Classroom Guidance and Support
This fall I have been called upon to help in many classrooms with guidance and management. I routinely present classroom management workshops around the country and there are always many participants in those workshops. I think every teacher understands that you cannot accomplish much in a classroom if there is not some type of organization. A teacher can’t support children in their learning without some type of guidance in behavior. I recently published a booklet for early childhood teachers to help them 
accomplish that task.
The biggest hurtle in guiding a classroom comes when you have children with challenging behaviors. I am currently supervising 16 intern teachers and every one of them has 1-3 students that are struggling with appropriate behavior. I’ve model-taught in several of these classrooms so that I could provide examples of appropriate strategies. It takes a bit of work to get a classroom running smoothly, but they are all on their way and continue to improve daily. The effort put into management at the beginning of the year will reap great benefits throughout the year.
Creating Experiences for Brain Development
After many years, we have a new baby in our family. My grandson, Jack, has become the joy of our family. After ten years, I had somehow forgotten the beautiful joy that a newborn can bring. It also helps that he is the most gifted child every born. 🙂
Having Baby Jack around has reminded me about how important it is for infants to make strong learning connections during that critical Birth-12month period. Those connections will only be as strong as we make them. The experiences we create for them must be real and relevant for strong connections to form. I was tying to read a board book to 5 month-old Jack and he was much more interested in how the corner of the book tasted. He was also intrigued when I opened up pages of the book and he suddenly discovered that there were several surfaces from which to choose. That experience may not be what I had in mind, but it was what he had in mind.
I was doing an art workshop in San Francisco this week and we were talking about how urgent it is for us to create hands-on real-world experiences for all children in the early childhood years. Giving a child a coloring book page or worksheet is not hands-on and instructional for cognitive learning. Early childhood educators should be all about creating experiences that can lead to strong brain connections for the children in their care. We must be teaching children to think in critical and creative ways to face the world in the future. We don’t even know what they are going to be doing, but each year we see critical and creative thinking rewarded with jobs and new opportunities. I challenged the group that I was working with to worry less about ‘mess’ and more about experiences. Messes can be cleaned up. Missed brain connections in early childhood cannot be made up.
Hands-on Learning
I have had the privilege of presenting a number of hands-on learning workshop recently. I’m convinced that we need to give young children more real experiences with messy materials and activities that relate to their world. Paper and pencil activities are not the way to establish concrete cognitive learning in a child’s mind. I was reminded about this recently when a I visited my new two week-old grandson. He has been a much-anticipated addition to our family. As I was watching our interactions with him, I was remind about the brain connections that he will be making this year. Since we know that those connects are essential during these first 12 months of life, grandpa will do everything possible to provide support for those connections. We can continue to make these important connections throughout the early childhood years if we provide hands-on learning activity and experiences. That should be the goal of early childhood educators.
I promised my friends in Sacramento at CHSA, that I would provide the words to the song, “Oh, My Aunt Came Back” on this blog. I’m sure there are different versions and with apologies to the composer/author, here are the words that I use for this echo song:
Oh, my aunt came back (Students repeat all the lines.), From old Japan (Repeat)
And she brought with her. (Repeat), A waving fan. (Repeat)
Oh, my aunt came back. From Old Algiers.
And she brought with her, A pair of shears.
Oh, my aunt came back. From Timbuktu.
And she brought with her, A wooden shoe.
Oh, my aunt came back From Guadeloupe,
And she brought with her, A Hoola-hoop.
Oh my aunt came back, From the County Fair.
And she brought with her, A rocking chair.
Oh, my aunt came back, From the City Zoo.
And she brought with her, A nut like you.
I use songs like this to engage the child’s entire body. When children become disengaged in the conversation or activity, it is time to help them physically re-focus. To me, this is an important part of hands-on learning.
Messy Science
I recently presented a workshop on Messy Science at the annual NAEYC Conference. Here is a copy of the handout, as requested by many participants.
Mad Scientist! Combining Art and Scientific
John H. Funk
University of Utah / Excellence Learning Corp.
John.funk@utah.edu; jfunk@excelligence.com
Head Start Outcomes Framework & Next Generation Science Standards for Kindergarten
(question, observe, predict, experiment/test, observe)
Five Senses/Body Parts (Goals P-SCI 1, 3 – Scientific Reasoning)
- X-Ray Print (Biocolor Paint –white, black; white paper; tray; scraper)
- Color Mixing (Liquid Watercolor – red, yellow, blue; water; container)
- Salt Crystals (Coffee filter [or Colorations BIGTEX filters]; Liquid Watercolor; salt)
- Fluffy Goop (Colorations white school glue; shaving cream; Liquid Watercolor)
- Biocolor Window Stickers (Biocolor; acetate or slick plastic)
Weather Patterns (Goals P-SCI 3 – K-ESS2-1; K-ESS3-2 – Scientific Reasoning – Earth’s Systems)
- Corn Starch Fade Away (Corn starch; water; tray; Liquid Watercolor spray)
- Tornado Tube (2 empty 1 liter bottles; tube connector; water)
- Water Moving Fountain (2 empty 2 liter bottles; fountain connector; water)
- Sun Print (Sun Print paper; everyday object; sun)
Life Cycles (P-SCI 4; K-LS1)
- Life forms on light table (life forms/x-rays; light table or panel)
- Stamping Thumb Prints (stamp pads, paper, markers, thumbs J)
- Documentation Journals (paper)
- Collection Journal (paper bags; glue or staples)
Magnets – Push and Pull – Floating and Sinking (Goals P-SCI 5,6; K-PS2-1, 2 – Scientific Reasoning – Motion and Stability)
- Marble Printing (Magnet; magnetic marbles; paper; Biocolor paint; tray)
- Slick Sand (Slick Sand; container; water)
- Oil is Lighter than Water (Vegetable oil; water; container; Liquid Watercolor)
- Floating & Sinking Rafts (Colorations Craft Sticks; container of water; items to sit on raft)
Problem Solving – Engineering Design (Goals P-SCI 3,4,6; K-2-ETS1 – Drawing Conclusions/Engineering Design)
- Building and Connecting (Building Brilliance Blocks; Light Table)
- What Make It Cold? (Insta Sno; Water)
- Engineering and Building
https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/teaching/practice/engage/iss/scientific-method.html
http://www.nextgenscience.org/
The ‘E’ in STEM/STEAM
I have been around for many years and the education community always grabs on to the latest trend in teaching strategies. The education world has been trying to reinforce support in math and science since Russia launched the Sputnik in the 1950s. Everyone is all about STEM or STEAM education right now. As far as I’m concerned, every school should be a STEAM school. We should always be mindful of every subject domain when working with and supporting young children. As I travel the country right now, many early childhood workshops and conferences want to concentrate on STEM education. I don’t usually mind reinventing the wheel as long as it gets teachers to evaluate their individual settings and strive to improve the content and teaching. What I have found with the science and math portions of STEM is that most teachers do STEM activities. However, many do not form their teaching activities into something that supports engineering thinking or standards, as well. Those three domains are so closely related that when I am working with science and math, I can create an engineering approach that will support a STEM education and critical thinking. Here are some things that I think about when I give children a set of blocks and encourage them to work on their math, science, and ‘engineering’ skills:
- Suggest that the children plan out their activity before doing it (and provide the appropriate materials), particularly when they are using materials such as blocks?
- Allow the children)[ to draw what they plan to create.
- Have the children build their project or organize the activity.
- Make note, or have the children watch, for changes that they have to make when they actually build it.(Often the blocks do not do exactly what they had planned or they do not have enough materials to make it as planned.)
- When the projects are complete, review what happened. Guide the children through thinking about how they worked through the activity.
Activities such as this can add great depth to a child’s thinking, particularly if he is allowed to be part of a working group. I’m convinced that most teachers do engineering activities in their classrooms, but don’t realize the importance of planning and reviewing. One aspect of High Scope that I love is their philosophy of plan-do-review. That philosophy is a great foundation for building critical thinking skills.
Quiet! Actress is Rehearsing
I recently visited my daughter’s family and had to chuckle about the sign on her youngest daughter’s bedroom door. This was the sign taped to the door:
It reminds me about how often we expect children to adapt to our agenda, even if they have their own plan. I became convinced many years ago that if I let children speak and offer suggestions, I usually ended up with a better scenario. I was the king of classroom meetings when I was teaching. When issues came up in the classroom, I often turned it over to the children and asked their suggestions on solving the problem. They always had great suggestions and they were better at following new procedures because they felt as if they had made them.
I also found out that when I had a child that seemed to be doing something completely different than the assignment, I would always ask for an explanation. Often, their explanation made sense and actually made the project better. I learned a long time ago not to jump on what a child was doing when it seemed they were not following the plan for the assignment.
The latest ‘big thing’ in education is to model instructions around STEM/STEAM. (My feeling is that ALL classrooms should already be STEAM classrooms!). The foundation of STEM education is to teach critical and creative thinking skills Let’s not shut down those skills by thinking that we always know what is best for a child. I hope we teachers become much better at listening than we are an instructing. Remember, a child is a candle to be lit, not a cup to be filled.
We teachers need to be courteous, because the actress needs to rehearse.
Classroom Management Should Be Easier than Herding Cats
I am currently at NAEYC’s Professional Development Institute (PDI) in Baltimore. Yesterday I presented a workshop on classroom management. One of the focus points for this year’s conference was the need to support DAP strategies in primary grade classrooms, K-3. This is important to me since I have spent most of my teaching career in those grades. I also currently supervise student teachers and interns, which include candidates working in K-3 classrooms. Although we tend to shy away from the term, ‘management’ when speaking about 0-5 settings, it is evident that it can be appropriate to use that term when speaking about school-age classrooms. From my experience, classroom management in primary grades is the foundation for teachers to be able to teach in a developmentally appropriate manner. I have found over the years that administrators and fellow teachers will listen to a DAP suggestion when they feel the teacher making the suggestion is an effective teacher and can run a nurturing and responsive classroom.
Here are some of the research materials that we use in our program at the University of Utah to provide guidance for our candidates to develop appropriate classroom management skills:
• Forlini, G, & E. Williams, A. Brinkman. (2010). Class Acts: every teacher’s guide to activate learning. Bronxville, NY. Lavender Hill Press.
• Jensen, E. (2013). Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.
• Wilson, M.B. (2013). Teasing, Tattling, Defiance and More. Turner Falls, MA. Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc.
• Armstrong, T. (2006). The Best Schools. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.
• Charles, C.M. (2014). Building Classroom Discipline, 11 Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson.
• Cunningham, P. & R.L. Allington. Classrooms That Work: they can all read and write, 5th Ed. Boston, MA. Allyn & Bacon.
Of particular note is the ‘Big 8’ format that we use, in collaboration with Granite School District, which comes from the book listed above, Class Acts (Forlini 2010). Expectations, attention prompts, proximity, cueing, signals, time limits, tasking, and voice, provide a wonderful framework for helping pre-service teachers develop that all-important classroom management foundation.
The Blurred Lines of Assessment
There are clear and concise images displayed in most paintings and art. However, occasionally, you see a work of art that has blurred lines and is much more subtle in it’s appearance. I thought of this watercolor with blurred lines (a purposeful lack of specific images) as I was speaking with two education managers at a local Head Start agency.
The managers were concerned about the lack of clarity and the blurriness of their assessment procedures. Their concern stems from indications that the students in their program are not displaying the skills that their observation assessments seem to indicate. Their concern is that the teachers are documenting what they think they observe during their classroom interactions, but don’t explicitly determine if each child has clearly developed individual skills.
Many preschool assessment programs are like that. My opinion is that they contain so much information and documentation that the basic tracking of skill development is lost. I believe that many programs try to solve every problem and cover everything that could possibly happen in a classroom. This massive amount of documentation can weigh down the teacher and she/he doesn’t master any of the procedures because of the overwhelming amount of paperwork.
Many years ago, when I was Head Start Education Manager, I developed a simple road map of skills from the HS Outcome Indicator document. I put them in developmental order and they were posted in each classroom. Even though we had other assessments in place, this was a hands-on individualization that helped the teacher easily track progress. What happened was that we began to actually see skill development in the children. We still had our observation assessment that we documented, but we had a quick way to evaluate whether the child had the skill. That simple road map provided so much clarity for the teacher that she/he began to understand how individualization works and how to put all the pieces in place.
I bring assessment up at this time of year since most programs do an assessment at the end of the school year. While subtle images and blurriness may have their place in a watercolor portrait, they do not have a place in appropriate assessments. It is critical that we track a child’s progress in a clear, developmentally appropriate way.
DAP Mathematics
As I travel the country doing early childhood workshops, I am always very concerned with math instruction. Of course there is a new resurgence of math concentration with the attention given to STEM and STEAM schools. Each organization has it’s own set of mathematics standards. My one large criticism is that sometimes the language used in standards is so academic that I fear many classroom teachers fail to absorb the full impact of the standard. I’m not suggesting we dummy things down, but just make sure that we use language that is usable to the early childhood teacher. I also worry that standards are not often listed in the order that you should introduce them to a child.
Through all of the language of mathematics standards, I think the simplicity of developmentally appropriate math strategies gets lost. I watch many teachers instruct students in a math standard before the child has a solid foundation with which to understand and incorporate that skill. A solid foundation will provide a solid basis for the scaffold of math the child should develop. A good foundation will last throughout time. I recently found the foundation of a dock on the coast of Kauai, where they used to load pineapples. The farming and production ceased long ago, but the foundation of the dock has lasted through time. A math foundation for a child should be just as solid.
I have found that the following developmental steps provide a solid foundation for future math skills:
- Spatial Relationships
- Classification/sorting
- Patterning
- One to one correspondence
- Ordering
- Numeration
- Shapes
- Place value
- Measurement
Each one of the skills listed provides a solid foundation for the skills that comes next. For more information, check out the book, Count on Math by Dr. Pam Schiller or download my conference handout about math on the right side of this blog.
Waiting
For years I have enjoyed the books written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes, even the volumes that have not been chosen as award winners. His newest picture book, Waiting, is delightful and fun. The waiting theme made me think of the years I was a kindergarten teacher.
Prior to coming to kindergarten, many children experience a strong build-up by family members. Everyone exclaims, “You get to go to kindergarten in the fall. You must be so excited!” The anticipation for a five-year-old must be enormous. More than once, I had a child express concerns after the first few days of kindergarten. “Is this it?” they would say. It always kept me on my toes to make sure that my classroom was an engaging and exciting experience. I knew I had to live up to the big build-up kindergarten had received, because I wanted them to feel, “WOW! This IS it!”
Waiting also made me think about the number of times I have been in classrooms and watched children waiting…Waiting for other children, waiting for the teacher, waiting for their turn, waiting for their snack, etc. We know that when children are not engaged, the chance of them displaying negative behavior goes up dramatically. A smart teacher will be organized enough to minimize any waiting time for their students, especially early childhood age children. Here are a few things that worked in my classroom to help children avoid waiting:
- There was always something to do. Whenever the children were engaged in a project, there were always more activities to do when they finished the planned activity. I often posted picture of each activity on the board so that the children could look up and know what to do next. This way, they never waited for other students to finish.
- There was a procedure for everything. The children knew the procedures for going to the bathroom, getting a drink, getting a sharpened pencil, getting paper, staying put when the teacher was giving directions, etc. I reminded the children often about the procedures and used those reminders as teaching tools.
- “I’m Next” nametags. I created (thanks to a suggestion from my friend, Sharon MacDonald) some nametags that said, “I’m Next.” Whenever taking a turn was the procedure (using the computer, iPad, sand table, play dough table, etc.), I had the child(ren) who would be next wear the necklace. That way they knew they were next and didn’t keep asking me about it. ALSO, the other children in the classroom didn’t waste time waiting, because they knew they were not next.
- A daily visual schedule. I found it important to have a daily schedule posted so the children knew what was coming next. I was always surprised at the number of children who waited for the next activity. I always told the children that we would move to the next scheduled part of the day when we finished the one we were working on. I would give them a signal when we were ready. I do think that this visual reminder gave them a sense of security and a strong feeling that they didn’t need to wait.
There were many other things I did that helped, but these were the main strategies that helped children avoid waiting. I always strived to make my classroom an engaging, joyous environment, where the children were never waiting and the activities met their high expectations for kindergarten.
Possible posting themes:
“waiting”
Classroom Management
Topics in Early Childhood Education 