Moving in the Write Direction

A while back I had written about writing programs in the preschool classroom with the intention of following up and blogging just a bit more on the subject. After my trip to Tampa and presenting at One Goal Summer Conference, I am geared up and ready to write!

As we are quickly approaching the new school year (crazy, I know), as early childhood teachers we want to begin thinking on how we can build on what we have already done, make it better and engage the children with much more anticipation for learning. The key is your passion as a teacher and the difference you make is up to you. You have the power to change what is going on across your state, in your classroom and in the minds of your children and families that you serve.

The key to a successful writing-rich class is inspirational materials! What better way to motivate children to write than to inspire them.

I want you to understand that if you engulf them with print, access to materials and different mediums and the time to initiate, engage and complete, they will be great writers.

Writing is a process and if you want them to be able to write you must start with the scribble! Scribbling is the first attempt of object to symbol relationship. They may see a cat in their little mind and then write the word cat in a scribble. As they are thinking it, they will write it. They may even draw the cat (which you may not be able to see it) and then write it (again, you may not see it).

As they begin to go through the different writing stages, you will begin to see symbols forming into actual letters. You will be able to begin decoding their writing.

I lke to st bi alk

(I like to sit by Alec.)

Don't take their scribbles for granted! This is the beginning of a beautiful writing experience.

Below are some pictures of activities that children can experience. Think above and beyond the paper and pencil when it comes to materials and think multiple mediums (rice, flour, beans, sand, etc.) and unexpected tools such as some of the ones you will see below.

cookie sheet micro scaffold for one child

Above in the pictures I have taken the blue rice medium, paired it with magnetic alphabet pieces, word family cards that they can use to spell out words and then write them down on their notebook.

 Here I have again scaffold the tray for one child: purple sand, red alphabet pasta, a notepad, tongs, tools, and a sifter for easy clean up. Here the children could use the cards to find words or just pick out letters.

I also want to share with you a secret! Anything can become a writing center and it can be anywhere in the room. Other than you standard, stationary writing center have mobile writing centers that can go anywhere in the room and even outside. This encourages more writing and more creativity from the children. Below I have taken a box from a computer keyboard that is very sturdy and made it into a mobile writing center.

I love the magnetic drawing boards. These are so inexpensive and you can get them just about anywhere. I like to pair them with other materials. Below I have paired them with cards and trays. This activity is scaffold for two children with two of each materials.

Another way to encourage children to write is to write letters to each other, family members, etc. We all know they like to write letters! So come up with creative ways to implement letter writing. Here I have used a Purex All In One detergent box stuffed with envelopes and used as a mobile mail box around the room. There are so many things that you could do with this in your classroom. Get really creative with getting the children excited about send some mail!

There so much more to say about writing, so I will leave you with these thoughts. Surround your preschoolers with materials in their classroom that they can't resist. Be creative and have a well-balanced method of open-ended and teacher directed writing. Please don't ever make children sit for long periods of time and be forced to write. You want them to come back day after day with a motivation and persistence to write. Go non-traditional, think outside the box and give them the support that they need to become successful writers.

Until next time, go teach the children.
Priscilla 

Nature's Gift To Early Childhood

It's Saturday morning, my eyes are searching over the grassy, green field that sweeps our back field. I am thrown back by the beauty of nature and all that it has to offer. As we are deep into spring and headed for the dog days of summer, what are you doing in your classroom to promote such beauty and grace?

The early childhood classroom is much like the grassy field that envelops my eyes this morning. Or at least it should be. It should be open for possibilities, free to express sound, room for seeds to be sown and learning to be draped over each and every child just as the Laurel Oaks are canopied with new life.

Early childhood is the start of something beautiful. It's fresh and new, it's pliable, it's moldable, it's the chance to shape a world. However, in most cases it is not any of these things.

Take for instance, the habit of television in an early childhood classroom, the strict schedule of routines that really aren't child-initiated, but more teacher-directed for their purpose, the closed opportunities such as color this pre-drawn tree green because all trees are green, or the one-child-at-a-time table session. Oh this one is my favorite. You know, the one where each child has a tree ditto in front of them and they are told to not touch it, do not touch the paint, do not touch anything while the teacher holds the paint brush for each of them and paints inside the lines of the tree. After a long while, she proceeds to the next child and so on. Oh my goodness, I know I would have been the child to get up running from the classroom as soon as the door opened yelling, "Save me before my adult life is crushed by the closed opportunities that wait before me!".

Why is it that we can't get passed the controlled nature of teaching? Why is it that teachers can't let-it-go? Why are they so stuffy?

Many times it is out of shear laziness. Now I am being honest, it's my down-fall most days. I can't help with that problem, but sometimes it is out of a lack of knowledge. Many teachers in the early childhood field are given a quick set of trainings required by their state then thrown overboard into the classroom without a life preserver. Man overboard! That I can help with.

I want you to imagine a world with no limits, no boundaries, no one telling us NO. The joy of living each and everyday open to possibilities, the feeling of I'm safe, the urgency of learning, the excitement of a story. This should be your early childhood classroom. Each day a child should know that they will walk through your door and learn something new, feel safe and comforted, have anticipation to hear the story you're going to read, and know that if they are told "no" it's because of their safety and not because they can't paint today.

As the winds blows through the field and the sun peaks through with a new day, allow yourself to blow with the flow and take a peak at the something new a child will learn from you each and everyday. It's easy, so go ahead and release!

Until next time...go teach the children!
Priscilla

Snoring Is Boring Unless You're My Friend Bear

Recently, I was asked to be a featured blogger for ABC and 123 A Learning Cooperative and I have to say that I was flattered. Now, for those of you that do this all the time, it's probably not that big of a deal to you, but for me...I was super excited! I was asked to share about reading, which is right up my path of teaching.

I love working with books in a preschool classroom. When I was an actual teacher in a preschool classroom, I used a book-of-the-month method and it just worked beautifully. My children learned all about the books I featured, the attributes of the books (front, back, title, author, illustrator, etc), and I want to believe they learned to have a love of books through this process.

One fall, I decided to do our book of the month featuring Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Jane Chapman. This is one of my favorite books of all time to read preschool children. There are so many learning opportunities in the book and as the series grew, so did my ideas.

First the book is a rhyming book and we know that phonological awareness and onset and rime is vital to the success of a child reading. If they can begin to put the symbols together to form words, decode and then change the rime to make more words, they will read.

"In a cave in the woods,

in his deep, dark lair,

through the long, cold winter,

sleeps a great brown bear."

I have always thought that I have a knack for making something out of nothing or something small. I challenge you to think about this paragraph and how it can be expanded into greater literacy knowledge.

Emergent Literacy Standards (Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten Education Standards)

• first thing we notice is that it rhymes: demonstrates beginning phonological awareness
• the lair isn't just a lair, it's a deep, dark lair: uses descriptive words
• the use of a synonym: cave is the same as lair

These are just a few of the literacy skills that can be implemented by using the book. As an early childhood teacher (any teacher for that matter) you should never just look at book and read it page by page without really picking the words of the page apart. You should always be thinking, "How can I use the words and pictures on this page to extend the learning potential?".

Page after page the repetitive nature of the book suggests that the bear snores on...this use enables the children to predict text and begin to coral read as a group. Pretty soon they can read the book in its entirety. The key is repetition. And the key to great repetition is creativity. So on to the fun stuff we go.

As I read this book time and time again in my class of three-year-olds, we started exploring the different elements happening. We figured out by the pages in the book that it was winter time. And from there it became a question of what type of animals sleep (hibernate) in the winter? How long do they hibernate? What are all of his friends doing up partying? Why is the rabbit called a hare?

These are inquisitive questions that little minds need to know. So you teach them and you explore with them and you ask their thoughts and opinions.

We worked hard through the week painting our cave or lair (a very expensive box) and we prepared for our bears to enter their deep sleep (I rhymed!).

As the week came to an end we had to put our bears asleep for the winter. Each of the children brought in a bear from home, we labeled them with their names (because all bears have names), we snapped a photo of a moment in time and we carefully put them down to sleep.

Three months later (no kidding), the bears came out of hibernation in the middle of night and they made a mess in our classroom (I can't believe that I didn't capture this moment with film, but I didn't!) with paint, play dough, blocks, there was even one sitting in the rocking chair doing circle time! The oohs and awes on their faces were too much to BEAR.

When you think about reading a book, don't just read the page, read the story that the page tells. Go beyond the words and bring the story to life as we did. Children learn by doing; their learning is three-dimensional. Don't bore them with flat words, flat pictures, and flat tone. Deep, dark lair should be DEEP, DARK LAIR. "Mouse squeaks, "Too damp, too dank, too dark."", should be "too damp, too dank, too dark" (itty, bitty voice).

Overall the book shares about friendship, consideration, and problem-solving. Bear goes from mad to sad to happy. Emotions are a big part of early childhood, use this to talk about feelings and how we can deal with those feelings even at a young age.

In the end, bear is awake and as spring roles around Bear Wants More. So off I go to plan another Bear adventure...

Below is a unit that I created when I facilitated a workshop about lesson planning. I used Bear Snores On as a part of the unit and inspiration for activities.
http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz249/family4jones/FromBlahandBoringtoLearningandSoaringslideshow_008.jpg

I hope that you enjoy reading about my Bear adventure. Although Bear Snores On is not part of my Barefoot Books, I hope that you will add it to your collection. There is a series of Bear books, so happy reading my friends.

Preschool Library Barefoot Additions

Looking to spruce up or add to your preschool library? What better way to do it, than to join my Barefoot Books team as an Ambassador.

When your preschool or school joins Barefoot Books, you can begin adding a beautiful collection of books to your library at a fraction of the cost.  Here are a few perks to going Barefoot!

• earn 20-40% commission on qualifying sales (personal orders and orders placed my customers whom you refer to Barefoot Books)
• build your team and earn 2-8% of the qualifying sales volume of team members, three tiers down.
• place a stock order and receive free shipping and 50% discount on orders of $500 or more
• gain loyalty points which can be used as payment on future purchases of Barefoot Books products
• receive free access to your own website marketplace, online marketing tools, Ambassador-only forums, training resources and more

There is no better time to join Barefoot Books. As a preschool or school, you can stock up with stock orders and pay only $250 for $500 in retail value and get free shipping. Plus, you can promote fundraisers for your school getting parents/grandparents to shop your marketplace. You earn commission and points! Take a stock order and display it for an in-house store for parents to browse and purchase.

Join my team and start your own successful opportunity of giving children a love of reading.