the panda exhibit

The children were showing an interest in pets, and we planned a field trip to Petco to tour the store and see my dog get groomed. We decided to also go to the National Zoo, though it would be cold. Prior to the trip, we talked about the indoor exhibits at the zoo, and the children voted on which exhibit they wanted to see. One of the children had already seen Bao Bao, the National Zoo’s panda cub, and excitedly talked about him.  We asked each child what he/she preferred, and tallied the results together. The children voted to visit the panda exhibit first, and then the reptile house. We were lucky to visit on such a cold day because there were so few people there, and we were able to watch Bao Bao, Mei Xing and Tian Tian for a while (which I mentioned here). I thought that this would lead to a conversation between which animals would make good pets and which would not, but the children had other interests…

A conversation before nap time:

Child: What is that dark thing?

Me: What dark thing?

Child (I noticed he was looking at a photograph from the zoo): See it? There by the panda?

Me: Oh that’s like a cave that the panda goes into. It’s called a den. Should we make one?

Child: YES!

First we painted two large boxes black, and then compared the boxes against our photographs. We noticed that the real dens “were brown with rocks” on the outside, and then painted rocks on our dens.

The giant pandas at the National Zoo are named Bao Bao, Mei Xing and Tian Tian. We labeled two of the dens for Bao Bao and Mei Xing. We pretended we were pandas, and that citiblocks were the rocks that Mei Xing often lays on and that PVC pipes were bamboo.

A child was pretending to be Mei Xing, laying on “rocks” and “eating” bamboo. She got upset because another child was playing with her bamboo.

Me: Can he be Bao Bao? What does Bao Bao do?

Child: She crawls just like Mei Xing but a little slower.

I am very conflicted about the use of technology in the preschool classroom, and try to limit it as much as possible. The smart board in my classroom is hidden behind a shower curtain (and also is much too high for my children). However, we did watch the Smithsonian’s panda cam to make observations of Mei Xing and Bao Bao during centers, and they drew what they saw (or acted it out). We wondered out loud about the giant pandas, and kept a list of our questions. One child wondered if pandas had belly buttons. We made predictions and answered our questions using non-fiction texts (pandas do not have belly buttons, at least that we could see :).

My co-teacher and I went to see the amazing Lillian Katz last week, and I have been re-reading her book and reflecting on the project approach (here are some great tip sheets). This is the kind of child-directed learning that I love to do, and I hope by offering children more opportunities to make their thinking and learning visible, we can continue to learn together. I am finishing my first documentation panel of this learning adventure!

long weekend inspiration

[They were so in awe of Bao Bao, the baby panda at the National Zoo]

I LOVE the snow, but I start to go pretty stir-crazy after more than 4 days at home. Last Wednesday, before our snow days, our class took a trip to Petco and the National Zoo, so I’m super excited for some provocations I have planned for the week ahead.  I’m hoping to spark a full-blown exploration into pets (and wild animals), with some interesting conversations about what makes a good pet, but we shall see what sparks the children’s interests :)

– Some panda inspiration via pinterest, in honor of Washington’s favorite panda cub, Bao Bao (oh, such great local context!): panda small world play and panda provocation

– I was lucky enough to visit School Within a School in DC a couple of weeks ago, and if you are inspired by the Reggio approach, you MUST check out their atelierista’s blog. The post about the winter solstice is awe-inspiring.

– I’m super excited to have just gotten a Donor’s Choose project funded, so we will be replacing our over-stimulating rug in dramatic play, finally! (Remember this?) PLUS, with a gift card I received from a friend, I was able to order a small order from Montessori Services, including a new practical life activity. The Education of Ours has some of my favorite Montessori practical life inspirations.

– Love this article about the importance of play on ASCD, and how Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post is highlighting the over-assessment of our kindergarteners in this column. (Also, Alfie Kohn’s concerns about Universal Pre-K).

Happy long weekend! Hope to have some exciting posts this week from new experiences and provocations in the Fishies’ room.

let them play!

“Need more proof that society is hurrying childhood along? … The US DOE website (2009) says, “Awards in Race to the Top will go to states that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling and comprehensive education reform” — whatever that means. We assume that a committee of government lawyers under the influence of freeway exhaust fumes or hard liquor composed the prose on the website. We were unable to decipher the slipper and obtuse language enough to understand exactly WHY there is a race and precisely WHAT everyone is racing to the top of. “

Our ECE book club just read Let Them Play: An Early Learning (Un)Curriculum by Jeff Johnson and Denita Dinger, which is amazing, and I’d highly recommend to fellow “play-obsessed” educators. One of my favorite parts of the book (besides the biased political emphasis highlighted above :) were the messages about treating teachers as artists (opposed to cogs) and thinking about policies meant to make good teachers great, rather than just eliminate the awful ones. Managers should eliminate the awful teachers… do we need policies to do that? Or are our policies meant to help children actually hurting great teachers, and in turn, hurting the children they serve? There are also some amazing points about how we, as early childhood educators, need to be advocates for the children for whom we care.

Let Them Play also complements NAEYC’s new book on Emergent Curriculum well, which was also a great read, and LTP gives more rationale, to save up for when you are defending your best practices, as so many of us, especially in elementary schools, often have to do.

paperwhites provocation

For one, we give so much importance to the environment.  Beyond the right of having a school is the right to have a school that is beautiful and taken care of with an attitude of care so that parents, children, and teachers want to come to school every day.  We have in some ways confused luxury with care. – Vea Vecchi (via)

painting in the snow

Sorry for the radio silence, friends (I’m trying to stop calling everybody that after reading It’s OK Not to Share last year, but it’s an old-ECE trait ingrained inside of me).  I’m co-teaching a new inclusion model this year (which has, for the most part, been amazing) and working on my work-life balance (which has not yet been as successful :) Can I make it up to you all with a wonderful, easy activity that brings the best of the season indoors?

Our school has a “stay indoors if lower than 32” policy that makes me incredibly sad most days (and want to write a large grant for wellies, waterproof jackets, gloves, hats and scarves for all). But today, with the help of a huge parachute and snow and watercolors, it wasn’t so bad. I put neon watercolors and eye droppers out next to a sensory table full of snow.

“It looks like a rainbow”

“When I put it all right here, the snow goes down.”

The kids decided to put the table outside when they were done to see if it would melt or stay the same (we knew it would melt indoors after a few readings of The Snowy Day), and it was still pretty snowy this afternoon, so we’ll see if this is a continued process tomorrow, or if it’s ran its course.

classroom tour

Hi, friends! Welcome back :) Today was the first day of school with our whole class (we do a transition week for home visits, conferences, and half-class days prior to the first day), and I’d love to give you a tour of our newly renovated space, if you like. Our classroom was part of the first phase of a school renovation plan this summer, but was not exactly renovated for early childhood (our white boards and new Smartboard are 31″, not exactly child-friendly height), so my co-teachers and I did our best to make the room feel cozy, warm, and welcoming to 3- and 4-year-olds.

The photo above is looking over our dramatic play center. We got new kitchen furniture this year. I would love a more neutral rug for the space, but being in a Title I public school, we work with what we’ve got (for now :). The curtains are from Ikea, and since we cannot drill into our new walls, we mounted them with heavy-duty velcro (hand-sewed to the curtains in certain spots — the adhesive KILLED my sewing machine) adhered to the mini blinds.

 

Welcome to our table toys center (which is behind dramatic play). There is a cozy area to work on the carpet, as well as a table space. The frames on the windowsill hold family photos we took on home visits.

Click below for more!

preschool home visits for the anxiety prone

Home visits are one of my absolutely, positively favorite things about the beginning of the school year. When I googled “preschool home visits” today, though, I only found several anxious posts from preschool moms who didn’t finish cleaning in time, so I wanted to write a quick post about why I do (and love) them and how I do them. I hope any anxious parents who may stumble upon my little blog will feel less stress, and I can connect with other educators on ways we do them.

The primary reason I do home visits is to build relationships with my students.  When I walk into the home, I do not notice whether or not the house is clean (really!) and I pay no attention to what anyone was wearing, including the children (I ask the same consideration; after the first visit of the day, I usually have play dough or marker on me :).  I love walking into a home, especially meeting a child for the first time, because the child is totally comfortable there, in his/her natural element, with his/her favorite people in the world, his parents or caregivers!

Today, my assistant, special education teacher and I did three home visits — two in a neighborhood park and one in a family’s apartment. At the park, I met siblings, and saw how important my students’ siblings were in their lives. I saw what strong relationships they have with their family members, and I learned what upsets them (and equally important, what calms them down). In the park I watched how they played with other children, and at home, I was introduced to their favorite toys and activities, and sat on the floor to play with them. I learned critically important information I will use when planning experiences for the first week of school and beyond. I learned where families were from, how they spent their time, and what languages they spoke. I asked parents and caregivers what their hopes and dreams are for their child, so that I can do everything I can to honor them this year. I took photos of families to hang in the classroom on the very first day, to make a connection between home and school. I was also able to give the family valuable one-on-one attention outside of the stresses of the school day, on their own terms.

The attitudes toward me– and school– of the students with whom I have done home visits (before the beginning of the school year) is completely different than those who I met first in the classroom. I feel like I have begun to establish trust with those students. Just by visiting their houses (or them in their community, if the parent prefers), I have sent the message, “Hey! I know I’m new in your life, but I care enough about you to come and visit you. You are a special person to me.”

Educators, do you love home visits? I’d love if you left comments of your favorite questions to ask.

PS: A column in the Washington Post about home visits.

light and shadows

We did a lot of exploration of light and shadows at the beginning of the year, so I wanted to put the projector out again to see what sorts of ideas I could provoke. Also, we have been playing with flash lights and shadows in our “campground” in dramatic play, so I thought this would be a complimentary provocation.

I love this sequence of documentation, and how it packages persistence, curiosity, and motivation, among other things.

first do no harm

“The results are clear: When at-risk children get inappropriate early education it has a lasting negative effect. Yet millions of young children in recent years have been subjected to schooling that demands too much too soon. We are not reducing the learning gap with such methods; we are intensifying the problems. It is time for educators and policymakers to adopt the rule that guides the medical community: First, do no harm.”

(referencing the effects of too much direct instruction, or teaching “from a book” with a correct answer in mind, from The HighScope Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study, p. 3)

Every adult needs to read this article. If you’re an ECE teacher, if you teach or work in an elementary school with early childhood classes, if your district has preschool classes, if you have a young child, just read it. Our kids deserve it.

color mixing

 

Our hardware store is open for color matching and mixing.

We are also mixing paint in our art center to match the beautiful colors we see in this rose.

We read Mouse Paint and talked about how adding white makes colors lighter. We compared colors against paint chips and talked about the same and different. We experimented and tested theories, and we made beautiful art work.