Showing posts with label kindergarten. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kindergarten. Show all posts

Wednesday, 13 February 2019

#HandsOffFDK

In 2009, the Ontario provincial government announced the implementation of Full Day Kindergarten in all publicly funded Ontario schools, to be carried out over a five year period from 2010 - 2014. Each kindergarten classroom would be staffed by a kindergarten teacher and an Early Childhood Educator, except classes of less that 16 students which would be staffed by a teacher only.

The Draft Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program document, which was released in 2010 detailed the program expectations and pedagogy which was a play-based, student inquiry driven model which supported student learning in language, mathematics, science, physical education and health, the arts, and social-emotion domains.

Research conducted by the Ministry's own staff in partnership with Queen's and McMaster University  as well as research by others has shown that the FDK program has had a positive impact on student learning and achievement"







Yet, in spite of all of this evidence, Premier Doug Ford recently announced that his government will not guarantee the future of FDK beyond the 2019-2020 school year. In mid-February, my former school district will begin kindergarten registration for children beginning school in September 2019, welcoming parents to Open House and Registration events.  Yet parents who are registering their child to begin a two year kindergarten program in September have no idea what the program may look like by the time their child reaches senior kindergarten in September 2020.  Educators who are welcoming these parents to their programs have no idea what the kindergarten program will look like in another year, or if they will still be the ones staffing the program.

Immediately following the initial announcement there was a huge response from media, parents and educators denouncing the government's plan to cut FDK and outlining the importance of the program to children, to families, and to society. We know that the earlier we can intervene in a child's learning, the greater the chance of changing their trajectory.

A few days later, the government issued a clarification and stated that they are "committed to full day learning."  What does that mean for the future of the program, for the educators, the families, and the children? No one knows.

What can you do?

  • contact your MPP and tell them Hands Off FDK
  • share your stories on social media using the hashtag #HandsOffFDK
Share your ideas for action in the comment box.



Articles:
Experts call Ontario's full-day kindergarten visionary
With Our Best Future in Mind - the Pascal Report and additional research and resources
FDK: Why it works (ETFO)
FDK: How it works (ETFO)

Ontario considers removing kindergarten, primary class size caps


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Saturday, 20 October 2018

The Importance of Risky Play for All Students


"Bravery is learned, and like anything learned, it needs to be practiced."
                 Caroline Paul


I saw this brief video clip of Caroline Paul, former firefighter and now best-selling author, on Facebook recently and was thinking about another post I had seen about the importance of risky play for children.



(Text of this sign: 

Risk & Play: When you take a risk, your brain changes. Do you remember climbing to the top of a tree? Or swinging as fast as you could until you felt like you might fall off? These risks are more than fun - they help brains develop. Risky play combines fun and stress - turbo-charging brain development.
It can be stressful to climb to the top of the tower if you haven't done it before but learning to handle that stress will make you more resilient under future pressures.
Risky play develops your executive function, the parts of your brain in charge of decision-making. Deciding whether or not to jump off something tests the limits of your judgement. The only way to learn to make good decisions is by practicing making decisions.
Bumps and scares are the vivid feedback you need to improve your judgement. Thankfully, you'll get better and your brain will have developed from the experience).


Risky play does not mean that we are putting children in danger. It means we are allowing them to push themselves and feel a bit of fear, and then overcome that fear. To climb, to jump, to hang upside down, to run so fast it feels like you might fall over, to swing so high that it feels like you just might go right over the top of the swing set!

Do we socialize our girls to avoid risk while encouraging boys to engage in risky play? What lessons are our students taking from our messages around risky play?

The full video of Caroline's TED Talk can be viewed below:




As educators, we need to be mindful - do we provide opportunities for girls and boys to engage in risky, physical play?  We want to ensure that all students will be resilient, confident risk-takers.

For more research on this topic, check out these online books and articles:

The Overprotected Kid - The Atlantic


No Fear - Growing up in a risk aversive society by Tim Gill




Is it our fears that are stopping kids? - Aviva Dunsiger









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Thursday, 4 October 2018

Self-Regulation and Play-based Learning

Enter any kindergarten classroom and you will see children engaged in different types of play – painting at the easel, sculpting play dough, splashing at the water table, playing house in the dramatic play centre.  Some children stay for long periods at one centre, while others move from place to place. The teachers circulate through the room, talking with the children and supporting their play.

Why a play-based program? Children are naturally curious and play allows them to explore, create, build, wonder and ask questions. In kindergarten, educators set up the classroom so that children are actively learning language, math, science and more through play.

How does a play-based kindergarten program help children to develop self-regulation? Just as play is a natural way for young children to learn language and math, it is a natural way for them to deal with and recover from stress.  Kindergarten educators provide many different materials and play spaces in the classroom, and allow the children to decide where they want to play and for how long. With support from the adults in the classroom, children learn which play materials help them to feel calm and which energize them.

The children at the block centre use lots of energy as they carry the blocks and move around in the zoo they have created. Their teacher knows that this will help them to be calm when it’s time to sit for lunch, as they will have released so much energy during play.

The young boy sitting quietly in the book centre is learning to self-regulate.  He has found a place in the classroom where he feels safe and calm. A recent arrival to Canada from Syria and just beginning to learn English, he isn’t ready to play just yet. 


By playing with different materials in the classroom, children learn to self-regulate.  They learn to recognize when they feel stressed and which activities will help them to feel calm. They move away from play areas that they find too loud or stressful, and choose play that meets their needs. Each student is unique, and what is calming for one student may not be calming for another student. One child may find working with play dough calming, while another child may prefer to pour sand at the sand table. With so many materials to choose from in a play-based kindergarten program, each child can find what works best for them!

(Revised -original version can be found in Self-Reg Parenting, Volume 1; Issue 3)


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Thursday, 30 August 2018

Honouring the 'Wild Child'

image from pinterest.com


This poster, using text from Wild Child by Jeanne Willis, reminded me of the first week of school in kindergarten year after year.  That first week I would find shoes scattered throughout the classroom - the children were not used to wearing them after spending their summer footloose and fancy free, and would kick them off at the first opportunity. And quite frankly, I wasn't used to wearing shoes after a summer spent barefoot or in flip flops. 

How can we welcome our youngest learners to our schools and still honour their wildness?  Some ideas that immediately came to mind for me were:

Play-based learning - large blocks of uninterrupted time for child-directed play-based learning with open-ended materials
Outdoor learning spaces - finding ways to incorporate the outdoors into our day as often as possible, even in urban environments 
Inquiry-based learning - allowing student wonderings and questions to lead our learning. Educators may bring in natural objects, ask questions or share their own wonderings to spark inquiry.

How else can educators provide a positive learning environment for students without taking "all their wisdom and wildness away." 



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Sunday, 31 December 2017

Most Read Blog Posts of 2017

Blogging is a great way to reflect and share my learning about education, self-regulation and other topics. Putting my ideas out there into the world wide web is a bit unnerving - will anyone read this? Will anyone respond? Will my thinking resonate with someone? Will it cause them to rethink or reflect on their own practice?

My main goal is not to generate a huge readership for the blog. I like to use writing as a way to think my way through things and decided why not share my wonderings and writings.  But it is gratifying to see the readership numbers grow when a post really resonates for some reason. So thank you to everyone who took a moment to read my blog posts and especially to those who responded.

My top three most-read posts for 2017 were:


3. Kindergarten Graduation Alternatives  It's interesting to me that this post was so widely read when it probably has a very narrow audience of kindergarten teachers and ECEs.  I shared several research articles about why kindergarten graduation is not developmentally appropriate and provided a range of alternatives that are more child-friendly. I'm not saying don't celebrate the end of the school year, but let's find a way to do it that is appropriate for five year olds.
Feedback on this post was divided.  Some people were so thankful to have research and ideas to share with their colleagues and administrators to help them in their quest to move on from kindergarten graduation ceremonies.  And others shared their belief that kindergarten graduation is something that parents and administrators expect and enjoy. That conversation took place as responses to my post of this blog on Facebook in the Ontario Kindergarten Teachers group so it wasn't captured on the blog.

2. Self-regulation: Not just for kids So much of what I read about self-regulation talks about how teachers and parents can help to teach students/children how to use self-regulation.  But what I've found is that learning more about self-regulation has changed my own behaviour and my understanding of those days when my self-control seems to have deserted me.  In this post, I shared an example of how my husband lent me his calm when I was too overwhelmed by stressors during a very long trip.  I had so many responses to this post that I wrote a follow-up post that generated just as much traffic.  If I combined the two posts, they would be my most read topic.

And the most read post of 2017 on the Opening Doors for Learning blog:
1. ETFO Kindergarten Conference - April 2017. I used Storify to summarize and share two days of fantastic learning at the ETFO Kindergarten Conference in Niagara Falls. I was sad when I got an email just a few weeks ago, letting me know that Storify is no longer going to be available after the May 2018.    Time to find a new strategy. What are you going to be using instead of Storify in the future?

Happy 2018 to everyone!  Thanks again for reading these posts, responding, sharing, retweeting and letting me know that you're out there!

Image from PRpeople.blog




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Thursday, 1 June 2017

Kindergarten Graduation Alternatives

Each year at this time social media is full of ideas for kindergarten graduation ceremonies - some with caps, gowns and diplomas. There are so many reasons why my school district discourages kindergarten graduation ceremonies.  

1) They aren't graduating! They aren't leaving the school. With full day kindergarten now in every public school in Ontario they are simply going from one full day program to another full day program.  We don't graduate from grade one to grade two, so why from kindergarten to grade one?

2) Grade one is not academic boot camp and our grade one classrooms should be more like kindergarten classrooms. 

Too often, I hear adults say things to 'graduating' kindergarten students like:

"Oh, you're going to be starting big-school now"
"When you get to grade one, there's no more play.  You have to learn how to read now."

OK - no! A thousand times no.

 What was developmentally appropriate in June is still developmentally appropriate when the students return as grade one students in September.  The ministry of education in the province of Ontario has provided resources and supports for primary teachers to ensure that the programs for primary students (grades 1 - 3) are more play and inquiry based; more like our kindergarten programs! 

Kindergarten is school.  Play is learning, Students in kindergarten are learning. They are engaged in all kinds of literacy learning, including purposeful, authentic, developmentally appropriate literacy activities.  Kindergarten students are already learning to read - they are developing their concepts of print, they are developing alphabetic awareness, and engaging in texts with their classmates and educators. Learning to read starts when parents and caregivers sit with a child in their lap and read to them. Learning to read starts long before children arrive at school.

3) It takes time away from kindergarten program. Instead of engaging in rich, play-based learning, kindergarten students are practicing marching into the gym for graduation, and practicing new songs to sing during the ceremony. 
  
4) Kindergarten graduation ceremonies are for the adults.  When asked why they have kindergarten graduation ceremonies, almost everyone talks about the adults: the parents love it, the parents ask for it, we've always done it and the parents expect it.  No one ever says it's about the kids. Education should be about what's best for kids and their learning.  

Please don't think I'm a party-pooper who wants everyone working and learning until the last bell rings on the last day of school.  I believe that celebrating transitions is important.  These rituals build community and mark milestones in life's journey.  So instead of a graduation ceremony, here are some alternatives:


Favourite songs concert: Instead of learning new songs for graduation, let's invite the kids to decide what their favourite kindergarten songs and activities are and share those. Invite parents and caregivers to come and engage in the songs and activities with the students instead of kids performing and adults watching. 

Family picnic and games:
Enjoy a picnic together on the school lawn with games, face painting, and music. 


NAEYC: End of the Year Celebrations

The parents will still have photos to post on social media and everyone can relax and have a good time celebrating all the learning and the time spent together in kindergarten.

Here is a great article with links to research if you're trying to convince your colleagues, administration, and/or parents to move from kindergarten graduation to something more appropriate:




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Tuesday, 28 March 2017

My Last 10

Doug Peterson shared a challenge from Alec Couros - If you were summed up by your last 10 Tweets or Facebook posts, what would that look like?   I've decided to just use my last 10 Tweets; I tend to use Twitter for professional purposes and Facebook for personal/education.

My last 10 Tweets:










So what do these last 10 Tweets say about me?
I follow a lot of smart people from a lot of different places, some of whom I know 'in the real world' and some of whom I've never met. I love that about social media; being able to learn from so many different people in different contexts.

Two of the posts are about A Day In The Life, an upcoming event at my former board that was part of my portfolio as a consultant. Even though I am retired, I am still like to promote important things happening at 'my board.'

Many of the posts are about kindergarten and early primary grades. My educational background is Early Years, my first teaching job was as a kindergarten teacher and my final assignment was Kindergarten Consultant. I have a passion for early years, even in retirement.

Two posts on leadership reflect my current learning as an EdD student in Educational Leadership at Western. It's a great program, challenging in so many ways, but fantastic learning.

And lastly, my most recent tweet is about some self-regulation courses coming up in Toronto. I started the self-reg courses in the fall for a number of reasons but mostly because self-reg was emerging as a key part of my doctoral Problem of Practice. What I didn't anticipate was how much learning more about self-regulation would help me in my own day to day life.

What about you? What do your Tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts say about you?
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Monday, 20 February 2017

20 Must Follow Twitter Feeds

I joined Twitter back in 2008 after attending a workshop where it was promoted as a tool for connecting with other educators. But I wasn't hooked.  I used it for a few weeks and mostly connected with a few other teachers in our board who were using it.  After a month or two, I had drifted away from twitter and didn't use it at all.

Fast forward to Spring 2016, and I decided Twitter another try.  Several colleagues had mentioned that they were finding it a useful tool for professional learning and networking.  I began to follow more educators, groups and organizations that were addressing issues that resonated with me.  And, after following others for awhile, I began posting interesting literacy and mathematics learning that I observed when I was in classrooms.

My big 'aha' moment came when I was live tweeting from the ETFO Learning Math in the Early Years conference in May 2016.  Educators from all over began retweeting and commenting on my posts.  I found myself thinking about which were the most salient 'nuggets' from each presentation to tweet?  What was a tidbit worth sharing that would spark conversation or inspire someone to try something new in their classroom?   It was a different way for me to process my learning at each session. 

 This morning, I came across The Edadvocate's List of 20 Must-Follow K-12 Education Twitter Feeds.  Take a look - you might find some that pique your interest!

 Then while exploring on their website, I found their List of 20 Must Follow Early Childhood Education Twitter Feeds.  I saw some familiar names, but also some new feeds to add to my list. 

 I'm sure that there are lots of great people I could be following but I'm trying to keep it manageable.  How does it work for those of you who are following thousands of people?  How do you keep up with all the tweets? 





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Thursday, 15 December 2016

Self-regulation as Classroom Culture

 When I first began teaching kindergarten, I had little teddy bear cut outs at each centre to indicate the number of children who could play there.  For example, there were three chairs at the play doh table so there were three bear cut outs and three children could play there.  There were four chairs in the house centre so four bears, etc.  This is what I had been taught during my ECE training.
And what quickly happened is that I and the children spent our time policing how many children were in each centre.  "Miss, there's five people in the house centre. He came last, he has to go!'  "But she's had a long turn...." and so on and so on. 
So, my ECE partner and I decided to get rid of the teddy bears and get rid of the limits on how many children could play in each centre.  And the culture in the room shifted!!!!!!  We could focus on engaging with the children in play, and the children learned to determine what the limits were at each centre.  Sometimes a child would pull a chair from our make and take centre over to the play doh table and we might have four or five chidlren there.  On their own, they decided when there were so many people that the play doh was divided into such small portions that they couldn't really play effectively.

A few years ago I was visiting a kindergarten classroom and the teaching team had introduced a hardware store to the dramatic play centre with predrilled lumber, screwdrivers, screws and other materials.  As soon as whole group time on the carpet was done, about twenty students descended on the very small dramatic play centre.  We waited and in a few moments .... 6 or 7 students dragged some of the lumber and materials over to the tables to work on them there, about 8 children stayed in the drama centre and continued to explore and the rest wandered off to other centres.  They were able to decide if they felt playing in the house centre was worth the stress of negotiating space and materials or if they would rather wait and play there later.  All of this happened in mere moments and required no teacher intervention.

 The Ontario Kindergarten Program document reminds us that children are capable and competent learners, full of potential and ready to take ownership of their learning. The classroom environment needs to reflect our belief that children are competent and capable. What limits do we really need to have in our classroom and which ones are purely arbitrary?

Here's a great article by Carol Anne Wien about teachers in a preschool centre in Ontario who found that eliminating many rules and reorganizing the physical space reduces accidents, noise, aggressive play and reduced teacher stress. This was originally published in the NAEYC's journal Young Children in January 2004.

 Deanna Pecaski McLennan shares a post on her blog about how the Flow of the Day in her kindergarten classroom allows students to deepen their learning through large blocks of time.


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