Routines and Expectations

A little honesty. We are extremely fortunate to only have eight children at the start of this year. This being said, some goals will be more quickly accomplished than a larger TK class with only one teacher. The first week was reasonably easy; we allowed the children to explore the classroom and acclimate to new routines.

Part of our curriculum is to really hold the children accountable through multiple avenues. First is through "Job Opportunities". During Monday morning meetings, the children are asked to choose a job for the week. Not all children will have a job each week. Compared to years past, we will be reminding them of their tasks a lot less- holding them accountable to remember and complete their job each day. Another strategy we have implemented to encourage responsibility is to hold the children accountable for the messes they make. This year, they may not leave one area to start something new before completely cleaning up the previous task, compared to years back where they could have left an area, regardless if they're coming back to it, and clean it up later.

As mentioned in the Daily Schedule post, we have already made adjustments to create a better flow in the day. Starting our day outside for 15 minutes has made for a much easier morning meeting time; the children are more focused on the topic and teacher speaking because they are no longer thinking about the game they left only a few feet away or the friend next to them they were just involved with. The children are also more open to engaging in other activities after morning meeting.

In order to indicate the start of morning meeting, we have implemented the use of a music box; one child is asked to wind it up, and they take turns each day. We feel this routine helps the children to transition into gathering and change their focus.

The biggest part of our morning gathering is the use of our Flower Calendar. We will dive into a larger discussion of this routine in another post. For now, this is how we are starting to discuss days of the week and daily activities with the children.

Over time, we will be challenging the children and ourselves more and more. We are so impressed with the work the students have accomplished so far. We are already a week ahead of our planned curriculum!

Daily Schedule

As all educators and parents know, flexibility is the MOST important quality when working with children. We are experiencing this first hand in regards to our daily schedule. Here is what we started with...

7:00-8:30 Early drop off
8:30 Enter Classroom
8:45 Morning Meeting
        Free Choice
        Clean Up
10:30 Snack
        Outdoor Play
12:00 Lunch
12:45 Whole Group Game
1:10 Enrichment Class / Prep
1:40 Outside
2:45 Closing Meeting
3:00 Go Home / Snack- join activity

Mondays
9:00 School Meeting
10:30 Music in classroom
10:50 Movement

Tuesday/Wednesday
11:00/9:30 Music

Fridays
10:00 School Meeting

Well, within the first two hours of the first day of school our schedule already changed. And, not to mention that Mondays are already very busy- the kids wanted more indoor time to dive into their projects. Annnnnd.... a lot of kids did not arrive until closer to 9:00am.

Ok. Reminder- BE FLEXIBLE!

First hurdle- Monday enrichment got moved from 1:10 to 1:45. We ended up using the time after lunch to extend their indoor play and went outside after enrichment. This did not work.

1. the room next to use is being used for nap on Mondays- we cannot be loud. You all know how hard it is to keep kids quiet, and especially after lunch. 
2. we were outside with the younger children after enrichment. This would not normally be an issue, except for that they went inside at 2:45 for snack. I tried having the Hummingbirds join activity to prep for snack at this time, but it didn't feel right. We didn't have a closing circle and everyone was a little confused. 

New schedule on second day...

8:45 Meeting

        Free Choice

        NO clean up

10:30 Snack

11:00 Music

        Continued Free Choice - in classroom 

        Clean Up

12:00 Lunch

        Outside

2:00 Inside

        Group Games

        Books

        Closing circle

We entered the day hoping to start our morning meeting a 8:45, but again, this did not happen. 

NEW new schedule for the remainder of this week...

8:30 Outside drop off

9:00 Morning Meeting

        Free Choice

        NO clean up

10:30 Snack

11:00 Music

        Free Choice - in classroom 

        Clean Up

12:00 Lunch

        Outside

2:00 Inside

        Group Games

        Books

        Closing circle

Our goal is to eventually get to morning meetings at 8:45. Eventually. Additionally, we changed our drop off from inside to outside to create a better flow of the day. Having the meeting start after the children were already involved in play felt haphazard and their focus was not on the discussion at hand. 

Ok. Let's try this. Remember- BE FLEXIBLE! =) 

Classroom Set Up

As everyone already knows, prep week is hard enough as is. Now, add moving into another classroom and creating a new curriculum to the list. Let's just say, we are much deserving of a sushi date! (Martina and I have discovered that we share three favorite foods- mangoes, raspberries, and SUSHI!)

We chose to switch rooms primarily for the location. The classroom is now at the very end of the hallway- giving the room a sense of independence from the rest of the school, allowing the children to feel older and have a new experience.

At the entrance of our classroom, we have a library for both parents and children and a sign in book. The first week we will be working with the children to sign in with their name and time each morning. Eventually, they will be doing this independently.

Upon entering the room, we have provided the children with "mail boxes". This will allow them to independently collect their work to take home. Step further into the room and we have our "Job Opportunities", puzzles, Zingo, and a sound matching game. This area will allow for some quiet play in either a small group or independent setting. Additionally, to the left of the door on the wall is a poster in which we will be measuring the children throughout the year. We plan to use these measurements as one way to teach math and charting. 

Photo removed for privacy - children's names on wall.

Beyond the entrance is a table and the block/carpet area. The table is intended for works in progress- especially their building projects. At the moment, the table has a basket of Legos and two tan-o-gram puzzles. This year, the block/carpet area is reasonably smaller than the previous two years. Although we still see the importance of building, we wanted to emphasize other area of focus such as reading, writing and science. 

Another reason why we love this classroom is for its extra window. In the corner with this extra window, we have placed our reading and writing nook. We are hoping to help the children make the connection between reading and writing through these adjacent centers. The writing center also has journals for each child that we will eventually use for a long list of different activities. The other purpose of this reading nook is to provide the children with a quiet area. There can be up to three children here. 

Next to the reading/writing nook is our science area with more books, our fish (originally named Night, but lovingly referred to as Fish), binoculars, sand timers, a world globe, and (at the moment) rocks, magnets, and magnifying glasses. We allow only one or two people at this station. 

Along the opposite wall is our art and eating area. Each item was chosen specifically so the children can independently start and complete their own projects. Such items include fuse beads, paint in squeeze bottles with palettes and brushes, collage materials, different kind of paper, glue, and pencils.  

Beyond the art area, to the left of the front door, we have a small table in front of the sink and desk. We will be using this area for small group work, especially cooking projects. 

Another element to our classroom is the lack of overhead lighting. Instead we use natural light and lamps. In our personal experience, we have found that children are able to stay calm and focus more diligently when overhead lighting is limited or completely removed. We even feel the benefit of it! 

In our room, there is very little off limits to the children- if it is out, it is theirs to use. However, this is not to say that their may be appropriate and inappropriate ways of using things. For instance, for snack, we use glass plates. The children set up the table themselves, but if they are to handle the plates roughly or without care, they will be given a plastic plate to use. The only area in which the children have absolutely no access to is the sink and counter area. This is our personal storage and prep area- including a microwave for lunch and important documents. 

After two days of using the classroom, we are in LOVE with the flow and have only made very, very, very minor changes. One change was in the art area- we moved the drying rack against the wall and pulled the shelves out slightly. This has really made the art area and small group table feel more separate of each other. Despite all of the furniture, we really feel the classroom has a large and airy feeling to it due to the use of lightly colored furniture. We prefer when the color within a classroom comes from the children. This is their room, much more so than it is ours. 

A New Beginning

Hello fellow educators and parents!

We are diving head first into the world of Transitional Kindergarten, and decided to blog as a way of documenting our process and progress.

Hi! I'm Kim! I have been teaching preschool for 5 years after graduating from a 4 year school with a degree in Liberal Studies with a focus in Elementary Education. Post graducation, I attended a community college for three courses to complete my Early Education units. Education, development, and children have long, long, loooooong been a passion of mine. I believe in child centered, project based, whole child learning with a strong emphasis in Social-Emotional development

Martina is my lovely co-teacher, and taking the lead on this TK thing. She has been in the preschool world for 15 years with one year of Kindergarten experience. While growing up in Germany, Martina experienced a strong play-based education in her early years and became a director and producer of theater as a young adult. After moving to the United States, and later California, Martina attended community college to obtain her ECE Units and further education. Her beliefs in education are strongly centered around developmentally appropriate practice and that children first need to find themselves through play.

A little about our school. We work amidst the tech capitol of the country- Silicon Valley, neighboring Netflix, Google, and Apple. The school itself is Reggio Inspired, child centered, project based. There are a total of 5 classrooms- one Twos class, one Threes class, two Fours classes, and us- TK. The school has two yards- a smaller Sand Yard including the sand pit, planter beds, a rock pit with toy cars and trucks, and a "house" area with open walls and, and at the moment, Duplo Blocks. The larger outdoor area is referred to as the Bike Yard. Here we have bikes, cars, scooters, a ladder swing, large wooden blocks, balls, more planters, and an area for art. We also provide enrichment classes including movement, yoga, soccer, dance, basketball, art and cooking. The TK kids are included in one of these activities every day after lunch.

Sand Yard

 

 

Bike Yard

We are hoping for this blog to begin another community in the world of children to start conversations and evoke inspiration. We hope you enjoy the journey with us!