Making caterpillars in preschool

I am so blessed to have many talented teachers join me on Facebook! See what Nanette Sposito has put together for us to see...

A guest post by Nanette Sposito of Little Wonders Preschool



Very simple instructions:

1. Have children paint the colors as used by Eric Carle in the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (Have one child paint green add yellow so that it mimic's the colors in the book, another child can paint brown, etc.)

2. The children can either finger paint or brush paint. The paintings end up looking like Carle's paper collage creations.

3. Let dry and cut out shapes from the book. The caterpillar is a series of segments cut out and pasted together.
       

We also made props one year; 

smaller pieces attached to craft sticks; 

as I read the story each child had a part

and held up their prop.

The children really enjoyed being interactive 

with the book.

Display in the classroom. The children are so proud

and comment about what parts they each 

contributed to.

About Nanette Sposito:

Nanette is a Home-based Preschool Teacher in

Oakley, CA, accredited by the NAFCC.  

Nanette says, "I Love my job and the children 

that make it possible."

Making fans with CERIA Preschool

A Guest post from Rahma Dona
CERIA Preschool at Palembang south Sumatra Indonesia


Rahma sent these photos via Facebook and I asked her if I could share them here. What a wonderful thing to see what other children are doing in a country so far away from my own.

Rahma writes: "Make Chiness fan idea from DLTK blog its .Double tape , scissors , ice cream stick , 10x50 cm colourfull paper"

Rahma writes: "It's simple just fold the papers the way you make an origami fan."

Rhama writes:  "I'm so proud that the small village teacher like me could share the joy with all the fellow teachers around the world!"

I love it too!

Building positive relationships with preschool parents; an interview with Teacher Tom

Building positive relationships with preschool parents

An interview with Tom Hobson

by Deborah J. Stewart

 Tell me about your preschool program and the ages you teach.

We are a cooperative preschool with a play-based curriculum. I teach a class of 3-5 year olds and class of 2-year-olds.

What is your background as it relates to early childhood and what is the length of time you have been teaching preschoolers?

I've been a preschool teacher for 8 years, all at Woodland Park. I spent 3 years as a parent in my daughter's co-op preschool and was recruited by her teacher and the director of the North Seattle Community College parent education program to enter the profession. I subsequently did course work at the college. In my earlier life, I coached 40+ baseball teams with players ranging in age from 4-30 (seriously). In many ways, this experience had more influence on my teaching style/approach than anything else.

What are some of the ways parents participate in your classroom?

We are a cooperative preschool so parents are required to work in the classroom one day per week. Parents are assigned classroom jobs (e.g., art, drama, table toys, blocks, snack, sensory, library) on a rotating basis. The college provides us with a parent educator who is in the classroom once a week and who runs a parent ed class once a month (for which parents receive college credit) to help parents become better "assistant teachers." Parents also understand that I may need them to take on additional classroom jobs as needs arise. I love having all those extra arms and legs!

As you work with parents, what are some effective techniques you have found for building positive relationships with the family members of your preschool students?

I know that this isn't the kind of answer you're looking for, but the "techniques" I use with parents are the same as I use for making friends. I'm friendly and give them lots of genuine compliments. I listen to them and try to give honest answers. There is something bonding about working side-by-side with parents on a weekly basis. Education in our school is not something I do for their kids, but rather something we are all working on together. We have good days together and bad days together. They see how hard I'm working to educate their kids and have a clear picture of the challenges teachers face.

I suppose if there is any one technique I use it's to talk to every parent, every day about whatever is on their mind or my mind, even if it has nothing to do with school or kids. Not a practical thing in a traditional school, but an inevitable thing in our school!

As an early childhood educator, do you also invite members of your community to get involved in your preschool program?

In addition to parents being not just invited, but required, to be in the classroom, our doors are always open to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other teachers. We often have several extra adults in the room with us. We also have occasional visits from people like fire fighters, dancers and artists. We also go on monthly field trips, usually to local businesses or community groups, like food banks. There is paperwork involved in permitting older siblings into class, but whenever we get the chance, we fill the room with those older kids as well.

What are some effective techniques you have found for building positive relationships with members of your community?

Well, I have my blog, although I don't think many of the parents read it -- I think they sometimes need a break from Teacher Tom!

We use Yahoo Groups to stay in touch with one another. In addition to working in the classroom, each family is also responsible for an "outside" the classroom job, like serving as treasurer, secretary, admissions person, repairs/maintenance, etc. One of those jobs is "special events." That person organizes social events for entire families as well as parents-only throughout the year and even during the summer.

We've also found that our all-hands-on-deck work "parties" (three times a year) and special projects (like re-doing our playground) are great community building activities.

Do you have any other comments you would like to add or that you think other preschool teachers would benefit from regarding building relationships with families and members?

In my mind, progressive education starts with community. Or as Alfie Kohn puts it, "Progressive education is marinated in community." This concept is at the heart of our school. I couldn't, frankly, care less about things like "best practices," pedagogy and theory. As long as we have a unified, robust community, one that draws newcomers quickly into its center, the children WILL get a good education and be ready for kindergarten. I know you've been reading the blog -- I got confirmation last week that my families understand this and agree whole-heartedly.

I have been reading Teacher Tom’s Blog on a daily basis for awhile now and what I find most remarkable is Tom’s consistent reflection on the needs, role, and concerns of the parents who work with him on a daily basis. When Tom states that he could “care less about things like best practices,” I know from reading his blog that this is because applying best practices in his classroom is second nature to him and he does so almost without thinking about it. Building a community of families that care about early childhood education and care about each other is where the real challenge lies. Tom’s teaching style and the parents of Woodland Park are a wonderful example of “Progressive education [being] marinated in community.”  

Let's talk about communication!

My guest today is Marcy Fox. Marcy is a speech pathologist and one of our fellow bloggers that I really have enjoyed getting to know. We are all challenged to help young children develop their speech and language and Marcy has provided us with some very important information about this process below...

Let's Talk About Communication

By Marcy Fox

With at least 8% of young children having speech or language disorders, you are likely to have students in your classroom who aren’t talking as much as they should, or who don’t sound quite right when they are talking.

Let’s take a look at typical development, starting with some basic definitions:

Language is what we are communicating. It includes words and what they mean, how words and sentences can be put together, and how we communicate with different people—in other words, vocabulary, grammar, pragmatics (how we know how to talk to others) and the rules that control these.

In simple terms, language can be divided into two basic categories:

Receptive Language (the understanding of language) and

Expressive Language (the use of language).

Speech is basically how we talk--that is, how we move our mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, etc. to make sounds (a.k.a. “articulation”), what our voice sounds like or the rhythm of our speech (a.k.a. “stuttering” or “fluency”).

While both speech and language are involved in communication, they are a little bit different.

Of course, all children do develop at their own pace, but we do have some general guidelines about how speech and language develops and what we expect children to be able to do.

Let’s look at a very brief overview of language and speech development:

Babies hear sounds and words in their environment and practice the sounds through babbling. Eventually, their first words come at approximately 12 months. Earliest developing speech sounds include /p, b, m, w, t, d, n and h/ and simple Consonant and Vowel syllables are the easiest. No wonder “mama” and “dada” are common first words!!

Around 18 months, most kids have spoken about 20 words and may be beginning to use simple 2 word sentences, like “want mama” or “go kitty.” Most of their words are nouns followed by verbs. Children are normally 25% intelligible (“understandable”) to their parents.

At 24 months, your student’s vocabulary should have exploded to about 200 words and he or she should consistently use 2 word sentences. Following simple directions (like “clap your hands” or “give me the ball”) as well as pointing to body parts should be pretty easy by now. Mom and dad should understand a 2 year old 50-75% of the time and strangers understand him or her 50% of the time.

At 3 years, your typically developing preschooler uses 900+ words and an average of 3-4 word sentences. He or she follow 2 step directions (“pick up the ball and throw it to Tommy” or “open the door and give me the pencil). Intelligibility typically is 75-100% but should be at least 50% to unfamiliar adults.

Your 4 year old student has a 1500+ word vocabulary and uses longer, more complex sentences, including telling stories and personal events. He or she is able to answer and ask many questions. This student should be fully intelligible to everyone, although not all sounds will be used correctly yet.

As your students turn 5 years old, their conversations become more adult-like and shouldn’t have too many grammatical errors. They should have most speech sounds, except for /s, l, r, th, ch, sh/.

More details

There really are a lot more details that a speech-language pathologist would look at to determine if your student had a speech or language disorder or delay and these are just general guidelines which, if a student is NOT doing, should cause concern. Although there is such a thing as a “Late Talker,” it is better to err on the side of caution and have them seen by a speech-language pathologist. Early intervention can help prevent future difficulties in reading and writing and overall academic performance.

Additional Resources

Lots more information is available, including the wealth of information provided by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA). Canadian teachers can also get assistance from their national organization, the Canadian Association of Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists (CASLPA).  

A little bit about Marcy Fox, M.A. CCC-SP    

I've been a speech-language pathologist for about 11 years. I have worked in both a school and clinic setting with clients ranging in age from 2 all the way to middle school. Early intervention is my favorite, though! 

I currently work within my own preschool special education classroom for 3- and 4-year olds with speech and language delays. Both my students and my beautiful 2 1/2 year old daughter, Rachel, are the inspirations for my blog.

Visit Marcy's blog:  Foxy Toy Box

Thank you Marcy for sharing your expertise with us. Please feel free to leave Marcy a comment....

Deborah

                                                                                                                                                                        

Let your child take his turn

I want to welcome my guest Colin Wee today! Since I do not have a background in Montessori, I invited Colin to share his experiences with us. Colin is going to provide those of you, like me, who are curious about the Montessori approach a brief snapshot of the Montessori learning process.


Let your child take his turn
Snapshot of the Montessori Learning Process for Parents and Young Children
By Colin Wee

I found a wonderful parent-run Montessori playgroup when my son was 18 mo. As a first time parent and house husband, I didn’t feel I would fit in with just any tea-and-biscuits mother’s group. This Montessori playgroup had structure, challenged me, helped me learn about parenting and made me feel like I belonged.

When it was my daughter’s turn a few years later, and with my wife back working full time, I assumed the role of Coordinator for the very same playgroup. The playgroup then was set in a beautiful heritage building in one of Perth’s leafy suburbs in Western Australia. My role was to manage the welfare of 60 family members and ensure the effective usage of thousands of dollars worth of educational equipment. Despite the four session leaders and a fantastic team of volunteers, it quickly proved to be a full-time job.

The core premise of the Montessori Method and its systematic use of learning tools or what we call ‘jobs,’ is to build independence and a love of learning within a child. New parents providing direction in the use of a Montessori jobs are told to...
      a) sit down with their child
      b) ask the child to wait by ‘putting their hands on their laps’
      c) demonstrate the job
      d) allow their child to explore the job until they are totally satisfied
      e) return the job to the shelf

Often, this part of the orientation session is met with extreme scepticism. Parents with young children quickly betray the assumption their children are incapable of understanding and following such ‘mature’ instructions. I remember how dubious I myself felt, sitting at that orientation session, being first told of what was expected of me.

Yet every term, as Coordinator, I not only have to face down new parents and their doubts, but I have maybe a minute or so to sell our basic formula. With few tricks up my sleeve, I have to bring each consecutive parent and child member under the Montessori spell.

There is of course no real secret to what I do. Parent and child come to us with their own unwritten and constantly developing ‘rules of play’. These rules guide how they relate to familiar environment stimuli. When they come to the playgroup however, they find themselves in a foreign situation. The parent is probably expecting to slowly understand how we do things and perhaps may consider adopting our system in time. Children however are surprisingly more ready to absorb new rules and our processes as we share them.

I believe this natural receptiveness in the child is augmented by Montessori’s child-centric approach. The Montessori Method treats children as individuals bestowed the greatest respect. This respect puts the child in control of his environment, and allows the child to make decisions in response to what is observed.

In our playgroup:

• Parent and child are equal members; I address each politely and differentially. I try to have the same ‘eye-contact’ time for both. I also attempt to bring myself down to the child’s eye level.
• I speak clearly, softly, and confidently. I use minimal hand gestures to help emphasize my instructions. I state simply what needs to be done.
• I let the child know when I am demonstrating a job, it is ‘my turn.’ After my turn, theirs will follow.
• When it is the child member’s ‘turn’ to explore the facets of the job, I do not provide distraction by verbal or ‘side-line’ commentary.
• The child’s satisfaction exploring the job will not be overshadowed by praise. Praise is kept to a minimum, preferable not provided at all, or else is focused on the job processes rather than as a running commentary of ‘how good’ the child is.
• Ensuring all parties stick to the respective this ‘your turn’ and ‘my turn’ arrangement creates a level of trust. This formula can then hold true when attempting to replicate such a learning environment elsewhere.

As a parent, it is natural to feel the need to do ‘something’ for one’s child. To guide, to provide feedback, to chastise, to control the child’s every transaction with his environment. When I was sitting there silently, merely watching my son without providing the parental verbage, it felt quite unnatural. Yet, I soon realised this wasn’t about me. It was an opportunity for him to explore, to fit in. I have taken my turn, and now it is his.

This is the shelf containing 'Mathematics' jobs for our 18mo to 3yo members. Some of the jobs (for e.g. those dealing with fractions) are similar to Montessori equipment used by older kids in middle and upper primary classes.

Parents volunteer to help rotate jobs on the shelves before term starts. Jobs on the bottom shelf are the easiest and are appropriate for our youngest members. As the child member progresses, they would in turn reach for jobs on higher shelves.

There are a wide range of jobs that cater for various subjects. This is an example of a Practical Life job that helps a child develop hand eye coordination by scooping balls from a tray to another dish

Colin's son William aged 3 posing with teacher on the first day at school. Notice the same three level shelf system we also use at the playgroup. Despite being quite a shy young toddler, Will had no problem fitting in and was comfortable from the get go.

Colin and son William aged 2yo taken in 2003 on William's first trip to Margaret River. Notice the nappy bag and the house husband attire.

Related Links from SuperParents:
No Smacking Discipline by Colin Wee

About Colin Wee
Colin has spent the last six years at the board or committee-level of child-care and educational institutions in Perth Western Australia. Constantly motivated to care for his young family of two children, he has looked into alternative educational choices and constantly tries to expose his children to varied interesting and worldly experiences.

SuperParents is a natural progression of the various roles he has taken on in the past, and Colin finds himself excited with building a community supporting parents and caregivers in Western Australia.

Colin with wife Emmeline and his two children

Please feel free to leave Colin your comments or questions!

Feed the zing and help young children master new skills

A Guest Post from...

Emily Geizer  

Real Parenting Solutions

Remember when your toddler started wanting to dress himself or choose his own clothes? 

These moments of determination are endearing at first, but feel like nuisances when they become patterns conflicting with our expectations. No matter what you do, you can’t easily redirect them or get their full attention. Some parents assume this is because their kids are stubborn or ornery. In fact, it is because they are doing what they need to be doing! Their actions have a purpose. More than just a simple interest in a new skill, it’s a fixation on mastering a new skill.

“Zing” is what I call this developmentally necessary drive or fixation. Why zing? Zing, according to Merriam-Webster, is an enjoyably exciting or stimulating quality. This seems a perfect description of these phases that all children pass through periodically.

During these phases – like the language zing or the walking zing or the numbers zing – children are intensely absorbed in their development. They dedicate themselves to mastering a new skill. In zing moments, a child’s energy level and complete dedication to a particular task is extraordinary. This will end just as quickly as it began.

Kids are happier when parents work with these zing phases, rather than struggle against them. It makes them feel understood. Kids will become more confident and independent as their developmental needs are supported.

Be on the lookout for the current zing.

Just like so many things, once you are aware of zing, you’ll notice it everywhere. Have you ever bought a new car and then suddenly see others like it all over the place? Or, did it suddenly feel like every other woman was pregnant when you became pregnant?

Take a look at this example pertaining to kids:

Your one-year-old is tearing apart your kitchen cabinets. Every time you are trying to cook, she is emptying out the drawers. When you are putting away dishes, she is pulling them back out again. This might be cute the first few times, but quickly becomes a very frustrating cycle!

Stop. Reflect. Try to tap into your child’s perspective. Ask yourself:

1. What activities is she always trying to do? Is there a commonality about these?
2. When does she express the greatest resistance or frustration? Is there a commonality about these?

In the case of emptying out the cabinets, it may become clearer as you examine her other favorite activities, that she is developing her sorting skills and fine motor control.

Or, the developmental purpose of the activity may not be clear to you. It will become clearer with practice. For now, just know that EVERYTHING your child does has a purpose. Rather than battling this innate drive, redirect it in a positive, desirable way.

Designate a kitchen cabinet or drawer that is appropriate for exploration. Create an activity that might mimic this process, such as moving objects (spoons, for example) from one container to another.

Maybe your child is older and is showing different levels of zing.

You might discover a language zing. Is your child asking about letters and sounds constantly? Or maybe she is trying to read every road sign. Play games with sounds and letters everywhere and all of the time! For example, play “I spy something that starts with the sound “s”. Or play call-and-response games with rhyming words, words that start with the same sound, or words that end with the same sound. Play these in the car, in the grocery store, at home, waiting in line, waiting at a stop light.

Is your child always talking about numbers and wanting to count? Wonderful!! She has landed in a number zing. Count everything. Count the stairs as you climb, count the green cars on the road, count the grapes for snack.

When you feed the focus, your child feels understood and respected, which results in less resistance and greater harmony. Don’t worry that you can’t maintain this level of commitment. Each zing passes very quickly and they are on to a new focus.

Feed the zing and you will experience less resistance! Guaranteed.

Emily Geizer is a preschool teacher, mother of two, and author of Child Perspective. Child Perspective is a one-stop-shop for parenting information. You'll find many useful tips there and an invitation to join the free e-course, A Crash Course in Mindful Parenting. 

Thank you Emily for sharing your insights with us! 

Deborah

Please feel free to leave Emily your comments, questions, or other ideas!

Making books with children

Making Books with children
By Marisa Constantinides

Making big or small books with children is not a novel idea; in fact, all you need to know about this is included in the wonderful series of books listed at the end of this short post, with some new ideas which include digital storybooks.

Children will love making various types of books whether they can write or are still at the pre-writing stage. Some Objectives:

• To retell and illustrate a favourite story or fairy tale, e.g. Cinderella, or other favourite
• To share information from a science lesson or series of lessons – for example, a book about snow, a book about saving water
• To copy and illustrate the lines of a poem and chant or song they learnt recently
• To showcase their own imaginative stories, dialogues and poems or rhymes

Even if they cannot write yet, they can always dictate their story to their teacher and by the process of watching the written word emerge on the page or by looking at it afterwards, they begin their road to reading.

The children will be using their fine motor skills for cutting round shapes, colouring in pictures, gluing shapes in place, as well as their artistic abilities and imaginative, creative thinking;  there is value across many levels, language development and literacy being of prime importance.

How to do it!  

1. Decide on the type of book; this can be...

• Simple shape book
  
• A pop up book
• A three-folded book
• An accordion shaped book
• A flap book
• A wheel book

2. Decide whether your pupils will be making

• one big size book for the whole class
• smaller group versions
• an individual book which they can take home

3. Find and bring materials to class

• coloured thick paper or cardboard
• glue
• colouring materials
• magazine pictures
• stickers
• glitter
• rounded scissors
• other materials, e.g. pieces of fabric, dried flowers, very small objects, etc..

How?

With children who are still at the pre-writing stage

• you can ask them to tell you their story and you can write it for them
• you can give them the words written on card or paper slips and guide them to glue them in the right place and order

With early writers, you can help them by asking them to

• trace words or even whole phrases
• fill in some words or phrases in gaps you have created and later copy them into their book
• copy a familiar story or fairy tale into a book they have made

More independent writers can

• write their own stories in rough first and then copy onto the book after the teacher has helped ‘fix’ any mistakes
• write their own poems or other type of text – song lyrics, rap or short descriptive paragraphs

Digital Story books



Online tools like Storybird can make the children’s efforts look very smart and professional and  I am very fond of those as well, but I also believe that making their own hand made versions has got great educational value for the children.

After the children have finished,  you can leave their book on the server, go for the paid version if you want to print their book, or if you want to do it for free, you screen capture all the pages and print them as images.

Here are some examples of Storybirds....

Nana Can I Have A... on Storybird




My Heart Hurts When... on Storybird

Mixbook is another great site which I learned from Natasa Bozic Grojic’ s blogpost and here is the story she made with her son, “The Boy who listened”

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

But even a simple powerpoint slide show story can be great! Here is one I made with my nephew when he was about 5 years old using summer snapshots on the beach.

A Day On The Beach

Picture this:  A teacher is holding up a big book.

A group of children is gathered round her looking at the illustrations, listening to a story, acting out parts of it, involved  in the telling and retelling, noticing small details, repeating new words, learning new concepts.

Getting children to develop a love for books means spending time with books, reading them and making them. Whether you are teaching children in their mother tongue or in a foreign language, you will notice the great boost to language acquisition in the children.

Making their own books is the next logical step and early literacy teachers can apply everything they know to these enjoyable and memorable to children reading and early (or later) writing activities.



Resources

4. Make Books with Children Series: Here you can find a great range of books with ideas for making books with your classses. You may want to begin with the Making Books with Children.

Making Books with Children

1. For Pop up books, you can visit here to watch and show the children short little movies of how Dave Carter, an author of popup books made some of his pop ups and the same page leads to some wonderful shapes in pdf format that you can copy and print out for your pupils to make their own books.
2. Free Shape Books where you can find shapes to print
3. ThinkQuest – A wonderful  site where you can find illustrated instructions  for many types of book shapes

About Marisa Constantinides 


Marisa Constantinides is the Director of Studies of CELT Athens and is responsible for the design and implementation of all the programmes offered by CELT.

Marisa's main qualifications related to teaching are the RSA Diploma in TEFLA (DTEFLA), a precursor to the Cambridge DELTA Diploma, and an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Reading in the UK. Her involvement in Teacher Development Programmes started at the Hellenic American Union where she ran workshops for colleagues and State School Teachers, then with Longman Publications running numerous training seminars for them all over Greece.

Marisa Constantinides has written materials for children (Basic Grammar Workbooks 1, 2, & 3 published by English Schoolbook Publications), activity books for Cambridge Exams set texts, and numerous articles on Language, Foreign Language Teaching and Education. You can follow her English blog at http://marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org/

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A huge thank you goes to Marisa Constantinides for sharing this wonderful post with us!  Please leave your comments for Marisa below....

Deborah

Child friendly dental words

My guest today is Birgit Gajdos. What is super cool about Birgit, is that she is passionate about helping young children have a positive experience when going to the dentist. 


Dental health and oral hygiene is a focus in many classrooms during the month of February so what better way to start off by having a Dental Assistant give you new words to use when taking a child to the dentist....

Click here to order a Tooth Fairy Pillow!

Birgit Gajdos writes....

Teachers and parents can explain dental procedures honestly but avoid using scarey words.  Here are some examples to help children learn what to expect at the dentist. Please help create a good positive experience for children without transfering any of your own dental phobias or negative past experiences onto them.  The terminology you use may make all the difference!

Instead of using word:              Please consider using:

NEEDLE, or shot.....................Sprayer with sleepy juice

Drill........................................... Whistling brush or Mr. Bumpy

Yank or pull out........................ Wiggle a tooth

Plaque, cavity, decay...............Sugar Bugs (eat holes in teeth!)

Examination............................  Count Teeth

Cleaning/polishing...................Tickle the Teeth

Explorer Instrument................. Tooth Counter

Rubber Dam............................ Raincoat

Clamp........................................Button

Mouth Mirror.............................Dolly Mirror

Guestblogger: Birgit Gajdos

Certified Dental Assistant

Toothfairy Online

www.toothfairycyberspace.com

Thank you Birgit for being my guest and sharing your good ideas with us!

Deborah

Here are a few resources that you might like as you introduce dental health to your preschoolers...

Toothbrush Poster from American Dental Health Association (pdf)

Toothbrushing booklet from Story Time and More!

Lesson Plan Ideas from hummingbird

Dental Health Reminder Poster : Don't forget to recognize dental health assistants like Birgit in March! (pdf)

Article on teeth brushing rules in childcare
Article on new laws for daycares on teeth brushing