Perspectives

My Youngest daughter was in a play called "Up the Down Staircase" this past week. I had no idea what the show was about, so I went in not sure what to expect. Watching the young girl playing a new teacher in a classroom of adolescence was interesting and brought back so many memories of my first year teaching. The contrast ended there though as I taught a classroom of 4 year olds. The story was touching and one line in it really got me thinking about the children I see every day. The seasoned teacher told the new one to look past what the students were saying to hear what they were actually saying. In PreK we need to look past the actions to find out what our students are saying. Since our students are just learning to express themselves with words, they express themselves best in actions. Looking on my classroom it made me think differently about how I can best teach them and the tools I need to provide to help them learn to express themselves. As I am thinking and brainstor...

I tweeted a thought I had earlier today the tolerance is temporary, acceptance is permanent and we should all strive to be accepting. I'm not sure why, but this thought has been on my mind for a couple of days now. I think of life in general and how sometimes we tolerate actions of those around us. Sometimes those actions irritate and annoy us, but we tolerate them in hopes that the actions will go away.  In the classroom, we need to learn acceptance. A child comes in on the first day with all he/she is. It is our responsibility to accept that the child will have faults just like we as adults do and our responsibility to accept the child's faults and build on the child's strengths. To do this we have to build a community in our classroom. Make our classroom a safe environment. By a safe environment, I mean a place where the child feels safe to be who he or she is and feels comfortable talking to you as the adult. In this community, it becomes possible to find our the child...

I'm thinking of lamps for my classroom and while I have some I'm always looking for new ideas. I saw this bamboo one at a furniture store and thought it would make a great lamp bringing light to the place where children play, on the carpet. I refuse to pay much for it so I would like to attempt making my own. Any ideas? I'm thinking bamboo sticks, hot glue, half a lamp shade and a light kit from a craft store. I can make it for less than the clearance price of $49.95 right?

In preparation for my trip to the Boulder Journey School, I have started reading one of the books that I received with the grant money from Funds For Teachers. "Working in the Reggio Way; A Beginner's Guide for American Teachers" by Julianne P. Wurm is my first book that I read. It was so good I actually read it in 24 hours. Easy to read and lots of ideas on how to implement some of the Reggio way into your classroom without being too overwhelmed. I love the idea that you pick 5 things in your classroom to change and work on those changes. Once you are satisfied with those changes you pick 5 more things. I have already started implementing some of the ideas before reading this book on my own just with what I know is Developmentally Appropriate for 4 year olds. So it has been really cool to find out how much I have already changed and the direction I need to go from here. I want to learn more about the Project Approach that is used. The new curriculum I get to try next s...