3.B Creating Caring Communities for Learning

3.B.02 Teaching staff create and maintain a setting in which children of differing abilities can progress, with guidance, toward increasing levels of
a.autonomy
b.responsibility, and
c.empathy.


(a) In the Tree House, children are consistently supported in the development of a strong sense of self efficacy and independence. They are motivated to make decisions concerning their classroom, such as but not limited to topics of investigations, rules, changes in the daily schedule, and books to read.

(b) Children's sense of responsibility and independence is fostered by weekly jobs, and the continued reinforcement of each child's ownership of the classroom. They are encouraged to care for their belongings as well as treating the classroom materials with respect.

(c) Lastly, our classroom community supports inclusion. The children learn by example from their teachers to help each other during learning experiences as well as during emotional situations.

(a,b) Our Job Chart lists the classroom jobs and has the children's pictures and names under their corresponding job. It changes weekly and fosters responsibility and autonomy by allowing the children to complete their jobs for the coming week, either independently or with the support necessary for each individual child.

(a) The children create their own Fire Safety Plan.  This allows them to have ownership of a situation that may be scary for some of them.  Also, it helps them to recognize their responsibility of stopping and listening to teachers during a fire drill.

(a,b) We have picture schedules that allow children to be independently responsible for belongings and completing routines.

(c) We encourage children to help each other and comfort each other when they are experiencing difficult situations.  In this pic, one friend is holding ice on another child's knee after she fell down. 

3.B.11
Teaching staff create a climate of mutual respect for children by being interested in their
a.ideas,
b.experiences, and
c.products.

Children's interests and ideas are in the forefront of the Tree House curriculum. The curriculum is emergent, therefore, all of the content comes from the interests of the children. We listen to their conversations and watch what they are playing and develop an investigation from their ideas.  Teaching staff and children are partners in the learning process. Adults explore and discover alongside their students. There is an air of respect between teachers and children which demonstrates itself through interactions with the children and collaboration on learning activities.

(a) Teachers understand that the children would be motivated to complete activities if it interests them.  This is why our investigations are centered around their interests and ideas.  Also, individual activities are motivating if it involves their ideas.  This activity was a story writing activity about snow, however, the child chose to write about his family. The teacher allowed the change in idea to motivate the child to complete the activity successfully. 

(b) We believe that we learn along side of the children.  In this photo, a teacher is experiencing the paper mache activity with a child.  She is feeling the sticky substance, talking about it with him.  As co-learners we develop mutual respect for the individual experiences each child has and the learning that occurs.

(c) One of our practices is to allow the children to "explain" their drawings and pictures.  Sometimes this happens privately with a teacher or in a group setting with all the children.

(a) In this photo, a teacher is researching different kinds of trees on the computer with the children. They wanted to find out about the tree located in our playground and came up with the idea of "looking on the computer".

(c) Teachers also demonstrate an interest in children's products as they are being made.  Conversations around the process of the product would include but are not limited to questions such as "Tell me what you are making/drawing?" or"Why did you choose that color?"