Aug01

Transitioning to kindergarten: hearing from children who have been there.

Support on the first day of schoolSome elementary schools on a “year-round” or “modified calendar” are about to begin a new school year on Monday, and many others begin in September. Children from my “fours” classes are among the new kindergarten students and I feel so protective of them even though I believe they are ready for the the work, the larger school building, and sometimes a larger class size. After his first week in elementary school my son told us, “They have so many rules there.” New rules in the new school with a larger class size and a larger student body—he soon acclimated to that school’s culture but it was  a process.

Learning and teaching are easier when children feel comfortable. Read  what children say as they tell what new children need to know about starting school in the International Journal of Transitions in Childhood website links to full text papers from the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) Annual Conferences.

 

I remember my first day as a parent at a preschool, wondering how all the other parents seemingly knew what to do—where to put the cubby bag and tuition check, and where to find extra paints, the mop, and the key to restock the paper towels. There was institutional knowledge that was unwritten. Once we become part of a community we may no longer see the need for posting such information. As teachers we can take the lead to increase the comfort level of new students and new families by sharing the unwritten “rules” and culture of our classrooms.

Here are my suggestions for families participating in science activities at one co-op preschool:

           ·          Participate in the activities as an explorer. This will encourage your child to do so.

           ·          Make observations after giving the children a chance to do so (but adults do not have to share all the knowledge they have).

           ·          Ask open-ended questions that can have multiple answers, such as, “What do you see happening?”

           ·          Don’t answer most questions—that’s the children’s job! Instead say, “I wonder how we can find out?” It’s ok to leave questions unanswered, especially when the details are more complex than they are ready to understand (a fine line!).

 

Do you have special practices to welcome new students and families to your school? Tell me about them by clicking on the word “Comments” below.

Peggy

Published: Aug-01-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Jun21

Food safety in gardening

Read "Safety First" by Sarah Pounders and you can reassure your director and students’ parents that you are informed about how to avoid potential health hazards in eating food from a school garden. Did you guess that washing hands is one of the safety steps to take?

Sarah writes, “Grow it, know it, try it … love it! Educators and parents across the country are using this philosophy to get young gardeners hooked on fruits and vegetables.” Children in my classes take to gardening even when it’s a new experience. The crops that we can grow and harvest before the end of school include snap peas, chives, oregano and other herbs, and strawberries. In a small (1m x 3m) raised bed garden there is room for just a few plants, enough so every child gets a taste of what we grow.

Some children only enjoy gardening if they are not getting dirty

Children seem to observe most closely when planting or watering. Some try hard to keep their clothes and shoes clean, sometimes because of personal preference and sometimes because of parental warnings. To keep it a positive experience, I try to help them limit the mess. Child-size tools can help them control where the dirt goes. How do you handle this in your garden?

Maintaining even a container garden requires a commitment to water and weed. Neglect is the main difficulty faced by the gardens at my schools (I’m not at each school every day). Gardens do best with some daily attention—not hours and hours but at least a few minutes to water when needed, look for “wildlife”, or tie a plant to a support. The rich environment of the school garden is under-used. Sometimes the peas children planted in a raised bed don’t grow taller than a few inches because children were allowed to climb up into and through the bed to look through the fence. Other times children are not made aware of the Cabbage White butterfly caterpillars chewing up collard leaves. Without adult encouragement to attend the garden, zinnia seedlings may dry up rather than sprout up.

I need some advice on how to enlist other teachers to help the children water at least a few times a week, and spend a few minutes talking about any changes. Or maybe I should be planting hardier plants!

Tell me what to try,

Peggy

Published: Jun-21-09 | 2 Comments | 1 Link to this post

May25

Science talk

One misconception about science is that discoveries or new ideas are “discovered” then agreed upon by scientists in a complete form. Talking to children about the process of scientific inquiry as they do an activity may help them appreciate the long, exploratory, route to being certain in science. Foster discussion by letting children know it is okay to disagree about what you think might happen.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog
These children are pointing to answer the question, “What shape bubble will you make with a square bubble wand?" and they are comfortable disagreeing with their neighbors.

As you do science with young children, include comments about science, such as these, in the discussion:

  • I hear more than one answer. That’s how science is, people don’t always agree. We can try this and find out.
  • Observations may not be the same. What do you see?
  • Sharing your information about what you see is what scientists do.
  • Yes, we can look in a book. Scientists research what people have learned already.

Here are two resources that explain how science talk is part of the process of science:

A good visual explanation of how science works is available from the Understanding Science website. See "The real process of science" showing the nonlinear paths in doing science.

For more about talk in science teaching, view a slideshow by Karen Worth of the Educational Development Center, Inc., Science Talk and Science Writing: A View from the Classroom, at the 2008 Literacy Institute.  The Inquiry Diagram (slide six) is another clarifying diagram about the process of scientific inquiry.

Some students may need repeated encouragement to talk freely; others may need a reminder to listen. Listening to my students helps me find out what they know about science.

Peggy

Published: May-25-09 | 4 Comments | 72 Links to this post

Apr15

Easy clean up tip for fine-grained materials

Here’s a tip for simplifying the clean up of dry, fine materials. Put a smooth cloth down under the item, such as a Tenebrio beetle container or a tabletop sensory box. Use a cotton cloth that is larger than the container, perhaps a tablecloth—large enough so it covers the table or children can sit on it around the box on the floor. Any bran or sand or rice that spills can be contained by the cloth and transported to a trash can (or back into the container if still clean).

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

A cotton cloth will not become as charged with static electricity as a synthetic or silk cloth, so particles such as bran or feathers will more easily fall off when gently shaken over the trash can.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog
One year I used a white cloth with a realistic black insect print and some children were reluctant to sit on it! When a beetle was dropped on it, it became a lesson in camouflage.

Peggy
Published: Apr-15-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Dec11

Common Cold Blues

I would like to curl up in a cave until this sore throat and runny nose goes away. And I would like to know exactly how to prevent the spread of cold viruses—me and every other early childhood teacher! Here are some resources on cold germs:

A December 8, 2008 article from The Boston Globe by Judy Foreman, Cold Comfort, quotes doctors as saying that the viruses are spread from nose secretions mainly through touch, to the nose or eyes.

Common Cold, a website with in-depth information and the goal of providing “a framework for critical thinking which will allow informed decisions about medical care for the common cold,” states that cold viruses are removed by the mechanical action of washing and that germicidal hand lotions do not reliably kill rhinovirus, the most important cold virus. So all I have to do is to keep my hands off my face and wash my hands frequently. Now I wish we had a sink in every classroom!

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' pages on the Common Cold say, “Hand washing with soap and water is the simplest and one of the most effective ways to keep from getting colds or giving them to others.”  And the Mayo Clinic recommends that children wash their hands for as long as it takes them to sing their ABCs, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" or the "Happy Birthday" song. It seems to me that children spend more time to wash their hands with liquid soap than with bar soap, perhaps because it takes longer to wash off the squirt than it does to wash off the film of soap from a bar (no data, just an observation).

 

Do you have any tips for making washing or cleaning hands easier or more effective?

Peggy

Published: Dec-11-08 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Oct28

Supporting children's observation: what will they remember?

Two particularly inquisitive and bright former preK students (siblings) unexpectedly attended a workshop I gave for early childhood teachers about bringing local butterflies into the classroom for observation. Instead of distracting from the planned workshop, they added to it and made me look good! It was gratifying to have them model how to ask questions, and to comment on what they had learned, one and three years ago, respectively. They recalled the words “pupa” and “chrysalis” and remembered how they saw a red liquid (miconium) after the butterflies emerged from their chrysalides and that it wasn’t blood. It was inspiring to see how observing part of the butterfly life cycle made a great impression.

I hope that all students remember as much from that experience. Repeat the life cycle observations with other species of butterflies or Tenebrio beetles (mealworms) and children will observe insect metamorphosis, and relationship between animal and food source, more than once.

To enable all students to make observations, teachers adapt activities to the needs of the students. Have a bright light source in the classroom to help children with low vision see details. Put caterpillars or other small animals in small containers such as medicine bottles so children with fine motor control difficulty can hold them without accidently squishing them. Some teachers set aside a time for drawing or otherwise documenting an observation of nature each day. What do you do in your classroom to make sure that all students get to carefully observe?
Peggy
Published: Oct-28-08 | 1 Comment | 571 Links to this post

Aug19

Using Science Notebooks With Young Students

Science Notebooks can be useful tools, even with young students who are just learning to read and write. See how kindergarten teacher Kathryn Kaatz incorporated science writing and drawing as she took her students on "A Walk in the 'Tall, Tall Grass'" after being inspired by Denise Fleming’s book entitled, In the Tall, Tall Grass (1991).

In his book, Using Science Notebooks in Elementary Classrooms, author Michael P. Klentschy offers gives useful suggestions for sentence starters and writing prompts that can be used with young children.

What are your best ideas for incorporating science writing and drawing with your young observers?

Published: Aug-19-08 | 2 Comments | 734 Links to this post