Teaching: 3.D Using Time, Grouping and Routines to Achieve Learning Goals

3.D.04
Teaching staff offer children opportunities to interact with children of various ages.
The classrooms at the Children's Center offer within themselves multi-age grouping. At any given time the children in the Tree House are aged 3-5 years old.
Teaching staff frequently work with other age level professionals in the building to provide children opportunity outside of their own classroom. For example, a Toddler classroom once joined us to make strawberry and banana smoothies.

We also held a PM snack picnic where the children invited their toddler friends to join us for lots of fun and games.

In addition, children have daily experiences with their younger peers out on the playground.

3.D.05
Teachers plan for children to revisit experiences and materials over periods of
a.days,
b.weeks, and
c.months.
Our investigations can last as short as a few weeks to as long as a few months. Some planned activities may last the entire span of the investigation. A sample of a weekly activity plan is here. Children are able to revisit their experiences through sharing at group time, planned work-time activities, and stories. Artwork is displayed at the child's level and is open for revisions and additions. Structures can be placed on a "saving shelf" for admiring and completing at a later time.

(a) Before lunch, we always discuss the different activities we experienced during the morning.

(a) Also, we revisit our artwork and constructions throughout the day. We also give opportunities for children to comment on each others' work.

(b, c) Displays are low for children to revisit the activity or experience over the course of weeks and months.

(a, b, c) Our story corner allows the children to revisit stories they wrote or experiences we documented over a period of days, weeks and months.

(a,b) Children are allowed to save work or constructions and revisit them daily to add or change daily or over the course of the week.

3.D.10
Teachers organize time and space on a daily basis to allow children to work or play
a.individually and
b.in pairs,
c.to come together in small groups, and
d.to engage as a whole group.
The Tree House schedule allows for individual work, work in pairs, small groups, or whole group activities.
Choice time allows children to choose what they independently want to do. Some children choose to work in a group or in pairs on building or dramatic play. Others may choose to paint or draw on their own.

(b) During Choice time, two children recreating a dinosaur museum after a class trip to The Morris Museum to view a dinosaur exhibit.

(a) At the same time, one child recreating the same experience. The construction area is large enough to accommodate several children working either individually, in pairs or a small group.

(a) Work-time is another classroom routine that allows for individual work to be completed. The classroom, art studio and sometimes the hallway are all utilized to allow enough space for individual and small group activities.

(a)Another example of individual work. She is completing an observation/drawing activity planned for Work-time.

(d) Group time allows for the entire class to come together and talk about the current investigation, have show and tell, read stories, and share other classroom information. The space is large enough to accommodate all the children comfortably for whole group meetings.

Work time allows children to work individually or in small groups on investigation related activities that incorporate developmental domains. Several activities are planned for children to work individually, in pairs or small groups. For a specific example, some of the children in the Tree House were solving the problem of our broken tree in small groups, as well as, individually, children were drawing the tree that needed to be fixed.

(c) We also worked in small groups to construct the tree. We utilized a quiet space in the art studio to begin the construction of the tree. The area was also big enough to save for revisiting over a period of several days.

To view The Tree House Schedule, click here.

3.D.11
a. Teachers create opportunities for children to engage in group projects and to learn from one another.
As stated above, children in the Tree House are given ample opportunity to work in small and large groups. During our Tree Project children brainstormed together on ways to rebuild our tree and materials to use. We researched information on the computer, drew plans, picked materials and finally, glued it all together. This activity occurred over a period of two weeks during work-time.