QA Visit

Today was THE day.    We have been waiting for 2.5 months for our annual quality inspection. We use a scale somewhat like ECCRS called FCCRS ( family child care rating scale) . I mentor other homes that are wanting to go through this process , so the pressure is on to pass.  I think the day went ok. There is a little feeling of your heart  racing when they first walk in the door, but it quickly subsides as you take over and just do the things you normally do. 

The children had fun today exploring the ribbons I added since visiting Riverfield.  Today is their second day with them.  Amelia and Christian started weaving them through the 3D Art shelf.  It was BEAUTIFUL! I stood watching them and talking to them about it.  As we talked my  mind was reeling , is this a safety hazard ?  ( More so than the cold cup of coffee that I had on the cube???)   The ribbons are looped ....  kind of like mini blind  cords which have to be put away..  As I battled inside what I should  do, I remembered that I put the ribbons out to see what they would do with them.  What they did was creative and beautiful and with me standing there, did not feel like a safety hazard, so I left it .  I think as a teacher we all have to make decisions about what we want to happen in our classroom and that is a component that makes us a "quality setting" regardless of what a scale shows.

To the right is first a picture of Marcy, who made me day go remarkably well. The other pictures is the band that the kids formed..... while she was outside ! 

The kids have no idea it is their job to make me look good, or they would have done this while Marcy was in the room!

The bottom picture of course is the beautiful ribbon creation that Amelia and Christian made with our ribbons !

All in all it was a great day.

Some other things your child might mention:

We planted parsley on a sponge.

We read a book called " Momma Loves me".

Welcome Back

This weekend I went thrift shopping.  Being at the Riverfield Dayschool made me want to do SOMETHING ! I can't be where they are yet, but I can take baby steps.  I wanted to add  pieces of "wonder" for the children to find when they came in  today.

One of the things I saw at Riverfield was ribbon everywhere . It was used in many centers including the block center.  I am just guessing but maybe it was used as a non-standard way of measuring.  The children enjoyed our ribbon today in the art center.  

Since I am taking an Art Class right now, I was excited when I ran upon this treasure at " The Flying Dog."  The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh hangs in the art  center now hopefully inspiring young artist! 

Muffin Tin Monday!

If you look close you see a huge orange "thing" to Rosie's right.  I have no idea what it was but we bought it to be a drum... or whatever the kids want to make it for the day.

Christian did not like the ribbons being all in a mess.

He rolled them up for us.

Sharae is back!

Rosie lounging with some of our African props.

Another thrift store find!  There are beads in one side and the kids take the tiny spoon and transfer the beads to the other side. They loved this and it is a great fine motor exercise!

Halle and Christian trying to decide what to do with the ribbons.

Adam is tired.

Friends painting !

We see this same tiger and duck playing together every day.

Boston learned to tie his shoes while he has gone. YAY BOSTON!

Katie has had a great day back - this was the happy face we saw all day!

Another point of inspiration from my trip to Riverfield !  My science center was a small table with a mirror and a few tools.  I had all FCCRS said I needed...  but it lacked the power to draw the kids in.  I saw this branch collection in one of the rooms and realized what I needed was something to make the space " the kids" space and not mine.   Randy and I went branch shopping to find just the perfect ones.  After a 2 hour drive in the country which was wonderful, we found a few !  :)   The top branch is put with eye hooks into the window sill.  Then each branch underneath is tied with twine.  There are 17 bottles with lids hanging on these branches.  If a child finds something out side or brings something from home he would like to keep ( and it will fit in the bottle) he now has a special place to keep it.  

I did try doing my morning "circle time" like they did theirs.  It felt empty to me.  Maybe I wasn't asking the right questions. When the talking lulled and I started a transition to the next thing, the kids looked at me like " hey.... didn't you forget something?"  Later in the morning  Adam did come up to me and say " Ms Debbie, you didn't do morning message."  I know... it threw me for a loop too!  :)

I did notice one thing though. Beth told me several times ( Beth is one of the teachers in the purple room) that they try to " not give the kids the answer."  Early in the morning Katie was cutting some ribbon from our new spools and said " Ms Debbie, I cant get it." I said " Katie, why don't you try another pair of scissors, I think the straight ones would work better."  As it came out of my mouth, I realized I had given the answer.  Beth would have said, " I wonder why it isn't cutting? I wonder what would make it cut easier?"  I totally took that opportunity for discovery away from her.   How many times do we underestimate a child's ability to figure it out? 

OK - Day one trial run .  Semi - successful.  I mean, I guess it is successful if I realized the difference between the two methods of teaching, right?

Baby Steps.

Am I good enough to have a Reggio inspired classroom?

After getting home and unpacking from my trip to Riverfield Country Dayschool in Tulsa, I looked around my space. The space my kiddos have for learning is full of whimsy and wonder.  Can I let go of all this to have a Reggio inspired classroom?  Do I HAVE to let go of all of this to have a Reggio inspired classroom?  The only real way to describe my thoughts about this journey into a new way of teaching is by random thoughts. I know, for me, that isnt really too uncommon.

When we drove up, I knew I was in a different kind of world. There was a playground with peacocks manning the fence as though to welcome us.   There were little gardens outside the doors.  There were NO huge play structures or plastic climbers.   There was a barn with a pond and real animals, like goats.  Are we sure we are at a school?  Is this the right place?  

We were at the right place and this journey started with a lot of awe... and wows.... Riverfield made you want to be a kid again... or be a better teacher.  

                                                     Teachers

The teachers are merely facilitators in the room .  They are observers.  The teacher takes MUCH documentation  and that is how the conversation starts to lead to a big idea - what the kids want to learn.  The teachers  are not ring leaders and controllers.  They are in charge of provocations -  setting up conversations or adding elements to the room to " provoke " the children to think.   The teachers do not give the answer.  They  encourage the children to FIND the answer.  One teacher remarked  that she " loved her children enough to let them find the answer."  That really was profound to me.   I struggle with helping parents understand that preschool is a time to learn independence and to learn to put on their own coats and shoes.  Can they handle it if I take it a step further? The teacher helps the child learn all the key elements to be ready for kindergarten but it is a much more passive type of teaching.  It is not transmitional at all.   Pictures... videos...  In most classrooms the teacher is the main component. In Reggio classrooms, the children are.  One thing I heard the teachers say a lot is " I wonder if...."

                                               The Children

The children seemed very focused... much more focused than I am used to.  They had respect for themselves, each other and the teacher.   They played. I even saw one little boy running around in tap shoes.  He wore them both days I was there. I think they were his favorite.  The children were problem solvers.   The children were responsible.   If they walked past something and accidently knocked it over, they stopped to clean it up.  The wonderful thing was, almost always, a friend stopped to help.  The children loved school - it was evident.

                                             The Environment

The room was much different. The walls were white. The thing that stood out the most was the documentation of the children's work.  The rooms were mostly lit with lamp lighting and not overhead lighting.   There were beautiful chandeliers which I hope to make with my children.  They had the basic centers that we all have.

Construction - They had blocks.  In most classrooms there was a platform to build and save structures on.  The kids would make little STOP signs to let their friends know they were coming back.   They had "parts" instead of the normal lakeshore people and cars we have .They had pinecones and CD's, spools and ribbons....all kinds of things that are   different.

Housekeeping -  Was where I saw a lot of the cultural elements.  It was cool.. and homey much like mine minus the DIVA sign and the blue wall.

Science-  I have already replicated one thing I saw in my favorite class that I love. It was  a group of branches that hung on the wall with bottles attached. Each child had a bottle to put treasures in from a walk outside.  I cant wait for the kids to come in and see ours on Monday.   

Message Center - for writing.

Art Center. This is a very important part of the classroom. They use a lot of clay and natural objects to create with.   The children are encouraged to sketch something they see or to make a plan.   There are many real and wonderful items in the center for the children to explore.  It is so much more than an easel and some tempera.

Other things I saw in the classroom that I loved are things of beauty.  Very little.... to none... plastic. I saw a few plastic animals and in one classroom I saw a set of alphabet, but that is it.  They prefer natural materials. 

There were babies playing in mud.  There were babies playing in blue water and doing sign language for more.. wanting more BLUE....

Circle time was nothing like we are used to.  I thought I had evolved a LOT but this would take even more.   Circle time isnt singing a cutesy little song and learning a fingerplay or talking about the weather outside or counting how many days there are left in the month.  It is a conversation between the teacher and the children.  The teachers reflects on the day before and the  things they did and listens to what they might like to do that day.  Then starts the " I wonder if...." conversations.  I see you enjoyed the show that we had yesterday. I wonder if there is some way we can continue that fun today?  Oh, that is a great idea...  You are right, we dont have  super hero costumes... I wonder if  we can find things in our room to make them? ? It was amazing to listen to the teacher web her way through a days plan while putting the children and their wants and needs first.

My last thoughts:

I do believe in this concept - the child centered classroom.

I do believe that childrens ideas and questions should be respected .

I enjoyed the time I spent at Riverfield.

This experience has me hungry to learn more about the method.

I wonder if..... I can do it.

I wonder.

Spring Break Fun!

We have had tons of fun. If it wasn't 11:57  right now and I didn't have to get up at 6:15 I would tell you all about it.  But for a quick wrap up.   1.  Jones Center  AETN  day....  100o kids, Clifford the Big Red Dog and yes, if you look good enough- you will see us standing against a wall waiting on the ALL OK from a fire drill.   ugh....  2.  Today we went to see a movie , the Really Woolie Movie.  Again- LOTS of kids but not as much waiting.  We even saw a little pirate there that used to be one of our preschool friends!  See if you can find him !

I am in Tulsa now and planning to  tour a Reggio Emelia Center tomorrow .  It is a curriculum model that I am looking at for next year.  If you are curious, you can start doing a little research here- ( but if you go, you need to tell me what you think! )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach

http://www.reggioemiliaapproach.net/

Leprechaun Magic Pudding

The "write" stuff

The older kids have really been into writing today.   They have made list and graphs galore.   This is how children become better writers. I can throw dot to dot in front of them all day, but if they aren't ready--- they aren't ready.

Here is an article that discusses the "stages of writing" if you are interested.

http://staffweb.wwcsd.net/goodwinm/Writingstages.htm

And here are some ideas to help your child build stronger fine motor skills from some of my friends on a message board.

 Here are some of Maureens ideas! 

I have already mentioned some of the things we do in art to encourage the 
three finger pincher grip such as gluing. We also do an activity called pin 
pricking. You get a large push pin, a small piece of carpet with low pile and 
a variety of shapes traced on 2" squares of construction paper. The child 
puts one of the squares on the carpet and punches holes on the line all the 
way around. Then he can punch out the shape if he has his holes close enough. 
Older children enjoy that one. Some children prefer to use this method for 
cutting out their countries when the make maps if they don't have the skill 
yet to cut with scissors. We use tiny "ink" stamps, and instead of ink pads, 
I have them use waterproof magic markers to scrape the stamp side and use 
that "ink" on the stamp. We always have a variety of necklace making 
materials with cut straws and pony beads in seasonal colors. Both boys and 
girls enjoy making these.

We have another area in the room that is full of fine motor activities. For 
grasping(we always have our actities set out on shelves from left to right 
with easier to more challenging arranged across a shelf), I have out now a 
small bowl of yellow and green pompons on a round paint tray with 10 
indentions and a strawberry huller. Then I have a tray with four dividers and 
a container full of four different green and yellow beads and the child takes 
tweezers and takes each bead at a time to sort and put in the appropriate 
divider. Then I have a large baster that the child bastes water from one 
container to another. The next one is is an eyedroper with a bottle of 
colored water that the child drops a bead of colored water on one of those 
round soap suction things. (The suction part looks like tiny mushrooms where 
the beads of water sit on). You can also precede the eyedropper using small 
beads instead of water and tweezers where they can form different designs on 
the soap dish. That is what I have out now for grasping.

I also have out one of those square plastic boards that have the "nails" on 
them and the child stretches rubber bands across the "nails" to make designs. 
We have a mini screwdriver that turns the screws into four holes of a 
predrilled board. We have a water activity that uses a hand held child sized 
egg beater for making bubbles(We have already had out the whisking)They have 
to hold the part that turns the beaters using those three fingers. We have 
tiny Avon type bottles of various sizes and shapes where they need to 
match the lids to the bottles and screw those on. We also have out polishing 
where they have to use their pincher fingers for putting the polish on the 
mirror, shoe, brass, silver, etc as well as use the small fabirc mitt to wipe 
the polish off the object. When they spill their bowl of beads on the floor, 
they get plenty of practice picking those up!(as well as helpful friends 
getting practice). When they pour liquids like water for their drink at 
snack, they use two hands, the fingers from one hand holding the handle and 
the other hand for balancing the glass pitcher.

From another friend:

I agree with the last poster concerning developing fine motor
skills. Also, one thing that I tried with a child (and it
worked) was to have him hold a cotton ball in his fist, then
grasp the pencil, crayon,or marker, while still holding the
cotton ball. I got this idea years ago from either T-net or a
teacher's website.

I hope you found some fun things you can do at home to help your child become a better writer!

Our day in pictures