Meals and Snacks – Meals and snacks must be scheduled carefully and their timing must be based entirely on the needs of the children in the learning community.  Infants and Babies must be fed when they are hungry.  Toddlers and Twos may need to have a snack earlier in the day than 3s, 4s, and 5s.  Young children should not be asked to sit at the table for periods of time longer than their attention spans (one minute per year of age) without having something entertaining or stimulating to keep them seated. 

Talk with your Mouth Full – Many teachers read to children during dining. If this works for you, do it. I prefer a meal time filled with casual real conversation. Meal times are excellent times for talking about the activities of the day – not as a formal test/review/question time, but a casual discussion with conversation that leads to reinforcement of the learning.  “Wasn’t that funny when the water splashed out of the science table today? How did that happen?”

A snack time of 10 to fifteen minutes and a meal time of up to 25 minutes is appropriate for children from three to five years of age if there is adult participation, conversation, and learning happening.  A very wise Pre-K teacher, Christy Kearney, taught me this: As children get ready for Big School, where the rules are more rigid and the experience of eating in the large cafeteria can be truly overwhelming, try to ‘immunize’ against this ‘cafeteriaphobia’ by building skills of independence. Ask the children to open their own food packages and help their classmates. Play games like “Quiet Lunch” (and my favorite, “Glue Your Bottom”) to help the children stay seated longer. Have all the things the children need at the table to be independent – blunt-tip scissors for opening pre-packaged food, napkins, extra juice straws, and utensils – so they are not constantly requesting assistance or jumping up from the table to get things.

The more they do, the better their self-esteem. The better their self-esteem, the more they learn. The more they learn, the smarter they become and BOOM, your job is done and you can eat your kale and quinoa in peace.

Dining Room Rules – The obvious purposes of eating together in the preschool setting are to create community, practice good nutrition and to learn about good nutrition, but there is a great deal more to Breakfast, Lunch, or Snack Time than just eating. The basic rules on meals are:

• There must NEVER be forced feeding, NEVER be a sign of disrespect for family food choices, and food must NEVER be used as reward or punishment. 
• If parents are responsible for providing food, teachers MUST NOT make judgements about food choices nor should they make decisions about the order in which the food provided is eaten.  Letting the children make decisions about their food is one way to build intelligence skills and self-esteem. 
• Teachers must model table manners, eat nutritiously, and ALWAYS SIT DOWN to eat with the children. 
• Meals and snack times should never be rushed (and water should always be available throughout the day).

Next Blog: Routine Elements – Transitions

Arrival and Dismissal – There are lots of different ways to come and go. Infants, Babies, and Young Toddlers should be brought to classrooms and handed off from parent to teacher. Older children may all come at once on a bus or arrive in a car circle or may be walked to school from home. Some programs take the children in individually as they arrive, others have the children wait until all have arrived and go to their classrooms together.  Make sure Staging is complete before Arrival so all staff persons are present and ready to assist with this procedure.

There MUST be a “hand-off” procedure in which parent or adult care giver places each child in the hands (or under the supervision) of a staff member.  There should be a daily sign-in and sign-out procedure at this time.  Arrival/Dismissal take time but should run smoothly with the environment staged before Arrival and cleaned after Dismissal.

The responsibilities for these processes belong to teaching and administrative staff and parents.  If a walk-in system is used, the classroom should be ready for use as each child arrives.  Most walk-in system users offer children a time of quiet table or floor play until all community members have arrived.  A walk-in system must be used for Infants, Babies, and Toddlers. 

If a car circle or vehicle transport system is used, it should be done in a way that children are immediately occupied with learning materials or activities while waiting for their classmates to arrive, or it should be done so that children go immediately from cars to a playground or play area, or are escorted to their classrooms by teaching or administrative staff.  If there is a waiting time, teachers must use it to play games, have conversations, read books, or otherwise occupy the children

Send ‘Em Home Alive – THERE IS NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PHYSICAL SAFETY OF THE CHILDREN IN OUR CARE!!!!! Any Arrival/Dismissal system used must be created and carried out strictly for the purpose of safe delivery of the children, not for the convenience of parents, staff, or even the facility housing the program.

I openly admit to having been called the “Safety Witch” (or something very close to that) by some parents in my days as a preschool director, as I FIRMLY reinforced my car circle and parking lot rule to them and I would proudly accept that title again if it meant the children in my care were safely ushered into and out of school.

Say Bye-Bye – The second most important factor in Arrival is the separation procedure. Let the parent and child determine how best to separate whenever possible. We all know the best goodbye is short and sweet with a casual “see you later, Alligator”, but at 18 months, two, three-an-a-half, and sometimes five, many children have separation anxiety and need a gentler farewell. Many times the anxiety comes from the parent. Try to get parents to come on time, suggest they watch from the window or webcam so they can assure themselves of their child’s situation, or give them other options for easing the separation at arrival. Do not judge, disrespect, or laugh at the feelings of parent or child during separation. Some of us do not like goodbyes.

Dismissal should be safe and secure as well, and the handoff from teacher to parent should be smooth and quick – this is not the time for conferences and “Sally bit four kids today” talk. If there is an after-program program (Extended Day or Lunch Bunch) make sure the procedure for separating the go-homers from the stay-afters is organized, smooth, secure, and careful.

Next Blog: Routine Elements – Meals & Snacks

Each and Every Day – Every day in an early learning program includes:

• Routine Elements – the experiences of simply moving through the day
• Curricular Elements – the experiences of planned, specific learning
• SARA – opportunities for Selection, Action, Reflection, and Application

The Routine Elements of the day include:

• Staging
• Arrival/Separation/Dismissal
• Meals and Snacks
• Transitions
• Hygiene
• Clean Up
• Nap

Staging: Creating the Field of Dreams – This refers to the 30 minutes before the children arrive in the morning and the 30 minutes after the children are dismissed in the afternoon.  Staging must assure that both theme-related and generic props, equipment, and materials needed for the day are in place. It should take place while there are no children in attendance and it should be completely finished before any children arrive, so the teacher never has to leave the children’s presence during the day to retrieve materials she didn’t have time to stage that morning.

I totally agree with James Earl Jones, who told Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams”, “If you build it, they will come.”  Setting the stage for the day’s action is VITAL.   Plan, but don’t own your plans so fiercely you cannot change them in the middle of the day if it rains, there’s a fire drill, your twos have tantrums, your threes want to wear the high heels to the playground, or your fours throw the blocks rather than recreate the Taj Mahal.

Preschool teachers do not get coffee and potty breaks, so get your Starbucks, your Dunkin’ Donuts, and your toileting finished before you get to work.  Try to leave your home worries at home so you’re prepared mentally and emotionally for the day’s work. Plan in advance, communicate with team members, have an informed expectation of what will happen, and alternate plans for unexpected things that might happen during the day – rain, fire drill, sick child, parent visitor, or unexpected negative reaction to offered experiences. Administrators can help a great deal in this area by providing Lead Teachers a minimum of a FULL 30 minutes of paid work time only for staging!

Stage your classroom with all of the things you think the children will want to interact with during the day. Make the room inviting based on your chosen theme and on the strengths you want the children to gain. Set out the materials in your Centers so they are inviting, exciting, alluring, and interesting TO THE CHILDREN.  Reggio Emilia programs set up “provocations”, usually using natural materials, mirrors, woven baskets full of raw materials and “loose parts” which might include nuts, bolts, craft materials, stones, sticks.

I love the idea in essence, but have some hesitancy in making the room too “pretty”. It should be appealing from the viewpoint of the children, not the 35-year-old female teacher who’s a big fan of Pinterest, not what parents think a ‘cute’ classroom should look like, and not like every other classroom in your program. I like a minimalist touch with purposeful raw materials displayed, and with walls and doors covered with the children’s art and words. Stage according to your children’s needs.

Next Blog: Arrival, Separation, and Dismissal

 

You’re Not off the Hook Yet! – Programs may use whatever lesson plan form called for by their curriculum or they can create their own. The plan I ask teachers to create is a modified version of a traditional or typical preschool lesson plan. It is a theme-based plan called the Weekly Experience Plan.

The Weekly Experience Plan must be posted weekly for parent and licensing agent view.  Most  teachers send copies of this plan home so parents can stay informed of their child’s activities or be reminded of opportunities for participation. 

This plan includes the Unit to be introduced, the Catalyst used to spark interest, the Vocabulary to be encouraged, a brief description of Materials staged in the Centers, and the Experiences that will be offered delineated NOT by Learning Center, but by Learning Method (Movement, Sensory, Manipulation, Construction, Role Play, and Expression).  It also asks for a weekly Home Connection.

It may sound tedious, but it is not.

The Unit is the block of information you want to use to deliver knowledge and concepts. The Catalyst is a book, game, or challenge you use to introduce the Unit and spark interest. The Vocabulary, placed on a Word Wall, comes from words you want to introduce and words the children themselves offer as you brainstorm about the Unit. The Center Materials are a general description of your staged Centers. The Experiences are the activities you will offer to encourage learning in each of the children’s Learning Methods. The Home Connection is an ACTIVE family participation event used to reinforce the concepts of the unit and encourage family involvement

The Experiences will come from the basic facts of child development, your knowledge of your little learners and their interests, and your own fertile imagination (or the thousands of early childhood resources available to you at the library, the educational resource store, or online.

Voila! Lesson Plan Done.  Here is a completed sample.

Sample Weekly Experience Plan

The most important information on any ‘lesson’ plan is WHAT and HOW children will learn, not WHERE they learn. Listing Unit, Catalyst, Vocabulary, Materials, Experiences (by Method, not Center) and Home Connection give a total picture of WHAT and HOW.

Next Blog: Hour by Hour – Routine Elements of the Day, Part One

 

As early educators, we do a lot of ‘stuff’ that educators of older children and adults do not do. A few of these are scraping glitter off of tables with popsicle sticks so the janitorial crew doesn’t complain; plunging toilets clogged by stuffed animals and duplo blocks; peeling screaming toddlers from the arms of weeping mothers; checking heads for lice and bottoms for worms; waking up in the middle of the night with “Wheels on the Bus” or “Three Fat Turkeys Are We” running incessantly through our heads; and being paid less than any other educator in the system.

Most difficult may be the creation of absolutely adorable parent-friendly administrator-acceptable Lesson Plans!

I call them Experience Plans – because “Lesson” puts the emphasis on the TEACHER and the TEACHING while Experience encourages us to stress the LEARNING the child will own and be actively responsible for. Experience lets us know it is the child’s active learning rather than our stellar teaching that should be uppermost in the process.

Two Plans are Better than One – I call for the posting of two Experience Plans, but  teachers are responsible for creating only one. The first is a general plan that program administrators (using the curriculum of their choice) give to the teachers, and post for parents. It is a non-theme-based overall plan for the year that describes the general program expectations (learning objectives) and the generic experiences that will be offered to the children on a daily basis, every day of the year no matter what theme or unit is being used. I call mine Every Day We Grow in Body, Mind, and Spirit.

(The second Experience Plan is a teacher-created, theme-based picture of the specific events happening weekly).

 Every Day We Grow shows what children must be offered every day, theme or no theme, rain or sun, picture day or fire drill. It shows parents, administrators, and licensing agents that the children are not just “playing”. It answers the questions most important in the process: What will they learn? and How will they learn it? It does not emphasize how the subject matter will be “taught” because it is THE CHILD and THE LEARNING that must be emphasized here. Every Day We Grow, is permanently posted for the year

If teachers have an Every Day We Grow plan posted in their rooms, and they follow it on a daily basis, they are meeting the basic requirements of offering appropriate experiences to reach program expectations, and if your theme-based plan with specialized props and specific art and music doesn’t work out, doing what‘s on this plan will be sufficient for you to not feel as if you have “failed” the children in any way – it’s all right there.

Every Day We Grow in Body, Mind, and Spirit

Next Blog: Lesson Plan #2 – Weekly Doin’s

My Way or the Highway – Some programs ask all teachers to follow an identical order of units while others allow and encourage teachers to plan their year individually, as long as the units fit the criterion of the curriculum. Teachers can devise units from an unending number of subjects – as long as the learning Experiences based on the Units can be purposefully matched to the Expectations (objectives) set up for the particular learning community. Looks like this:

Expectations Units  Experiences

Open-Ended Units, Like Open-Ended Questions, Generate the Best Learning – Here are some samples of titles of units that are purposely general so they can be relevant to a greater number of children but can still be used as specific planning tools.

Open Units

                                                                                                                                        

A Month of This? – No. Everything in your classroom doesn’t have to be theme-related for a month. All of the generic, non-theme-based experiences that are normally offered in your classroom should be going on as well. Here are some samples of units based on whimsy and spontaneous events that I have seen work well as two week rather than full month themes:

What Makes You Laugh?         Hurricane’s Coming!               Miss Kathie’s Getting Married

The Ball’s Stuck on the Roof    Goofy Faces, Scary Faces        Opposite Time

Generic, Non-Theme DAILY Experiences – I like to give teachers the gift of a pre-made “lesson plan” for the whole year, called Every Day We Grow in Body, Mind, and Spirit, that shows ALL of the generic strength-based learning experiences that should be available to a learning community on a daily basis. The teachers, then, devise a theme-based plan for each week. Both plans are posted and both show the strengths to be built and the experiences to be offered.

More about this in the Next Blog: Week by Week, Day by Day – Lesson Plans (UCK!)

Organization by the Calendar Year – Holidays and Celebrations

Celebrations are a great way to organize and cover all Learning Areas and all educational strengths. If the holidays covered are part of the culture of your children and their families, this is a good way to create relevancy, and if the holidays covered are new to the children it’s a way to introduce new concepts and see differences in a positive light.  Adding the birthdays or personal milestones of the children, teachers, and staffers in the program makes an interesting and personalized system of presenting learning experiences.

Theme Titles & Celebrations                                                                            

• Awesome August – Back to School, National Watermelon Day, National S’mores Day, Left Hander’s Day, National Marshmallow Toasting Day
• Super September – Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Grandparent’s Day, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, International Peace Day, Autumnal Equinox, Native American Day
• OH! It’s October – International Day for the Elderly, Columbus Day, Eid-Ul-Adha, Sweetest Day, Make a Difference Day, Halloween
• Nifty November – All Saint’s Day, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah
• Days of December – Advent, Poinsettia Day, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa
• Jumpin’ January – New Year’s Day, Epiphany-Three Kings’ Day, Civil Rights Day, Martin Luther King Day, Opposite Day
• Fine February – Groundhog Day, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, Hoodie-Hoo Day
• March into March – International Women’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, First Day of Spring, Purim, Palm Sunday, Passover, Good Friday, Easter
• April Antics – April Fool’s Day, Patriot’s Day, Walk to Work Day, Earth Day, Daughter to Work Day, Arbor Day
• Magical May – May Day, Cinco de Mayo, National Teacher’s Day, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day                                                                                                                     

Use NON-STEREOTYPICAL PROPS & MATERIALS, PLEASE!

Organization by Project, Problem, Question, or Challenge – Some of the best learning experiences are created when the community of learners works together on a relevant and purposeful project.  Even if you don’t organize your year this way, please give your little learners practice in problem-solving community projects and challenges every day or every week. This works best with children three and older.

• August – Creating Our Community – children are involved in room design, class nickname, or mascot, rules, artwork for walls, signs for bathroom, ideas for furniture arrangement, etc.
• September – What Can We Do for Seniors? – talk about growth and growing up, our bodies, creation of art and music for seniors, talk about past, present, future, visit senior centers or invite seniors to visit the community, and celebrate Grandparents Day  
• October – What Will You Be for Halloween? – create costumes and masks, talk about fear, talk about nutrition and dental health and safety
• November – What Are We Thankful For? – family, friends, food (a canned food drive), people who keep us safe – community helpers
• December – My Family Winter Holidays! – celebration of Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah by learning and sharing each others’ celebrations – talk about same and different, do calendar work, many art projects
• January – It’s a New Year!  How Can We Get Healthy? – emphasis on gross motor skills, nutrition, self help and hygiene
• February – How Do People and Animals Stay Warm? – weather, hot/cold, seasons, homes, shelters, habitats, talk about winter clothes, play listening games, make cold weather food, hibernation, make up games to play indoors (also celebrate Valentine’s Day with cards for family and friends, talk about love and the mail system) and celebrate Hoodie Hoo Day
• March – What Makes Wind and How Can We Use It? – kites, air, bubbles, storms, clothes dryers, fans
• April – How Can We Save Our Plants and Trees? – gardening, tree planting, farming, botany, Earth Day, Arbor Day, mud and water
• May – What Kind of Machine Would You Invent? – buildings, machines, inventions, constructions, vehicles, etc. 

Next Blog: Units U May Love!

 

  Units of can be based on any topic that has:

• Purpose – It can be used to meet skill Expectations (including relaxation and fun)
• Relevancy – It has significance to the children, their families, and their environment
• Interest – It can be used to peak interest, curiosity and motivation to learn
• Evolution – It allows children to move from learned knowledge to new knowledge

Units can be organized in a variety of ways. Here is a traditional one:

         Month               Expectation Emphasis                    Title

• August              Orientation to School                     Getting to Know Me
• September       Self-Awareness                                My Body and How I Grow
• October            Self-Awareness                                 Faces, Feelings, and Halloween
• November        Family Knowledge                          My Family and Thanksgiving
• December         Family Culture                                 Winter Celebrations
• January             Community Awareness                  My Neighbors
• February           Community Work                           Things that Move and Work
• March                Nature                                               Plants and Animals
• April                   Nature                                              Weather, Time, and Space
• May                     Human-made World                     Inventions and Machines

This is very generic and right on target developmentally, but needs to be used with flexibility to make it interesting and fun.

Here are some that are based on Specific Strength Expectation, Academic Skills, and Letters of the Alphabet:

unit 1

unit 2 

units 3 and 4

Next Blog: More Units U May Like!

Month by Month – Units are blocks of information and subjects through which learning experiences can be planned. The reason for organizing into units or themes is to introduce a sense of continuity into the learning process.  Most teachers like to plan monthly units for the whole year and some programs use the same monthly units for all learning communities.  Some teachers feel comfortable organizing learning into units that are traditionally scheduled on a monthly basis, but they can certainly be devised otherwise and the plan must be able to be modified. 

Units for the Year – Some teachers like to have a written blueprint for the whole school year so they can gather materials and resources and assure that the experiences they are offering have relevancy to the children and to the Strength Expectations.

There has to be a logical progression – from Expectation (objective) to Unit to Experience to Assessment. Teachers need to look over the program’s specific educational objectives and use them as a guide to planning units and then experiences based on those units that will offer opportunities for the children to take part in active purposeful play that will build those particular strengths. This system answers the questions about curriculum in this order: What are the Strengths the children will gain? What relevant blocks of information can be used to create appropriate experiences? What experiences can be designed to build the strengths? How can the learning be measured?

Some teachers feel it’s easier and more efficient to plan units and experiences based DIRECTLY on the Expectations themselves, others prefer to design units based on the calendar year, including holidays and celebrations, and still others like to create units based on interesting and unique topics such as children’s book authors, famous artists, or offbeat events. And Whaat? – there are even some teachers who throw caution to the wind and choose units based solely on WHIMSY or even on CHILD INTEREST and SPUR OF THE MOMENT EVENTS AS THEY HAPPEN!

As long as the subject matter of these units can be used to create experiences that can be DIRECTLY related to PURPOSEFUL (strength-based) LEARNING, I say, GO FOR IT!

Flexibility, Even Elasticity is the Watchword!  If you start a unit on Community Helpers and your threes show a preference for learning about the vehicles the helpers drive or the hats they wear rather than the work they do, you change your theme to transportation or vehicles or clothing. If your unit is The Farm and the children want to keep talking about it after the time you’ve allotted for it, you keep on farming.  If you are studying My Body and How I Grow, and a hurricane pops up, you switch your theme to weather so you can use the real life event to create more interest, realism, and relevancy. 

Administrators and licensing monitors should support these changes in plans if a teacher can prove the modification still connects to the specific Expectations to be covered, and parents will support the change in plans if you explain that your modification and the need for flexibility are important to the learning process.  There is no difference in counting pigs on the farm, wheels on a police car, or branches knocked down by the storm.  Math is always math, but life is full of change.

Next Blog: Units U May Like!

 

The System is the means of organizing and documenting the information presented for learning and it has to be structured carefully as to choice of subject matter, correspondence to program goals, and clarity in documentation.  It is the organizational plan of offering the learning to the children.

Individual teachers in a program should have the freedom to create an organizational plan for their own community of learners as long as it is based on appropriate standards and practices of research-based child development fact and theory, it matches the overall program plan, and it makes sense to teachers and parents. 

I like a system that reiterates the program’s general educational objectives (I like to call them Strength Expectations) for the year; introduces the titles of the monthly units through which the learning experiences that build those strengths will be planned; delineates the weekly lesson plans showing the specific strengths to be worked on and the experiences that will build them; mandates a daily plan showing generic (not necessarily theme-related) experiences that should be available to the children every day; explains hour by hour what is expected to happen during the routine and curricular elements of a day in a preschool learning community; and finally outlines the minute by minute schedule for a particular learning community.

Whew! A briefer representation of the system might look like this:

• Year by Year             General Strength Expectations for all children
• Month by Month      Units of information to be presented
• Week by Week         Lesson Plans that show what experiences will be offered
• Day by Day                A Gift From Me – a generic plan for daily work
• Hour by Hour           Routine and Curricular Elements of the Day    
• Minute by Minute    Your Class Schedule – when it all happens

Great Expectations – All teachers and all parents must be able to share the program’s general educational milestones for learning and child development at Parent Orientation at the beginning of the school term or at the time of registration. This gives them an overall view of a program’s educational objectives and reinforces to parents that this curriculum and its objectives are based on natural child development and will not waver from the path of Developmentally Appropriate Practice.

Sometimes in the middle of a school term or when a formal assessment is done, or at a time when there may be learning differences noted, (or after an uninformed parent becomes concerned about “all that playing”), there may be a parent or two who express concern and confusion about what it is his or her child is “being taught” and “why isn’t my child learning his ABC’s?” If the system begins first with the overall list of objectives (Strength Expectations)and then introduces the parents in each class to the specific age level strengths to be gained for the ages of the children in each learning community, there is far less concern and a great deal more understanding.

 Remember that each child grows and develops in an individual and unique way, so the specific strengths your program lists for children from birth through five years of age, will overlap the chronological ages.  Usually most of the children in a class or community of learners will be meeting expectations fairly evenly, but because of the many different influences on development, some children may be very adept at the skills in one area but have need for more practice to achieve skills in another. Share with parents the strength expectations from their child’s current age and after some factual observation and informal assessment, if there are concerns about need or differences in learning (either delayed or accelerated) share the expectations below or above the child’s current age.

Next Blog: Month by Month