written by Rainbows Lead Teacher Joanne Browley Loose Parts, Provocations, Oh My! Completing a Reggio-inspired training recently has peeked my curiosity and professional hunger for something new and exciting. The training was called Loose Parts, Provocations, Oh My! and it triggered my own early...
An experiential study of community At ages 3-4 years, children begin opening themselves up to the world. In turn they navigate a world much bigger than the one they’ve previously known. Models of child development such as Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems theory and Vygotsky's constructivist...
All ages and stages The Wild Thing classroom is a room mixed with infants and young toddlers. Creating a lesson plan designed to meet everyone’s needs is important. In order to plan activities that are age appropriate for everyone, we use a teaching method called Differentiation Instruction...
Self-help in the Sunshines As a healthy part of normal child development, children have a drive to be independent and do things on their own. In the Sunshines classroom we encourage self-help skills by allowing and encouraging the children to take responsibility whenever possible. Some people may...
Our focus caught on fire! The Fireflies have settled into their newly renovated classroom and teachers have gotten a chance to watch their play and see what types of things they are interested in these days. While we took some time to get to know each other last month, we noticed that the group had...
Our Pet Dragon When we brought our new hamster into the classroom in March we spent a week or so brainstorming names at morning meeting: Hamster, Hairy, Prince, Softy, Pillow, Carpet, Speedy, Princess, Dragon, Cat, Cow, Fluffy ..and so on. We took a secret ballot and settled on Dragon (with Prince...
The Silent Coyote Summer-time in a pre-k classroom is a time of many transitions. While some Grasshoppers move on to summer camp, others might stay in the classroom until kindergarten begins, or perhaps a child is in pre-kindergarten for two years. With all that movement, there is bound to be a...
Simple is Best a paper study This September the Doodlebugs began our study of paper. The first stage of our study was touch. The teachers made a collection of various types of paper to provide variety. The children were invited to feel the different textures by squeezing, tearing, and tossing the...
Creating in Clay It started with a box of air-dry clay. The kids loved it. They made all manner of things--from doughnuts to turtles, to colorfully-painted beads. They had such a good time working with the clay that we knew we had to go deeper. Fortunately, right across the street from PIC is the...
written by Fireflies teacher Michael Roach . All summer long, the composition of PIC classrooms has changed. Many students transitioned to new classes, which means that they had to navigate new environments, learn new routines, catch up on established rules and get to know lots of new people. This...
