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program design and curriculum practices

Daily schedule and transitions

• Look at the daily schedule with the teacher. Help the teacher ensure that there is at least one uninterrupted hour at a time for free exploration and play. If necessary, refer teachers to the top of page 41 in the Preschool Curriculum Framework. Read and discuss the selection together, addressing teachers’ perceived challenges in implementing this strategy. (PCF, p. 41, 58)
• Observe problematic behaviors that occur when materials and activities are not prepared ahead of time. Later, ask the teacher to reconstruct what was going on while materials and activities were being prepared and share your observations if necessary. Strategize with teachers how they might avoid having children idly waiting for the next activity. (PCF, p. 72)

Fostering a sense of self

1. With the teacher, brainstorm class jobs to give children opportunities to take on important roles in the classroom. Help the teacher create a job chart in such a way that jobs can be rotated on a weekly basis. (Prekindergarten Learning & Development Guidelines, p. 88)
2. Work with teachers to create a list of 10 ways for children to take leadership roles or share their expertise in the classroom. You might begin the list with “Ask a child who can pump on the swing to teach another child how to pump.” (Prekindergarten Learning & Development Guidelines, p. 88)

Fostering friendships

• Look at the room arrangement with the teacher to assess whether there is at least one or more clearly defined places for two or three children to engage in activities that are more complex for extended, uninterrupted periods of time. Strategize with the teacher to create such spaces as needed. (PCF, p. 83)
• Conduct a classroom walk with the teacher, listing all the materials that promote and encourage peer play, such as heavy blocks, wagons, or a car wash outside. Together, brainstorm additional materials and activities that can be added to the environment. (PCF, p. 67)
• Work with teachers to identify friendship pairs. Discuss ways to consider existing friendships when organizing small-group activities or mealtime groups. Structure small-group activities so that more-hesitant children work on projects with others whose interests and styles seem compatible. (PCF, p. 83)
• In a program where a child with special needs is not playing with other children, suggest that the teacher read pages 52-53 in Inclusion Works!! Have a conversation about how to integrate the strategy into the classroom. (Inclusion Works! p. 18)
• Help teachers take photos of children working and playing together. Print out full-page photos to create a poster or a classroom book to reinforce for children that friendship and teamwork are valued in the classroom. (PCF, p. 74)

Promoting self-regulation

• Look at the room arrangement with the teacher to assess whether there is at least one place where a child can play alone. Strategize with the teacher to create such spaces as needed. (PCF, p. 83)

Helping children understand and appreciate diversity

• Compile a small collection of books from the handout “50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know.” Share the handout and books with the teacher. Together, review the books in the classroom library to identify other books illustrating diversity. Suggest that the teacher take the handout to the local library to supplement the classroom collection. (PCF, p. 43-44, 47, Prekindergarten Learning & Development Guidelines, p. 38, 42 and ECERS cards www.desiredresults.us)
• Introduce teachers to planned activities to draw children’s attention to people’s similarities and differences, including preferences and feelings. For example, transition children by saying, “If you are wearing blue, you can choose an activity. If you are have a cat, you can choose an activity…” (PCF, p. 47)
• Invite teachers to read the article “How Can You Create a Learning Environment that Respects Diversity?” Ask teachers to identify strategies they are already implementing and three new strategies that they will implement over the next few weeks. (PCF, p. 47)
• Suggest a family project where children bring in family photographs that show the children and their families’ members engaged in familiar activities. Discuss how those pictures form the basis for further exploration of similarities and differences among individuals and groups. (Prekindergarten Learning & Development Guidelines, p. 42)
• Demonstrate how to make class books that encourage children to talk about activities in their lives that illustrate similarities and differences in the traditions, practices, roles of family members, and family structures represented in their cultures and communities (Prekindergarten Learning & Development Guidelines, p. 42)

Individualizing

• Assist teachers to develop learning areas that reflect the various interests and abilities of members of the class. (PCF, p. 83)
• If many children are struggling to stay engaged in large group activities, suggest that the teacher plan large-group activities with smaller groups of children. One option is to have the assistant run one group while the teacher does the other. Alternatively, the assistant can supervise one group for a choice time while the teacher leads the others, and then trade groups. Explain how smaller, large-group activities may be more manageable for younger preschoolers who are new to teacher-initiated experiences that require children’s knowledge of routines and higher levels of self-control. (PCF, p. 72)
• Videotape a child during free choice time. View and analyze the video later with the teacher to determine the child’s general level of engagement with classroom activities and materials; the amount of curiosity and enthusiasm a child usually displays; the child’s level of self confidence in abilities; and the amount of persistence the child shows when trying something difficult. (PCF, p. 58)
• Ask the teacher to identify the child who has the most trouble making it peacefully through a typical program day. Ask the teacher to keep a journal for a week, observing the level of social interaction skills that the child brings to the group. Include whether a child can initiate or enter into play with another child; work with others to accomplish a simple, shared goal; communicate with others in acting out a complex pretend-play script; negotiate with another child to resolve a conflict about play materials or behaviors; and ask for and respond to adult coaching in resolving peer disputes and practicing new social skills with peers. Meet again to discuss the child’s level of social and emotional development, and develop specific strategies to support that child’s growth and development.(PCF, p. 66)
• Ask the teacher to identify one child who struggles to participate in large group activities. Video that child during one such activity and review the video with the teacher. Work together to make best guesses as to what additional supports or adaptations that child might need to be successful, and implement one or more of those strategies during the next group time. Have a conversation with the teacher afterwards about what worked, what didn’t and what might be tried next. If necessary, remind the teacher that we learn as much from strategies that fail as we do from those that work. (PCF, p. 72)

Individualizing for children with special needs

• Brainstorm with teachers strategies to support a child with special needs to participate in classroom activities, such as putting a plastic chair near the water table for a child who uses a wheelchair. Refer teachers to pages 40-41 from Inclusion Works! for additional ideas. (Inclusion Works! p. 17)
• Help teachers compile photos, pictures, or objects to help signal the next activity for children with special needs. (Inclusion Works! p. 15)
• Talk to teachers about the value of assigning a primary caregiver to a child with special needs so that the assigned adult is able to know the unique needs of the child and ways to support him/her. (Inclusion Works! p. 17 and PCF, p. 82)
• Invite teachers to read pages 46-48 from Inclusion Works! Discuss with teachers how they and other children in the group might better communicate with a specific child in their program with special needs. (Inclusion Works! P. 17)

Individualizing for dual language learners

• Guide teachers to read Principle 2 on page 28 of the PEL Guide and relate suggested practices to specific dual language learners in their program. Ask teachers to generate a list of one strategy to implement for each of their dual language children. (PCF, p. 65 and PEL Guide, p. 28)
• Demonstrate how to support dual-language learners by encouraging them to express themselves through various means, such as speech, pantomime, pointing, and role-playing. (PEL Guide, p. 28)
• Share with teachers how children may have different ways of speaking and listening based on what is acceptable within their cultural background. For example, in some cultures, interrupting someone who is speaking is considered rude, whereas in others that behavior is acceptable. (Prekindergarten Learning & Development Guidelines, p. 43)
• Share the importance of promoting and assisting peer interactions to provide opportunities for English learners, including those with disabilities, to communicate with peers who are more fluent English speakers and can serve as language models. (PEL Guide, p. 31)
• Explain how some cultures emphasize the importance of individual initiative while others place a higher value on being a member of a group. Children from families that value individual initiative may be more prepared to assert their own opinions but less prepared to cooperate with others. Ask the teacher if she thinks this might be a factor in the behavior of one or more children in the group. (Prekindergarten Learning & Development Guidelines, p. 43