How do you emphasize the use of "caring hands" in your learning environment? Here are a few ways we wove this important concept into our daily life in the classroom during our "Family and Pets" theme. Young children need patient, loving adults who will guide them tough situations. When someone has been hurt , we talk about what happened and help children be accountable for their actions. With the assistance of an adult, children learn to say, "I shouldn't have pushed you, do you forgive me?" for example. The child who was hurt, learns to say, "I forgive you." Sometimes a child isn't ready to forgive, so we patiently walk them through how to handle those big feelings. "It sounds like he is still really hurt. Let's check back in with him in a little bit." More times than not, a child is ready to forgive right away and only needed an acknowledgement of an injury. Each month, we receive 4 beautiful Teacher Guides and the majority of the materials to do the activities. September's monthly theme was Family and Pets, and the weekly themes were My Family, My Feelings, My Pets and Friendly Traits. During the Friendly Traits week, we spent a day on Care. We practiced caring and encouraging one another through games and activities and even art projects such as the one above. The unique thing about the Mother Goose Time curriculum is that they encourage "big questions" and teacher-child interaction before art materials are even explored. I plan on taking video of my assistant, Mrs. Plamondon who does a stellar job at communicating with the children on the day's subject. She uses the Teacher's Guide as a foundation and then very naturally, continues the discussion with the children. They are able to make observations aloud, answer open-ended questions, share an experience that relates to the project, and finally choose which tools and materials they will use to make the project. Independence and originality is encouraged. Our environment is in a Catholic School, so of course we are going make natural connections between the Mother Goose Time curriculum and a Bible story or principle. During one of our Jesus Time lessons, we watched a video about St. Vincent De Paul and decided that we all have at least one pair of pants that do not fit well and could donate them to the local St. Vicent De Paul Thrift Shop. Well, our families donated BAGS of items! Follow us for more ideas on how topics and themes are explored in a deep and meaningful way in our learning environment.
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Learning in the early childhood years should be rich and deep. That is why we chose a curriculum that uses themes and focuses on 7 main learning domain and 33 school-readiness skills. Mother Goose Time provides us with 4 beautiful teacher guides and the learning activities that go along with it each month. This post features the math activities. You will see how they make the connection to the theme of Family and Pets. Teacher Tip: Go through the daily bags the night before. My afternoon assistant, Mrs. Grady sets up the art project for the next day. I go through the entire day in the Teacher Guide and prepare the learning games. I have already indicated which of the games and activities will be used in our skill time sessions. A note about skill time: We divide our class into 2 groups who work with the same teacher each day. For example, my group may work on a literacy activity and Mrs. Plamondon's group may work on a math activity in the morning. In the afternoon, I reverse the activities with Mrs. Grady. This is how we share the materials in the same day or lesson bag. The first game shown is Feed the Bird which was played on the day we explored Pet Birds. A child rolls the die, identifies the number, then uses the tweezers to "feed" the baby bird the correct amount of yarn worms. Skill focused on: following directions, numeral identification, counting using one-to-one correspondence and hand-eye coordination. Mrs. Grady's group: Pet Bingo was a great intro into a group game. There are many skills involved in this game: following directions, comprehension, listening skills, eye-hand coordination and good sportsmanship. I am teaching the children to congratulate the winner. (Yes, we keep score!) The winner is allowed a healthy amount of pride in their accomplishment and the losers work through their feelings of disappointment as they congratulate the winner. Story Problems using the manipulatives that were included in this month's curriculum box. Pattern Cards were included in this month's kit also. It is a simple ab pattern which I also demonstrated using Unifix cubes. The activities shown were just a few of the math experiences from the theme, Family and Pets. Children were able to manipulate objects as they work to understand basic math concepts. Learning was rich and deep as it connected to our theme, yet did not involve a "worksheet." I tell my parents at the beginning of the school year that a lot of learning is done at school and not all of it is evident on a piece of paper that is sent home. The projects shown here are great examples of that. I hope you found a little inspiration here today!
Whether you call the spaces within your classroom a "STEAM station," "center" or "area," a lot of thought needs to go into preparing your environment for young children. Do you have quiet areas away from areas children would like to do quiet work such as puzzles or read a book? Do you have more than one of the same toy to avoid unnecessary conflicts? How will you keep the children engaged? You will see below how we were intentional in every area of our classroom and hope you find a little inspiration for your learning space. After trying many different options in our small classroom, we decided to combine nature, science and math. This shelf is placed on the same carpet that the block shelf is on. We noticed that children naturally wanted to use items from science, nature and math with the blocks. Children enjoy building houses for bugs or iguanas or using stacking cups as a fence for horses and so on. I like to have a sense of order and to be honest and I got a little anxious when I noticed all of the pieces out and mixed together. I talked through my feelings with my assistants. I knew there were some wonderful things happening when the children were combining materials. Our www.mothergoosetime.com curriculum has marvelous STEAM station ideas in our Teacher Guide each week. The children have been inspired to then replicate a previous STEAM station or expand upon one. Knowing this, I knew there must be a way to make this work. From our discussion, we moved the shelves to the same area and took photos of the items and where they belonged. After we made this change, we brought the children into the discussion and pointed out the photo labels. Initially, we had to assist the children with clean up. We modeled how we were matching a toy to it's photo. They have since become pros at clean up. Another benefit: children are using materials they may not have thought to use otherwise. They are learning seriation and spatial awareness. They are matching. All things that lead up to solving math problems and reading. On the other side of the classroom is our library, puzzle and skill time area. We like to feature books by one author or a collection such as Dr. Seuss books. On our general shelf, we organize books into categories: religious, theme, non-fiction and general. Each month, we receive an "I Can Read" book in our curriculum box that relates to the theme we are working on. The sights words are easy and have picture clues to help the children. We use the books and the suggested activities all month long before sending the books home. The children look forward to seeing what the topic of the day is and often go there when they arrive. The curriculum is prepared and packaged into individual lesson bags, which includes the topic poster, art project and the majority of supplies needed along with skill time games. Before we leave for the day, my afternoon assistant and I prepare the room for the next day's activities. At Opening Circle and Closing Circle, we review our Core Concepts, which are also provided in our curriculum kit. Research has shown that children learn letters best by teaching them in groups of two or three, rather than the letter of the day or teaching in order from A to Z. I saved the Feelings poster from a previous Mother Goose Time curriculum kit and placed it in our Quiet Area. We designate part of a skill time session in the beginning of the year to how and when someone may want to go to the Quiet Area, how to use the materials and behaviors that are acceptable. Other special considerations we made in our classroom: I hope that you have enjoyed a little peak into our learning environment. Please share space with us also: [email protected].
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AuthorSheila Anderson has over 25 years experience in the Early Childhood Field and still loves going to "school" everyday. Archives
January 2022
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