On Your Mark, Get Set...

Francisca and I are busy getting ready for the opening of school. We are so excited to welcome our class of Turtles! Each year, the teachers get together to think about how to welcome the children, to create the classroom environment and to start planning curriculum. We are filled with questions, "Who are these little people coming into our classroom?" "What will we do together?" "How can we welcome new families?" 

As I prepare the classroom, carefully putting together learning centers around the classroom, I ask myself, "Is this a place that I would want to play?" and I keep working until it is just right, inviting investigation, provoking experimentation, creating relaxing place and stimulating places, and joyful places. And once it is just right, it is like the whole room is holding its breath, just waiting for the children to come, play, learn, laugh, discover, and build the new community that will be the Turtles 2011!

Wonder and Academics

A friend recently shared with post with me. What a Four-Year Old Should Know
I love the ideas presented here. Early childhood is a time when wonder and magic and investigation are the daily currency of learning. And I love that as educators, we get to draw on children's natural curiosity to learn about language and writing, scientific investigation and mathematical processes, and difference and negotiation.
I often get questions from families about how we are teaching traditional academic topics like reading, handwriting, and mathematics. There is an underlying anxiety, "Will my child be ready for pre-k or kindergarten?" And I smile, assure them that yes, we are rigorous in our teaching, assessment, and documentation of traditional academics, and then launch into one of my favorite topics: how young children learn.
Young children learn through doing, through the active manipulation and interaction with their environment, teachers, and peers. And what they learn is definitely about academic skills, they learn standard and non-standard measurement techniques as they fill cups of sand in the sensory table,  fluid dynamics as they pour themselves milk at snack (and the relative powers of absorption as they try to mop up the spill with tissues, then paper towels), counting skills as we gather the class for a walking trip, phonemic awareness as we sing silly rhyming sounds, investigation skills as they build ramps for their cars, negotiation skills as they discuss the dinner menu in the dramatic play area. And, even more importantly, they learn the skills and habits that will help them be life-long seekers of knowledge, compassionate friends, helpful community members, stewards of the earth, leaders, followers, and thinkers.
As teachers, it is our job to observe their learning, scaffold them to their next discovery, document their learning, plan for next steps, and build curriculum. And in early childhood, all this learning, all these academics, all this doing, takes place in the context of play and active exploration, with us, their lucky teachers and parents, along-side them to marvel at their discoveries, delight in their connections, guide them to next steps in learning.