Adaptations and Community

Community: "a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals."

We often refer to classrooms as communities, but this is a goal to achieve, not something handed to us when entering the room. For us, creating a community is a daily task starting with a morning meeting and ending with individual goodbyes. Each child has different needs, but how are one or two teachers able to provide such treatment to an entire class? In our room, we often use the children to provide some of these adaptations. 

The morning gathering provides us time to great one another, come together as a group, and set the tone for the day. Some gatherings are more silly, while some quiet. We attempt to engage the children in conversation and gage their needs/feelings. Each Friday is a share day where the children can bring in a toy. They are each given time to talk about and show the functions of this toy, and then allowed to share for an hour during open play. There are some children who are naturally comfortable speaking to the group, while others prefer not to. We have found that every child enjoys sharing their toys and this activities has given the more quiet children a great opportunity to shine in front of their peers. Share time is also a way for the children to get to know one another. Initially, the children brought toys to school that please themselves only. Over time, they began to bring toys that pertained to their play or that other children would enjoy.

When one of our children needed help to understand time and the daily routine, we introduced a physical daily schedule. Each task includes a picture and the written words. During the morning meeting we place each activity onto the schedule. Throughout the day, this specific child is to remove the completed activities. Such small tasks could be easily forgotten by the teacher(s). However, this is where the help of peers comes in handy! The other children have taken a liking to helping this child complete her task; they will remind her throughout the day without being prompted. This helps the child to feel loved and supported. 

Encouraging a nurturing relationship between the children is a daily goal we work on. In our classroom, we take care of each other in place of the "sorry habit"; so many people say sorry without giving meaning to it. Our children have learned how to care for their peers when bodies or feelings are hurt. The children are now also expected to attempt problem solving and managing disagreements on their own before seeking help. They have learned to make compromises and talk out their problems. We very rarely give them the answers, we know they can work it out and they have gained enough strategies through their time with us. We trust our students and believe in them!

Respect and boundaries is a huge focus in our classroom. We believe that each child knows their needs and owns their body. It is our job to show all the children how to respect one another; if someone says no or stop, we freeze and listen; if someone doesn't like something, we do our best to avoid that interaction with them. We show the children how to understand one another by example. Part of building a respectful relationship is by getting to know a person's likes and dislikes. Martina and I show the children through our relationship and the relationships we build with each individual child. For example, Martina and I both enjoy Sushi. We tell the children about when we go to a sushi restaurant together. One child even asked her father to make us sushi. This child has chosen to care for us in this moment because she has seen us care for one another. Many children enjoy being tickled, but some of ours do not. We listen to them when they request us to stop and know the children who never enjoy it. On the flip side, the children have also gotten to know our preferences and show us they care by providing positive experiences for US. This is a non-stop job, but we help the children learn to build positives relationships by setting a great example for them. 

There are endless ways to create a community within a classroom, but it does not happen by chance. 

On the School Hunt

How do you know a school is right for your child? What do you even need to know about a school to know it is right for your child?

Together, Martina and I have compiled a list of questions that can help guide you in your search for a school- preschool and kindergarten. You will find not only find questions to ask a perspective schools, but questions to ask yourself and current teachers about your child.

There are no "right" answers. Instead, better choices for your child's specific needs.

• Class size? What is the ratio? How many children to adults? 
• Does your child need a smaller group? Can they function well with a lot of people? Each child is different in their needs for a learning environment. 
• Physical affection. How much does your child need? What is allowed at the school? Is the teacher willing to provide your child with the amount of physical affection they require.
• Ask the school policies on physical touch. Some only allow side hugs, some nothing, while others promote strong physical affection. 
• Schedule. Is there a set time schedule throughout the day?
• What kind of daily routine does your child need? Do they thrive on a rigid daily schedule, or require more flexibility. Is the schedule clear to the children? Do the children contribute to the daily schedule? Can your child choose their play at some point in the day, or are all activities chosen for them?
• Environment.
• Physical- the way the class appears. 
• Is the classroom itself welcoming to your child? 
• Are the colors soothing or overwhelming? Research shows that children respond well to a natural environment with neutral colors throughout the room, especially the walls. 
• How much light is in the room? Studies and personal experience has proven that children can become very overwhelmed by stimulating overhead lighting. 
• Room temperature- according to science, boys often perform better in cooler environments. 
• Flow- does the layout of the classroom provide enough play and work space? Does the room make sense for the children to function in it without consistent assistance from the teacher(s)? 
• Organization- is it clear to the children where materials go? Can the children clean up the classroom on their own? How much material is out? Is there enough in the school and classroom? Is there too much material out to where the children don't know what to do- too many options? Are the children allowed to have access to material? Can they request material that is not accessible?  
• Are there any small or alone spaces for children?
• Classroom community
• How does the teacher build the community? Are families and parents involved in the classroom community- within the classroom and/or outside? 
• How does the teacher unite the children as a unit in the classroom? Do the children work together to accomplish goals? Are the children encouraged to support one another? 
• Problem solving- how does the teacher manage arguments? Are the children encouraged to care for one another regardless of "blame"?
• Conflict- How does the teacher handle physical or verbal conflict between students and when it comes home?
• When does the teacher intervene? What does the teacher say? How are the children in the conflict addressed? When does the principle or director become involved? Are their specific policies set in place by the teach and/or school?
• Verbal conflict
• Is verbal conflict allowed? Does the teacher encourage the children to speak with one another? Does the teacher facilitate and teach children how to communicate during a verbal conflict. 
• Does the school and/or teacher require apologies regardless of intention? Does the teacher prefer the children to care for one another? 
• Physical conflict
• Does the teacher support verbal intervention or separate the children? Are the parents notified? In what way and how quickly? 
• How are the children treated during and after a physical conflict? Are both children allowed fair treatment? If there is one instigator, are they shamed or blamed? Is this child removed from the environment? Are consequences developmentally appropriate for your child specifically? 
• Who is the teacher? 
• When trusting a person with your dearest possession, you want to make a connection with them, you want to know who you are leaving your child with. 
• Try to find a time where you can ask these questions and get to know your child's potential teacher. 
• Does this teacher take the time to know their students individually?
• Will they make adaptations to their classroom to fit the needs of the children in that specific group?

We wish everyone the best of luck in finding the right school for their child!

Conferences and THE Question

It is that time of year again. CONFERENCE TIME! We find these meetings so crucial to our classroom community. It is a time where the parent gets to talk about their child without him or her being present- a rare occurrence in a parent's life. Our goal in these meetings is to strengthen our understanding of the parents, child, and to continue creating a trusting bond with the parents.

This year, was a slightly different preparation than before; this year we had to rebuild the written evaluation to better suit the TK standards. After some thought, we felt it best to use the same format as years previous so as to keep things simple for ourselves and the parents. No sense in reinventing the wheel. It took us about three hours! We went through each line of the previous year's evaluation while referring to the TK DRDP (as mentioned in the previous post). Not only was the content so important to us, but the precise wording. We even found ourselves editing wording while evaluating the students to really make it work for us.

Then came conferences. Typically, our school does one entire day of conferences in January. After some deliberation, Martina and I felt it best to move up the date to November. Typically, elementary schools do their first set of conferences at this time, and we felt it more appropriate timing.

We couldn't help but laugh halfway through our meetings when most of our parents asked the same questions!! It was reassuring to us that the parents felt confident in their children's academic abilities, however, it was the social topic that they were concerned about.

Why is my child coming home and complaining about play? 

Are they having fun? 

They say they don't want to come to school. 

My child says people are mean to them. 

What we actually see in their play is nothing like the above statements and questions. We see eight children who go in and out of peer groups depending on their interests and interactions. However, we find that a small challenging interaction or conflict holds more weight in the child's mind; it is what they more often bring home to share with the parents. We reassured each parent that their child spends the majority of their day happy and involved in play, yet we believe that these small conflicts are actually a huge source of learning opportunities. The children are learning that there are different personalities and opinions in the world; not everyone will believe and act the same way in a situation.

Example One: Child A makes a comment and laughs. Child B replies strongly, "that's not funny!"

In this situation, we help both children to understand that there are different senses of humor; not everyone will think the same joke is funny. So, we give them the words. To Child B we first say, "it's ok if you do not think this is funny. You can tell Child A, "I don't think that is funny." To Child A we would say, "Not everyone will think your jokes are funny. This is ok. Maybe try telling your joke to someone else." These words acknowledge both children's feelings while avoiding a negative interaction between the two while giving them an understanding of different perceptions. 

Example Two: In our classroom, the rules around fighting a pretend shooting is that everyone involved has to understand the game and agree to it. A child can only choose to be the "bad guy", someone else cannot choose for them. There is no touching when play fighting. However, what do we do when rules are broken and one child hits another during this time? First, we make sure to be close enough to hear and see this type of play. When a child is hit, intentionally or not, we give the "victim" these words, "so-and-so, I do not like when you ____. Please do not ___ again." We also encourage the children to walk away from play that they do not want to be involved in. By giving children the words and power to defend themselves, we are giving them life long tools to be their own advocate. 

It is our biggest job to enable our students to be strong without us. We want them to know their own boundaries and to listen to others so as to do so without assistance and supervision when they leave us. THIS is truly what preschool is about. 

Educate Yo'self!

This past week Martina and I visited another TK classroom at Discovery Charter School. Before I get started into our visit and learning, I wanted to share with you the mission and philosophy of the school.

Like our school, DCS (Discovery Charter School) follows a Reggio-Inspired philosophy.

You can find their mission here and the philosophy here. 

DCS holds a strong value in family and community participation and outreach; part of enrolling your child in their school includes a certain amount of volunteer and education hours. Although this requirement does not work for our demographic, we do always invite our students' parents into the classroom when they are available to and find different ways to share our knowledge with them. 

I can also appreciate the parent education factor in DCS. Similar to most other practices, the learning should not stop in the classroom, it is the continued support of the parents at home that creates long term growth in a child- especially when working on behavior. 

As with our school and classroom as well, DCS has a strong focus on the social-emotional development of their students; we cannot expect a child to learn who cannot yet sit or have a conversation. Both DCS and our school refers to the developmental needs of each child to guide the classroom practices. 

In order to help children grow, the Reggio philosophy encourages project based learning with a strong focus on the children's interests. In my experience, this way of learning is very effective! For example, the use of a project was able to help a previous student gain comfort in the classroom in order to learn English naturally; he came to us speaking Spanish with little to no English vocabulary. 

During our visit to the DCS TK classroom we both reaffirmed our practices, and acquired new information. After thirty minutes of observing the classroom in action, we had the opportunity to ask the teacher questions. 

During our observation time, we saw three distinct centers; play dough and letter cards, story telling, and coloring. There were also other children working on puzzles, reading books, and building. Clearly, this is a class of much more than 8 children and in a larger space than we have. The classroom appeared to have an easy flow between each of the activities; every child was completely engaged in their work. Additionally, there were two parents working a station each, while the teacher was at another station and floating around between the children. 

A big question we were curious to ask was how this teacher documents and evaluates. She showed us several recording sheets and her evaluation (based on the DRDP). Currently, there is no specific TK DRDP. Instead, TK educators are referring to the Kindergarten DRDP and reformatting their evaluations to fit. We felt that the information on this teacher's evaluation was very similar to our own, but we preferred to keep the format of the evaluation to stay the same so as our parents would more comfortable. 

Park Play

We are so fortunate to have a park less than a five minute walk from school! As a teaching pair, we have taken advantage of this great opportunity for the last two years, and now going into our third. We find this weekly outing to have so many wonderful benefits.

1. Part of the Reggio philosophy includes exposing the children into the community. By doing so, this gives us an opportunity for real life interaction with adults, children and animals they are unfamiliar with. We work with our children to appropriately approach and respond in these situations, especially those who have animals. This will only help our students to feel more safe and confident in public. 
2. The park provides a larger space for lots of running. Need I say more?
3. The park also has a great playground that allows the children to exercise different muscles than our play structures at school. Many of the children have already mastered monkey bars, ladders, and getting onto a swing independently. 
4. A deeper connection to nature is promoted through our weekly park trips. We allow the children to explore the "forest" along the sides of the park, with supervision of course. During these explorations, they often observe and collect their surroundings. With their collections, we are able to return to the classroom and further investigate their findings. 
5. Each of the five senses is deeply integrated into daily activites within the school. However, by visiting the park, we are creating new experiences for the children to explore with each sense. 
6. By visiting the park, we are putting the children in a new setting, creating new and different opportunities for inquisition.  

Self Portraits // Journals

Self Portraits. If you have not done them with your child(ren) or students, we highly recommend giving it a try! It is unbelievable how telling they can be about a child; it directly shows where they are in their development and how they view themselves.

Is their head separate of their body? Or is their head and body the same?
How much detail? Eyebrows? Eyelashes? Fingers? Clothing?
Are body part connected or apart?

In our experience the answers to the above questions are telling of the child; someone who is spatially unaware in the classroom often will draw their body parts detached from one another. Or a child who is more observant of their surroundings will have more detail in the self portrait.

Here, another teachers describes their experience with self-portraits.

In past years, we had the children draw self portraits at the beginning and end to include in their portfolios. This year, we opted to make the portraits more relevant to the children by making them the cover of their journals.

Here is an example of one child's portrait this year. She will be 5 in December. This child chose to draw long hair for herself, despite having shorter hair. Again, self portraits may not always portray the child as they are, but how they personally view themselves. We can also see that this child has a separate head with eyes, nose and a mouth. She also made her body into a triangular shape, denoting that she's wearing a dress- which she often does. The arms, legs, hands, and feet are all attached, and she even included fingers.

Journals, what in the world are we going to do with these? EVERYTHING! The child has a story to share, we write it in the journal. We are observing a specimen in the microscope, but it in the journal. Someone else wants to draw their family, put it in the journal. Every journal entry is dated and the children do as much of the writing and drawing as possible. We have also started asking the children to plan their creations and draw them first to encourage intention. Again, these plans go in the journal. 

We are hoping to accomplish several goals through use of the journals. As I already mentioned, intention, but the journals also will help us to stay organized and have a good view of the child: their interests and development. 

Afternoons and Goodbyes

The majority of this blog focuses on our tasks during the first part of the day, 8:30-1:00. Despite the simplicity of the second part, we cannot negate it.

Everyday, the children have a 30-40 minute enrichment class at 1:10 or 1:45: movement (twice), dance, basketball, and yoga. During this time we prep, and I blog. When the children come back, we either have outdoor time, free play inside, or finish a task, then have snack.

In the first two weeks, we were finding it difficult to have a significant ending to our day; we didn't want to do a final meeting before snack- being that they were still in the classroom for snack, it felt a bit meaningless. A meeting after snack was almost impossible- everyone finishes snack at a different time and their ability to focus is virtually gone.

Is a meeting necessary at the very end of the day when we have already had two or three? 

How can we make an end of day routine that feels final and comfortable?

SOLUTION - our new routine: snack, outside shoes (we were house slippers inside), sunblock, book, goodbye. To say goodbye, the children line up at the door. They can choose a high five, hug or handshake. Most children choose to do all three. I make this a fun and individualized experience for them.

One child absolutely warms my heart every day; she says, "I have to tell you something". Meaning, 'lean down so I can whisper in your ear'. I lean over, and she whispers, "I love you very much". I act surprised every time and say, "I have something to tell you!" I lean over and whisper in her ear, "I love you very much too!"

Each child really enjoys this time. I make a connection with each based on their personality and things that had happened throughout the day. It seems we have hit the nail on the head with a successful ending routine.