Our school readiness classes are spending time learning about museums this month. I started this activity a few years ago when we did not have the funding to take any field trips. Instead of traveling to a museum, we would create an art museum in our classroom! I am so impressed with my students' imaginative creations. They take a box full of random collage materials and transform the items into actual works of art complete with a title and artist description.
This week, we are talking about color. One of our books is "Mouse Paint" by Ellen Stoll Walsh. This book is a great introduction to primary and secondary colors. After reading through it, we do a colored water experiment to test out color mixing. Each child records the results in their own take-home book. I was pleased to witness almost all of my students following directions, staying on task and participating in our discussion. I hope they will use their book to practice their colors at home and recall the “Mouse Paint” story for their family.
In addition their creation making, we spend time talking about art appreciation (how to comment on art, how to describe what you see and how to respect art that you might not like or understand). We also talk about other types of museums, including children’s museums, history museums and science museums. My students have enjoyed finding dinosaur bones in our archeological dig site (our sensory table filled with sand, sifters, shovels, brushes and plastic bones).
At the end of our unit, we open our doors to the public for a Museum Gallery Show. We invite family, friends, other classes, teachers and administrators to come see our fabulous creations. It is a great culminating activity that everyone enjoys!
There are some children's books that can completely captivate a class. Students are eager to read them again and again, incorporate them into their play, while making connections between the books and their lives. The Gingerbread Boy is one such book.
Some of my students from last year remembered the story. As soon as I showed the cover, Makiera commented, "It's like we read last week! The fox is going to trick him!" Now granted, we read the story last January, not not last week, but she remembered the most important part of the book! I encouraged Makiera and others who were familiar with the story to try to remember the characters who chase the gingerbread boy. My new students were completely captivated as I read. They actually gasped in surprise when the fox finally swallowed the gingerbread boy!
In addition to reading the book by Paul Galdone, we also read a version of the story by Richard Egielski. We completed a Venn diagram of similarities and differences between the stories, and my students charted wonderful connections. Everything from specific quotes ("Gingerbread Man" vs. "Gingerbread Boy") to characters (there is a fox in both stories, only the Egielski version has a police officer) to plot events (both Gingerbread Boys have to cross water) were recalled in their observations.
We also played "Gingerbread Boy" outside, made patterns by gluing pictures of the gingerbread boy and the fox, retold the story using props, choral read the repetitive text, found sight words in the repetitive text, made a graph of which character students liked the most, discussed our favorite version of the story, and finally, on Thursday, we baked our very own gingerbread boys! My students rolled the dough and assembled the gingerbread boys, then we all walked down to the kitchen to put them in the oven. My students went outside to play while the gingerbread boys baked, but when they came back inside they were shocked to find that the gingerbread boys had escaped! We then proceeded to go on a gingerbread boy hunt around the school; I had prepared teachers to give us clues about where the gingerbread boys might be, and my students were beyond eager to follow the directions and find their cookies! They ran from one classroom to the next, searching for the cookies, and explaining their quest to anyone who would listen. When we finally arrived in the main office we could smell the cookies. My students searched all over until finally Aaliyah spotted them. Julia was so excited that she literally couldn't stop jumping up and down!
We took the cookies back to our classroom and enjoyed a (surprisingly tasty) snack, then brought cookies to everyone who had helped us in our search. We completed one more graph -- "Which part of the gingerbread boy did you eat first?" -- and then settled in for a class retelling of the story.
By incorporating The Gingerbread Boy into so many aspects of our classroom, my students had countless opportunities to comprehend and interpret the text. This increased their interest in the book, which allowed them to fully engage in all of the learning opportunities I had planned. It's amazing how much power one book can have over a week's worth of curriculum!
Do you have other recommendations for fabulous books that you have read with your students? If so, please leave them in the comments section so that we can all benefit!
How do you teach kids their address? It is kind of a rote activity, but
with some help from Web 2.0 tools, I was able to make it much more fun
and effective.
Web. 2.0 tools have provided teachers tremendous opportunities to
increase student achievement. Teachers in upper grades have an easier
time of hugging those tools close than pre-k teachers because content
is the key to their practice. At the pre-k level, process can be more
important than content, so it is harder to see opportunities to expose
4 year olds to 21st century learning. The opportunities ARE there,
though, and the more you look for them, the more you find them. One of
the traditional "subjects" or themes in pre-k is family and community.
Here is what happened: In my classroom, I have my computer hooked up to
a big TV so that all my students can see the screen. I mentioned to my
assistant that I looked up her address by "finding" it in google maps.
I showed her how I looked up a school that was near her house and then
I used google street view to "drive" to her house. I had dropped her
off before and knew how to get there but didn't know the street or the
address. She was amazed. Then the kids wanted to see my house. So I
typed in my address. After that we were off on a virtual field trip
around our neighborhood. Then we asked the kids to name their
addresses. It was really exciting for my students to be able to see the
landmarks in their neighborhood
and tell me how to get their houses. Joseph shouted, "That's my house
and that's Sinclair's house!" I asked Tiandra, because I thought she
lived across from Iyonna, "Is that your house?" she shouted, "No that's
not my house, I live next to the church!" So we "drove" down the street
to the church. She said, "go that way!" I said, "Left or right?" using
my hands to point. She said "Go right!" and there was her house. The
activity built community because we all got see where we all lived and
that it wasn't very far from each other. Maybe we will take a trip to Mr. Rogers neighborhood next week.
To go on virtual field trip through my students' neighborhood click here. Make sure to make it full screen for the full effect!
It’s that time of year again! The nights are getting longer, there is a slight chill to the air and the “Great Minnesota Get-together,” otherwise known as our State Fair, is coming to an end. I love the back-to-school time as much as any other teacher. There is great excitement, anticipation and a tremendous amount of work! I have tried my hardest to be organized and prioritize but it is amazing how much work has to be done. One of my goals as a professional is to work on my delegation skills. I have learned to let my assistants help me with labeling, student packets, and project preparation. In order to delegate these tasks, I have had to be proactive and ultra-organized. I have to have materials ready to be assembled and a framework or example for how I want each task to be completed. Although initially a lot of work, this system has helped me focus on bigger and better beginning of the year tasks.
During our workshop time this year I was able to spend the bulk of my time with other collaborating teachers. We discussed curriculum and our strong desire to make sure our learning experiences were aligned with the Minnesota Early Childhood Indicators of Progress. These goals are research based and comprehensive. I am excited to be a part of a team that has committed to providing opportunities that are proven to prepare and support a student as he or she starts a lifetime of learning.
Here are some of the ideas we have brainstormed so far:
Oral Language: Each classroom has a song time in which we will practice nursery rhymes and finger plays to support the language and literacy development indicator.
Morning Meeting: Students will participate in a large group time where they will
greet each other using eye contact and polite words. In addition, they will participate in a sharing time activity and news and announcements. This helps to support the social and emotional development indicator.
Math Manipulative Small Groups: At least once a week, students will meet in a small group. They will work with numerals, simple patterns and one to one correspondence. This supports a portion of the cognitive development indicator.
Fellow teachers: What creative, but important, classroom activities can you recommend to other teachers?
My last post focused on an important aspect of the Kindergarten curriculum known as Reader’s Workshop. As one of the summer school teachers for our pre-kindergarten students, I am also spending two days of our week on Writer’s Workshop.
On Tuesday and Thursday, our main focus is on writing. Writer’s Workshop allows our students to learn basic skills and get practical experience with writing. On Tuesday, my co-teacher gave a mini lesson on writing. Our class discussed how and why we use a pencil when we write and how to use our writing folders. Each student has a folder with a “stop” side and a “keep going” side. When a student thinks they have done all the work they can on a story, it is kept on the “stop” side until the final editing and publishing days. During their work time, about half of the students wanted to be finished after drawing one simple picture. As we conference with each student, we helped them think about their favorite story or book. Does that have just one picture or one thought? Usually stories have a beginning, middle and an end. Most of our students flourished! Several were even using beginning sounds to try spelling words for their stories. I was thrilled!
On Thursday, I led a mini lesson that asked the important question: Why do writers write? Again, we put together a very nice list.
Writer write…
Because they have something to say
Because they read things
Because they want to
Because they are illustrators and writers
Because they want to teach someone something
Because it is fun
Because they are funny
As a pre-kindergarten teacher it is always a mix of emotions when Kindergarten rolls around. I will miss the students – each of their idiosyncrasies has a specific spot in my heart. However, it is great to be able to say with confidence that they are ready. Those students who have had the opportunity to experience early childhood education have a solid foundation. Not only are they able to sound out words because they know letters and letter sounds, but they have learned HOW to do school. They have practiced learning in large groups. They have tested their endurance and perseverance and have prevailed. Most importantly, they have developed positive relationships with adults and peers and have sparked an excitement for learning. What could be better than that?
John's response to Sara Mead's Early Ed Watch
blog got me thinking -- how should districts choose a curriculum? What
are the pros and cons, both fiscally and educationally, to using
different curriculum models?
In Washington, DC, all three-year-old pre-k classes are expected to use The Creative Curriculum for Preschool.
I use this curriculum in my classroom and love it -- it provides
guidance about the physical environment, interactions with families,
interactions with students, assessment, thematic unit planning, and
more, and I am able to take that guidance and apply it to my classroom
in ways that work for me and my students. This is the only curriculum
that I've ever used, so I'm not in a position to compare it to anything
else, but my experience has been extremely positive.
While the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) study
does not find that Creative Curriculum has positive impacts on child
outcomes overall, it does find positive effects on overall classroom
environment, teacher-child relationships, and classroom literacy
instruction for one subset of classrooms. While these results are not
reflected in the final analysis, I think that they are too important to
be overlooked. Pre-k students, of course, should be learning
foundational academic skills -- these skills are the bulk of what was
factored into the child outcomes measure of the study. However, pre-k
students should also be in an environment that promotes exploration and
independence, builds trust, and is rich with opportunities to learn
through books. These practices, while hard to measure in tangible
child outcomes, help children develop approaches to learning which are
invaluable in their future educational and personal careers. As a new
teacher implementing Creative Curriculum, these were the areas where I
felt the curriculum was most helpful. It taught me how to foster those
less tangible, but arguably more valuable, approaches to learning that
were so critical for my students' success.
Sara
mentioned the issue of cost-effectiveness of different curriculum
models. In the IES study, Creative Curriculum teachers all received
extensive training on the curriculum prior to beginning the school year
(2.5 days for teachers new to the curriculum), had access to "ongoing
curriculum implementation support" during the year, and received four
on-site consultations during the year. This approach was costly, but
it sounds extremely comprehensive. My training on Creative Curriculum
looked quite different -- I was told the week before school started
that I would be using the curriculum, was given an hour seminar about
how to set up my classroom using the Creative Curriculum approach, and
received the actual curriculum book about two weeks into the school
year. From there on out, I was left to my own devices. I poured over
the book and learned as much as I could, but I can only imagine how
helpful it would have been to have someone come to my classroom and
give me feedback about my implementation! In Washington, DC, the cost
of adopting Creative Curriculum was likely quite low, but in the IES
study, it was likely much higher. When considering the cost of
implementing different curriculum models, districts need to factor
training and professional development into the equation.
John
noted that a curriculum is only as effective as the teacher who
implements it, and I couldn't agree more. In addition to teachers, I
think that state standards
play a tremendous role in the effectiveness of curriculum models. If a
teacher is using a curriculum that doesn't have clear learning goals or
desired child outcomes but is working in a state with strong pre-k
standards, the teacher will be able to use those standards to guide his
or her instruction and provide the appropriate learning experiences to
students. Alternatively, if a teacher is using a phenomenal curriculum
with appropriate learning goals, they can compensate for weak state
standards. Currently, 41 out of 49 state pre-k programs have standards,
and I'm sure that those standards vary in quality as much as the
curriculum models reviewed by IES. I don't have experience using
standards in concert with a curriculum -- DC has standards for
four-year-old pre-k, but standards for three-year-olds are still being
developed -- and I would love to hear about other people's experience
blending curriculum models and standards. Do you find that they help
guide your instruction, or are they a hindrance to what you want to
teach?
Choosing a curriculum is clearly
not an easy matter; there are numerous factors that must be considered,
the foremost of which should be student outcomes. But it is important
not to look at those outcomes in isolation -- districts must consider
the impact that teacher training, professional development, and
alignment with standards have on student outcomes.
I know that curriculum can be a hotly debated topic among teachers, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the issue.
First off, you know a report is a big deal if it has a two-and a half page glossary AT THE FRONT of the study. Secondly, you know a study is important when it makes it into the "mainstream" education media and blogs. I nearly missed this one because the "producers" (the National Center of Education Research) didn't put much money into the advertising. Thanks to Sara Mead at Early Ed Watch, a New America blog, we get to hear about this huge report on Pre-K Curriculum. Sara did a great job summarizing a 400 plus page study of 14 pre-k curriculum. She pointed out that the study, (don't hold your breath while you read this out loud, you might turn purple) Effects of Preschool Curriculum Programs on School Readiness: Report from the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research Initiative told us some new things but was definitely not definitive. She questioned the lack of attention to the cost of the curricula studied and the reliability of comparisons to a control group that uses multiple types of curricula. She also mentioned that the 4 approaches that were found to show positive effects as compared to the curricula in the control group were not necessarily more effective than the other curricula studied.
Sarah's teased out this nugget though,
"that curriculum does matter and some curricula can produce better learning outcomes for children than others."
Here is a list of the curricula studied. I really want to hear from educators who have used these curricula as to their effectiveness with their students.
I am not familiar with any of these curricula enough to make any judgments. I have seen Creative Curriculum used effectively by effective teachers and ineffectively by ineffective teachers. I looked at MaGraw-Hill when I was on the curriculum committee for our school district to choose a new reading program. When I was on the committee I kept asking, "Why don't we just train the teachers on how to teach kids to read and then let them use student's interests and experiences to teach?" My education specialist said, "That would be great but we need something a teacher can use without any of that training. Turn-over is too high and many of our new teachers are fresh out of college." I guess I just had to agree, I mean I didn't deal with hiring issues, I didn't have that perspective. But, it kept nagging at me that maybe turn-over wouldn't be that high if teachers were able to have more control over their classroom. What this study is looking for, by taking out all of the situational reality of student background, teacher experience and training, teacher pay, etc. etc. is ultimately a "Teacher Proof" curriculum.
Here are the curricula that the study found to be effective.
DLM Early Childhood Express Supplemented with Open Court Reading Pre-K had positive effects on reading, phonological awareness, and language at both the end of pre-k and the end of kindergarten.
Pre-K Mathematics supplemented with DLM Early Childhood Express Math software had positive effects on math at the end of pre-k.
Curiosity Corner, developed by the Success for All Foundation, had positive effects on reading at the end of kindergarten (but not pre-k).
Early Literacy Learning Model had positive effects on language at the end of kindergarten (but not pre-k).
Sarah brings up the idea of cost. How much does each curriculum cost and what is the cost/benefit ratio? Can we (meaning policymakers not teachers) be sure we are getting our money's worth with these curricula?
When it comes to pre-k, funding is always an issue. Whenever a good idea comes along, like hiring teachers who are capable of planning and implementing effective instruction regardless of the curriculum, policy makers want to know, how much is it going to cost? When deciding on certification requirements for a teacher who is capable of planning developmentally appropriate curriculum I would imagine decision makers would want to hire teachers with bachelor's degrees and some specialized training in early childhood development. Policymakers may think that they can keep the cost of a high quality pre-k down by only requiring teachers to have a high school diploma but spending more on "effective curriculum". This is where, as Sarah has written before, it is important to consider the impact on child outcomes of marginal investments in areas like hiring teachers with specialized degrees. Pre-K Now has worked with the Institute for Women's Policy Research to conduct the study, Meaningful Investments in Pre-K: Estimating the Per-Child Costs of Quality Programs that helps policymakers answer some of these questions.
Sarah mentioned that the NCES doesn't do a very good job of publicizing its studies housed on the What Works Clearinghouse. I have written about the idea of the "What Works Clearinghouse" (WWC) before and the idea of scientifically based curriculum. Personally I feel that when you broaden the scope of a study to include money then you have to address the either/or type questions that crop up like, why pay for expensive curriculum if teachers might not implement it with what researchers like to call "fidelity"? When you talk about money you have to talk about what is better for kids, informed professional practice or fidelity to proven programs.
I have a very teacher oriented view of curriculum. Any curriculum is only as effective as the teacher. Even the best curriculum can't overcome bad teaching. It is great that we are looking at curriculum and trying to find "what works" but I can't help but ask, "How will this study help kids?" What would a kid benefit more from if we are talking dollars and sense? Is it better to have a highly effective curriculum or a highly effective teacher? Does it matter what works in pre-k curriculum if we aren't willing to invest in the other quality indicators that will create high quality pre-k programs like low teacher-child ratio and effective professional development?
Summer in Minnesota is a great time to move your classroom outside. It is critical for helping our students make meaningful connections about how our world works, as well as good for their health (see previous blog Going Green.) This past week, we explored the sun. Thankfully, we had a week without incelement weather. I asked a simple, open-ended question to guide our discussion: “What can you tell me about the sun?” We came up with the following list:
- It is shiny. - It is this big (arms above your head). - It is yellow. - It is hot and sweaty. - It is a circle. - When I go outside it hurts my eyes. - It is like on another planet. - It helps the flowers grow.
After we made our list, I had a fun experiment to try. I reminded my students that the sun creates heat and we were going to use it as our oven. I covered a pizza box with tin foil and had each student put a graham cracker, piece of chocolate and a marshmallow on the bottom part of the box. Then we went outside and picked a spot to put our solar panel oven. In a little less than an hour we had delicious S’mores and my students were amazed at how the sun had melted the chocolate and marshmallow.
This kind of experiential, tangible learning is so crucial to our children’s development. They are able to visualize, manipulate and have a “real world” experience that connects them to the concepts they are learning about. The beauty of hands on learning is its ability to encompass such a wide variety of subject levels. Throughout this lesson, for example, we practiced our language and vocabulary skills, developed analytical and scientific thought, and engaged in social interactions among our classmates. And let me tell you, almost everyone wanted S’MORE!
It is always good to see how my students are able to apply their knowledge. It's something you often read about in textbooks, but, to see it before your own eyes is beyond empowering. Today, one of my students, Tim, was working with some jungle toy animals I have out in our science area. He took an alligator and a monkey and started moving them around. I asked him to tell me about what he was doing. He replied with a big smile, “I am playing the alligator and the monkeys. Do you want to hear?” Of course I said yes and he proceeded to sing and act out a popular song we sing in class: “Five little monkeys swinging from the trees, teasing Mr. Alligator, can’t catch me! Along came Mr. Alligator, quiet as can be and snapped that monkey right out of that tree!”
After listening and watching him, I was filled with pride. Not only did he remember all the words, he also used his prior knowledge of our song in his daily work. As a teacher, this is when you know that what you are doing really works. Through his play, Tim discovered that numbers represent quantity, the foundations of subtraction – counting backwards, the food chain and rhyming.
I cannot explain how many times I have to explain to parents, other teachers and the general public that our work in the early childhood years is contingent on learning through play. Tim, Mr. Alligator and the 5 little monkeys are a perfect example. What a busy day in the jungle of pre-k!!!
I have written often here about the benefits of technology and Web 2.0 elements in the early childhood classroom. Recently I’ve been thinking about literacy and how our teaching methods also need to change to keep up with the pace of 21st century learning. If we expose our students to the latest technology through our teaching of other types of curriculum, shouldn’t the same be true for literacy instruction? The same emphasis should be placed on advancing our literacy instruction that has been placed on technology; in fact, the two should go hand in hand.
Why then, are so many pre-k programs still clinging to antiquated literacy approaches such as letter of the week? Often it’s not the teacher who is choosing to use letter of the week, it’s the pre-k program that is mandating it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again;
If there are 36 weeks in a school year and 26 weeks are spent teaching the letters one at a time, valuable learning time is wasted.
I’m puzzled why so many pre-k programs across the US, both public and private, still use the letter of the week method as their main source of literacy instruction when research has shown it to be ineffective at best. It’s time we shed this outdated method in favor of more research based best practices to give our students the best literacy instruction.
Some of the arguments for leaving letter of the week behind are:
The students who struggle the most with learning the letters are the ones who are least helped by teaching letters in isolation.
Young children need something to help them make connections - isolating letters doesn't do that.
Teaching with letter of the week slows readers down, yet it's too fast for others, it doesn't meet the needs of all learners and there is no room for differentiation.
It is more meaningful to introduce letters as they become meaningful to the students, they will retain more this way.
Children who are taught letters in isolation often have difficulty placing that information into literacy activities (Wood and McLeMore, 2001)
Removing letters from their meaningful context removes the meaning and purpose from the letter.
In place of letter of the week pre-k teachers should embrace best practices such as:
Interactive Writing
Writing Workshop
Reading Workshop
Teaching letters through fun student name activities
Incorporating environmental print
Implementing name/word walls
Phonemic awareness
When best practices are used in the pre-k classroom the results are phenomenal. Students learn their letters and letter sounds much more quickly and thus there is more time to focus on other equally important skills such as phonemic awareness and concepts of print. By the end of the year in my full-day pre-k classroom most of my students:
Recognize all upper and lowercase letters
Know all letter sounds
Can identify characters, setting, events, problems, and solutions in any given book.
Can make inferences and predictions in any given book using the skills they have learned in reading workshop.
Can identify the beginning, middle, and end of any given story.
Can write stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Can write a story that makes sense and uses phonetic spelling- or the sounds they hear in the words.
Can identify the basic conventions of print and use them in their writing. For example; their writing reads from left to right, they use spaces between words, and they use punctuation such as periods, question marks, and exclamation points.
All of this has been accomplished in very developmentally appropriate, engaging, and fun ways.
I can only surmise that teachers and programs that still use letter of the week do so because it provides a clear and easy path to follow- start with A and end with Z. It’s easy for administrators to hold teachers accountable when they know what letter is supposed to be taught when. It’s also easy for parents to know what their child is learning when the letters are introduced one at a time. However, it’s not our job as teachers to do what is easy, it’s our job to what is best for our students. We must educate parents and administrators about the best practices and why they are more beneficial.
Pre-K Now is a public
education and advocacy organization that advances high-quality, voluntary
pre-kindergarten for all three and four year olds.
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