

Yes, we want high quality learning. Yes, we want challenge. Yes, we want ‘smarter’ children who will become successful adults with good jobs. But not at the expense of our children’s physical, mental, and emotional health.

Let’s see some ‘rigor’ from our school boards, our administrators, our state and federal legislators. Let’s make them sit for 6 hours without moving their bodies. Let’s give them 15 minutes for lunch. Let’s test them on all the facets of their job descriptions, then grade them with a big fat F if they don’t do well. And if they don’t pass the test, let’s tell them they are failures and their families will be disappointed in them and the people they ‘serve’ will not be able to keep their jobs and feed their babies.

For God’s sake – the idea of rigor is good, just as the basic idea of Common Core was good until greed grabbed it and test makers started sniffing personal profit and power-hungry  legislators stopped listening to educators.

If we must add an ‘R’ word to Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic, can we say RESPONSIBLE Learning? REALISTIC Learning? Learning that includes RISK?

Really. Rigor Reeks.