Mailbox magazine companion preschool april may 2010 learning centers

6

What Are My Responsibilities as a Planner?

Female teacher with red pen and paperwork sitting at desk.

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Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

Describe factors that affect the planning context.

Describe important considerations for planning the environment.

Explain the types of resources available to teachers for planning.

Describe a continuum of approaches to planning and how they are similar and different.

Introduction

Now that you have met your children and their families, collected information, and considered many ways to connect with them in the context of your community, its time to begin planning curriculum activities and how you will set up the environment to support them. Remember from Chapter 2 that you have the printed material accompanying the comprehensive curriculum used in your school and the supplementary literacy program that specifically targets at-risk learners. You also have your administrators assurance that you will have a good bit of freedom to make your own decisions as long as they are consistent with the curriculums goals.

Your teaching space has some nice featuresnotably access to a lavatory for the children inside the room, plenty of natural light from windows along one wall, a door to the adjacent playground, a classroom sink with counter space, a variety of child-sized furniture and movable storage units, and a storage closet. It also presents challenges that will affect how you will arrange your space, including where some of the above features are located, a limited number of electrical outlets, and permanently installed carpeting in one part of the room. With all of this in mind, how might you begin making decisions about how to arrange the classroom?

In addition to thinking about how to organize the physical environment, you might ask yourself several additional questions as you begin to plan your curriculum activities. What approach will you take to organize your ideas? How will you plan curriculum activities in ways that are developmentally appropriate and flexible? How will you make sure you are addressing learning standards? This chapter focuses on practical strategies for effective planning.

From the Field

Preschool teachers Jennifer and Elise discuss the importance of communication between teaching colleagues.

Critical Thinking Questions

How do you feel about working with another teacher or assistant teacher?

What will you do to begin establishing an effective, professional relationship?

6.1Contextual Factors That Affect Planning

Regardless of where you teach, your circumstances (or context) will impact your planning. Among the most important factors that affect planning are the curriculum, the children, their families, your teaching colleagues, and the physical settingthe building and learning spaces.

The Planning Context

Whether you are given a curriculum to implement or expected to select or design curriculum yourself, planning should be a responsive process. You will need to balance planned activities with what you observe about the needs, interests, and characteristics of children. (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; Gestwicki, 2011).

To varying degrees, the type of early childhood setting in which you work will influence how planning occurs. Home-care providers are typically independent and care for the widest age range of children in the same setting. They have to plan and implement care and activities for infants and toddlers as well as preschoolers and school-age children. Early childhood educators in child-care centers or preschools may have considerable flexibility or be expected to implement a particular curriculum. In primary classrooms, especially in the public schools, planning will likely be closely correlated with prescribed curriculum, state learning standards, and designated assessment procedures.

Context can also influence the planning tools you use and your accountability for them. Some teachers may be given or expected to use a planning book or specific forms on which to write their plans. You might be required to turn in plans weekly, monthly, or on some other schedule for review by a supervisor. Most state child-care licensing regulations also require that current/ongoing activity plans be prominently displayed and shared with parents. For example, the Pennsylvania Regulationreads as follows:

3270.111 Daily activities.

(a) A written plan of daily activities and routines, including a time for free play shall be established for each group. The plan shall be flexible to accommodate the needs of individual children and the dynamics of the group.

(b) The written plan shall be posted in the group space.

More From the Field

Program director Rita Palet explains the importance of professional preparation, chemistry, and give-and-take in teaching relationships.

Critical Thinking Question

What would you do if you were paired with a teacher whose views about learning and curriculum differ significantly from yours?

Even if you are wholly in charge of your class or group of children, you may have a coteacher or assistant, or you may be part of a bigger teaching team, which means that other individuals will influence or perhaps have some control over your planning. Teachers in a center or school, for example, often plan collaboratively, as a group, by grade or age level. Further, the extent to which your ideas are incorporated into plans may be influenced by the group dynamics or competing points of view. For example, if you plan with a team of two lead teachers and two assistants, one of those individuals may tend to dominate conversation or another may be reluctant to consider trying new strategies. These are issues that would have to be worked out as you developed a collaborative approach to sharing ideas.

Finally, the physical setting within which learning takes place will impact your planning. You will have to consider what space you have, how the classroom will be arranged, what space you must share with other classes, and so on. Your planning for both the physical environment and activities will certainly have to consider how to reflect the diversity and cultural characteristics, experiences, and interests of the children and families in your group.

Integrating Developmental Principles and Beliefs

In considering our opening vignette, you may have wondered how an open-ended, comprehensive play-based curriculum could be compatible with planning and scheduling for a teacher-directed supplemental literacy program. Curricular activities may be conceptually organized by developmental domains or by academic content areas, but the planning process for any curriculum should prioritize and integrate developmentally appropriate principles and strategies.

For example, you can plan a literacy activity that focuses on identifying beginning word sounds as small-group or one-on-one interactions at the beginning or end of a large block of free-choice time rather than as a whole-group lesson. This way, childrens play is not interrupted; you maximize opportunities for interpersonal interactions and control the time and frequency of these activities for the capabilities of each individual child. Likewise, a curriculum or program that requires a whole-group "circle time" for 3-year-olds should challenge you to plan a format for such a time that is interactive, enjoyable, meaningful, and no longer than the children can reasonably be expected to manage.

As the teacher, your thoughtful approach to planning will be based on your observations, record keeping, and interactions with the children, ensuring that:

Themes and topics of study support program goals and curriculum objectives but curriculum is not "one-size fits all," so that children have ongoing opportunities for activities and experiences that support their individual interests and developmental characteristics

Teacher-directed and child-initiated activities are balanced

The curriculum is flexible and adaptable to accommodate learning opportunities that arise unexpectedly

Children can offer questions and ideas that are incorporated in planning of future activities

The environment and curriculum reflect and honor the real lives of the children and their families

Planning balances active and quiet times and individual, small-group, and whole-group interactions

Exploratory play is supported as an important mode of learning

Effective planning integrates the key themes of this book: (1) understanding the theoretical and/or philosophical foundation of the curriculum; (2) knowledge of human growth and development; (3) coordinating integration of the roles you, as the teacher, families, and communities assume as curriculum informants; (4) identification of curriculum content that supports childrens needs and interests; and (5) choosing and enacting developmentally appropriate teaching and assessment strategies.

Table 2.7 in Chapter 2 provides a simple format for organizing your essential ideas and beliefs so that you can compare them with ideas represented in various curricula you may be interested in or asked to use. In planning, you apply these ideas as an action plan (Nilsen, 2010). For example, Mary, a kindergarten teacher in South Carolina, knows that one of the physical science standards relates to exploring matter, "Standard K.P.4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the observable properties of matter." The indicator for this standard (K.P.4A.1) reads: "Analyze and interpret data to compare the qualitative properties of objects (such as size, shape, color, texture, weight, flexibility, attraction to magnets, or ability to sink or float) and classify objects based on similar properties" (South Carolina Department of Education, 2014, p. 10). She knows that this standard can be addressed through explicit teaching about the concept, but her constructivist belief that children learn science concepts through exploration of the environment and materials leads to intentional planning for that learning to occur naturally.

Table 6.1 represents what her broad plan for a given week might include to support open-ended inquiry about the observable properties of water. Shell build the activities around the use of a water table.

Table 6.1: Water Table Activities

Prompts and Facilitation Strategies Materials

Monday Generate and record ideas about why objects sink or float in water; examine a variety of materials for experimentation; chart childrens predictions Paper clips; marbles; recycled styrofoam packing peanuts trays and soda/water bottles; paper plates; bottle caps; wood scraps; aluminum foil; paper cups; play dough; small rocks and sticks; string; rubber bands; tooth picks; plastic straws

Tuesday Discuss ideas about how children could make a boat that will float in water; construct and test in the water table; record observations; photograph or videotape the water table as a work in progress

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday Construct a diagram (sink/float/both) with the children to organize observations made over the week; compare with their original predictions; begin a book with images or drawings of the boats and transcription of childrens tentative answers to the question of why a boat floats; generate new questions about sinking and floating to continue inquiry

6.2Creating a Physical Environment for Your Curriculum

A young boy stands at a water table and transfers water from one container to another.

Susan Woog-Wagner / Getty Images

Children use a variety of materials to explore concepts about water, including different-sized containers (in which they can pour the water back and forth) and objects that sink and float.

The physical environment is a powerful messenger, and "every environment implies a set of values or beliefs about the people who use the space and the activities that take place there . . . each environment also influences the people who use it in subtle or dramatic ways" (Carter & Carter, 2003, p. 13).

Thinking and making decisions about how to design and arrange classroom spaces has been influenced by many individuals. Friedrich Froebel introduced the idea of materials specifically created to support the way young children learn. Maria Montessori pioneered the use of child-sized furniture and the careful organization of materials. Rudolph Steiner promoted the use of natural materials and a homelike environment. Elizabeth Jones and Elizabeth Prescotts work in the 1970s also emphasized the importance of a homelike environment and the idea that teachers should look to the environment as a source for solving problems (Prescott, 2004). For example, if you observed that children in an activity area were not sharing, a comparison of the number of things to do with the number of children using the center might suggest that additional materials need to be added (Prescott, 2004, p. 35).

Diane Trister-Dodge and David Weikert applied all of these ideas to the Creative Curriculum and High Scope classrooms. Finally, the Reggio Emilia programs demonstrate how planning an environment is driven by respect for the rights of the child to a beautiful, welcoming space that promotes relationships and attention to detail.

This section of the chapter will address how your curriculum influences the indoor physical environment, principles of good design, and aesthetics. Considerations for planning the outdoor environment are addressed in Chapter 8.

Does Your Curriculum Dictate or Provide Direction?

Given the innumerable different kinds of locations, classroom shapes, sizes, and building designs, it would be almost impossible for a curriculum to dictate exactly what a classroom or care space should look like. Curricula do, however, to varying degrees, implicitly or explicitly suggest and guide decisions about what equipment and materials are needed and how activity spaces should support childrens play, learning, and development.

For example, Montessori programs are expected to have at least a minimal set of designated materials arranged in a defined sequence and according to particular design principles. Creative Curriculum identifies ten distinct activity centers and gives teachers guidance about suggested materials for each. High Scope and Creative Curriculum teachers are also expected to label shelves and materials with pictures and/or words. The literacy curriculum mentioned in the opening vignette might come with a particular set of books, manipulative materials, and teacher resources with directions to store or display them in a prescribed sequence or order.

Other curriculum approaches set forth desired goals for what the environment should be designed to achieve as well as the particular elements it should include, but they assume that each classroom will also have its own unique character. For instance, the atelier or miniatelier feature of Reggio Emilia programs and classrooms (introduced in Chapter 2) is expected to include art and an array of interesting recycled materials arranged in an organized and aesthetically pleasing manner (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998).

In Waldorf education, according to teacher Sarah Baldwin (2012), "A Waldorf kindergarten is typically furnished to look much like a home, with silk curtains, wool rugs, a rocking chair, and wooden tables and chairs. Teachers consciously choose playthings for the classroom that will nourish a young childs senses and sheathe them in beauty. Toys found in the classroom are made from natural fiber and materials."

Regardless of a curriculums specifics, the teacher will plan the environment according to generally accepted ideas about good design for developmentally appropriate spaces to be used by young children.

What General Principles Should Guide Environmental Planning?

More From the Field

Director Lucia Garay describes the elements of planning that result in an effective learning environment.

Critical Thinking Question

Lucia says, "the environment becomes the curriculum." What does she mean by that?

Early childhood space planning is guided by general principles adapted to the specific needs of children and curricular priorities at different ages. All early childhood classrooms need a balance of functional, formal, and informal spaces (Shalaway, 2012; Swim, 2012). The classroom or care space should include functional areas for greeting and departure, storage of childrens personal belongings, feeding/dining, and toileting; it should be clean and organized. Furniture and activity areas should be arranged to provide for visual supervision at all times. Early childhood spaces must include equipment appropriate to the size of the children, with visual materials posted or displayed at the childs eye level.

Variations by Age

In an infant classroom, you would expect to see furniture and designated areas for diapering, feeding, sleeping, and playing with babies. A mobile might be suspended over a crib or floor mat in the childs line of sight, as infants spend some of their time lying on their backs looking up. Furniture will include rocking chairs for feeding, holding, and soothing and floor items and soft toys that encourage crawling, grasping, and exploring.

Toddler spaces need access to a bathroom as well as diapering, and also equipment designed for children who are now vertical and active much of the time, with designated areas for exploring their emerging interest in gross motor activities, dramatic play, books, and sensory activities. Children may now be napping on cushioned mats or cots that can be stored until needed. Small tables and chairs are appropriate for feeding times but may have to include high-chair seating as well as small chairs. Pictures and mirrors can be mounted where children can see them on the walls, and selected materials may be arranged on low shelves where toddlers can reach them.