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.

Some teachers get into the early ed business because they want to TEACH and SHARE KNOWLEDGE and MAKE THINGS BETTER, all with the greatest of good intentions. I say, also with the best of intentions, BACK OFF! Our purpose as teachers of children from birth to 8, is to set it up, make it safe, get out of the way, and LET LEARNING HAPPEN.

Real Learning – Real Learning happens through SARA – Selection, Action, Reflection, and Application. If learning is to be of the highest quality and the greatest value, THE CHILD must be the center, the composer, the playwright, the ‘boss’ of it. Teachers need to learn to let learning come from the child’s choices and the child’s self-determined methods of Movement, Sensory Exploration, Manipulation, Construction (and destruction), Role Play, and Expression.

Learning happens all day long in the early ed community, because children learn something from everything they experience, but Center or Choice Time is the traditional meat of the learning sandwich. It should take place for at least one-third of the day’s schedule. It is that STAGED but not ORCHESTRATED time in which children and teachers share in the experience of purposeful play (using the methods listed above).

During Center/Choice Time teachers need to:

• Observe and Listen
• Narrate the Action as Needed
• Keep Their Hands and Personal Opinions to Themselves
• Ask the Right Kinds of Questions*
• Document the Learning that Happens**

*Always giving a child immediate answers and facts without encouraging his own research through play, is both presumptuous and wrong. Ask, Don’t Tell. The right kinds of questions are open-ended and ask what, how, who, and what would happen if.   What are you working on? How did you make that? Who might use that? What would happen if you . . . ? Questions that require one-word answers have their place, but they are limited in value. They determine proof of memory, speech, and recognition skills, but they do not determine proof of real (SARA) learning.

**Document the learning AND THE PROGRESS OF THE LEARNING by writing down the child’s words, taking pictures of the action and any product the child creates from the action, and displaying the words and works for the child, the other children, and any classroom visitors to see. Put post-it notes and Word Walls up with the children’s words so they can begin to make the action-object-language-print connection. Encourage them to record these moments in their journals through drawings and beginning, personal, original, phonetic or pretend writing. Make notes of the learning in their portfolios and share with parents and on ‘formal’ assessment report forms.

It is hard for teachers whose hearts are in the right place and who want so much to share and care for young children to remove themselves a bit from the learning process, but if you want to engender real and high quality learning, play Mother, May I and take one giant step back.

 

 

 

Rules – Many programs have detailed written policies for teachers to follow, most of which (rightfully so) deal with physical safety and health. Within a program, teachers should follow these health and safety policies to the letter without question.

But let’s talk about classroom rules. Some teachers LOVE rules and they create one for EVERY possible situation that may arise. Others see no need for stated rules of behavior and simply deal with situations as they arise. As with most things, the mid-point is the smartest place to be.

Rules on Rules – Classroom rules should be developmentally appropriate; agreed upon by parents, teachers, and children old enough to have input; consistently enforced whenever possible; practical and useful – with rules of safety being the most strictly enforced; simple and practical and limited to common sense situations (not nitpicky regulations for imagined worries that may not occur); and they should be stated and written positively, telling the children what TO DO, not just what not to do.

Developmental appropriateness is the rule for all things preschool. Whenever possible – and as possible as often – children should be involved in rule writing. Even two-year-olds can begin to take part. Hence the rules in my room one year included, among others:

• Be Nice
• No Taking Toys
• No Tee Tee on Thomas (or anyone else)
• If you gonna’ ‘flow up’, ‘flow up’ at home

When children are involved in making the rules, there is more ownership of the behaviors. This does not mean there will be fewer unattractive behaviors, it’s just another way of instilling ownership and creating an environment of child-centeredness. The benefits of ownership for young children are these:

• When they have ownership of their bodies, they learn to use them more appropriately and to protect them with safety, nutrition, and health
• When they have ownership of their environment, they learn to respect & care for it
• When they have ownership of their actions and behaviors, they learn to be more aware of the consequences of those actions
• When they have ownership of their attempts and their mistakes, they learn to keep trying
• When they have ownership of their decisions, they learn to make better ones
• When they have ownership of the learning process, they become increasingly self-sufficient, independent, and more successful as students and human beings
• Psst! – (Two more secret side effects of ownership and responsibility are that the greater the ownership, the better the behaviors and the better you look to parents during Teacher Appreciation Week).

Rules need to make sense to the children; need to be followed by the whole class and consistently enforced by the adults; should be posted (even in non-reading classrooms) for referral; and even though NO! is a fine word, to be saved for instances where physical safety is in peril, rules should be stated positively so they tell the children what TO DO, not just what NOT TO DO.

Remember that the word, “DON’T” is confusing for young children. They may not even hear that word itself, but will recognize the verb after the “don’t”, and many times do the exact opposite of what the teacher intends. Saying, “Don’t Run!” often results in a stampede of two-year-old marathon sprinters headed for the finish line.

So, let’s review:

• Be Nice
• Be a Friend
• Pee Pee in the Potty
• If You Are Sick, Please Stay at Home

 

YOU MAY NOT CARE FOR THIS ONE, BUT:

There is a lot of information floating around about early education classroom design. There are hundreds of blogs, websites, and articles that show photos of classrooms designed like imaginary lands of enchantment with hanging strings of holiday lights and boughs of branches artistically placed to create an aura of wonder and fantasy as if the room will be inhabited by little elves and pixies working as shoemakers and giggling in whispery voices.

Two of the absolute best of these sites is Fairy Dust Teaching, which, in spite of its sort of ethereal name, is one of the most practical and best research-based sites for early learning I have found, and Stimulating Learning from Rachel. Both are outstanding in their advice on developmentally appropriate practice and suggestions for the use of natural, raw materials in preschool environments. I often share their posts with teachers I train.

• https://fairydustteaching.com
• http://stimulatinglearning.co.uk/

BUT – While some of these environments are absolutely beautiful and I would love to live this way myself, LET’S GET REAL. We do not live or teach in the kingdom of Pinterest or in Never Never Land. The classroom environment must be inviting and attractive and provocative (in the Reggio Emilia sense of the word) to THE CHILDREN, not to our adult interpretation of the child’s interests and preferences.

In the US, we rely far too much on Walt Disney and our favorite school supply catalogue for primary colored plastic furniture and Winnie the Pooh decor. We also overdo it in the amount of ‘stuff’ we display for the children. In the UK (where I’m beginning to think the local fire codes are fairly lax) they seem to make more use of natural and raw materials and the shelves hold a quite modest amount of equipment and materials.

Either way, it is not for our own or the parents’ eye that we should be designing the physical environment. It is for the children. Look at your room from their perspective and observe how they use the space and the materials. Arrange furniture for practical use. Stop somewhere between the US and the UK (mid-Atlantic Ocean, maybe) and create spaces in which the children’s work and words cover the walls, not Walt’s; spaces that are safe and follow all your local fire codes; spaces that use natural, raw materials but aren’t staged like a production of Lord of the Rings.

An old local tv commercial in Orlando, FL, had a gangly, bald-headed man who used to come out of his store and say, ‘TIRES AIN’T PRETTY!’, but he used to sell a LOT of tires. Classrooms do not have to be princess-pretty. They need to be safe, practical, and appealing to little girls and boys who need to move freely; taste, smell, touch, hear, and see stuff; mess with stuff; build, break, and rebuild with stuff; pretend with raw stuff; and express themselves in Reggio’s 100 languages

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AGH!! Aren’t you tired of all the endless discussion and argument over the value of play? I sure am.

Kids need Play!  Kids need Structure! Kids need to be Outdoors! Kids need to be Ready! Forest Schools! Recess! Free Play! WHAT ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY?

Here’s the deal: Children from birth to about 8, learn BEST when they:

• Move Their Bodies
• Use Their Senses
• Manipulate Stuff in the Environment
• Construct and Destruct (Build & Break & Rebuild)
• Pretend
• Express Themselves in Every Way

In other words, PLAY.

There are two kinds of Play and BOTH are MANDATORY EVERY DAY!

There is FREE PLAY which is open-ended, child-chosen, adults-only-there-for-physical safety, get-your-wiggles-out recess; and there is PURPOSEFUL PLAY, which is child-centered, child-chosen, and child-led, but also includes an environment staged with a purpose and with the human factor of someone who can provide language, open-ended questions, and who can recognize the learning achieved through the play and match it to developmentally appropriate objectives (there’s your accountability).

It’s confusing because there is so much great learning happening in Free Play which sometimes goes unrecognized as valuable learning and because so many teachers now feel the need to “over purpose” Purposeful Play to make sure academic goals are being met. So, what’s a Teacher to do?

Treat Free Play with Respect. Do not interrupt its flow or try to guide it, but do observe it carefully and recognize when assessable learning of value happens.

Treat Purposeful Play (Center Time or Choice Time) like a Broadway Production.  The child is the playwright and the director. He makes the decisions about where he will play, who he will play with, and how the play moves along. The Teacher is the set designer, the prop master, and the guy who whispers cues from offstage (offering language, asking open-ended questions, encouraging, naming, recognizing, and assessing the learning through observation and mental notation).Was the production a success? This question is answered when child and teacher reflect on the play, recalling it through conversation, dictation, drawings, or journal after the curtain goes down. No need for a big critique – no raves and no bad reviews – not even an audience is necessary for this play to be a HUGE HIT.

 

Alison Gopnik, author of  “The Scientist in the Crib” (with partners, Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl) and a child development psychologist who has done wonderful TED talks about brain development, once said, “there’s a relationship between how long a childhood a species has and how big their brains are compared to their bodies, and how smart and flexible they are.” It seems that more intelligent animals seem to have bigger brains and ‘longer’ childhoods. I believe this is true for little humans.

Dr. Gopnik says that the crow, a bird thought to be very smart, has a childhood as long as two years, but a farm chicken, which reaches maturity in only a few months, is not known for the high quality of its upper level cognitive abilities.  The difference in the length of childhood – this gift of time to develop appropriately and fully – says Dr. Gopnik, is the reason why “crows end up on the cover of “Science”, and chickens end up in the soup pot.”

I believe that our current education system is becoming like the running of a poultry farm, producing chickens who can do little more than peck on a standardized test, so I got to thinking about what else crows and preschool age learners have in common and I found some pretty neat stuff.

Clara in AvesNoir, a website dedicated to the corvid (crows and their relatives) posted that the common crow will usually live for about seven years

Hey! Just about the same time the human brain takes to develop to the beginnings of logical concrete thinking.

Clara also shared that almost all corvids have been observed using tools, and the raven can be taught to speak basic human language. Crows are emotional animals, too. They react to hunger and invasion by vigorously vocalizing their feelings. They display happiness, anger and sadness. Crows are considered song-birds and posses a deep repertoire of melodies. And, like humans, the more melodious the song, the more soothing the effects. Some crows have even been taught to recite opera. Crows have an excellent memory. They are masters at stashing food in many caches, moving it sometimes two or three times, and remembering exactly where they placed it. In fact, for their size, crows have the largest brains of all birds except some parrots. Their brain-to-body ratio is equivalent to that of a chimpanzee and amazingly, not far off that of a humans.

Amazing. Same as human children from birth to about age 8!

David Dietle, in 6 Terrifying Ways Crows Are Way Smarter Than You Think, gives us the mixed blessings of this knowledge: They can remember your face. They conspire with one another. Their memorize situations and systems. They use tools and problem-solve. They make plans. They use adaptive behaviors.

Remarkable. All the things we want our children to learn!

From nucific.com. comes the fact that when gathered in huge communal groups, they may become a nuisance for people due to their shrill and loud ‘cawing’ and may even attack humans if disturbed. Crows are known to be omnivorous and aggressive and often prey on other birds.

Pretty much describes a classroom full of four-year-olds to me! 

So, my conclusion is this: instead of using a curriculum that breeds chickens for pecking and throws them in a pot, use one that lets you grow crows for their intelligence, and then lets them fly!

 

 

 

Whew! Finally finished the project behind this blog: the creation of a complete Early Education Curriculum we are calling Lakemont.

We’ll be using it this year at the Winter Park Presbyterian Church Preschool Program and will let you know how it goes before we go for full publication.

The blogs here are pieces of Lakemont, a curriculum designed with the mission of optimal natural learning for each child from birth to six through a system founded on the basic EVIDENCE of facts on child development and learning ; EXPECTATIONS (objectives) matching that EVIDENCE; an ENVIRONMENT of physical, emotional, and educational safety; EXPERIENCES that are child-centered purposeful play EXECUTED with consideration of the human factor and mandated DAP; and EVALUATION of child progress and program quality. It is ECLECTIC and encourages ELASTICITY! It makes the learning process EASY, ENJOYABLE, EFFICIENT, and EXCELLENT.