Building Community

I was looking at my pathetic blog post history and figured I better get one out before I do not have a December post. My New Year's resolution will be to try to post at least twice a month.

Every New Year's I think about what I would do differently in my classroom for the rest of the year. For most of my preschool groups, January seemed to be the month in which they gelled as a group and were able to play independently. They knew the routine and rules, and they were gaining so many self-help skills, they seemed to not need their teachers as much.

There was a year, though, that this gelling did not happen until March, and it did not happen without a lot of work on the staff's part. We noticed that this group was still very adult dependent all through January and began to question why. At one meeting, I noticed that of the 16 kids in the class, 12 were oldest or only children in their families. The light bulb went off. They WERE adult dependent. They had had more than their fare share of adult attention in their young lives.

We set to work on building the peer relationships in the classroom. We intentionally planned activities in which you needed at  least two kids to play. We put out the wooden boat, which doesn't rock without a kid on both sides and it is too small for an adult to ride. We brought out the parachute, an activity in which everyone has to help. We randomly assigned partners for walking in line with matching cards, encouraging partners to help each other get there outdoor gear on because they couldn't join the line until they were both ready. We loaded the song choices with partner songs, like Row Your Boat, Down in the Valley 2x2, The Hello Song (from Get Set for School), and Build a Bridge (from I am Moving, I am Learning). Computer was not a choice, unless you had a partner to play with there. We put out games like Hi Ho Cherrio, Go Fish, and Zingo, that required a number of players. We also employed a "busy hat," for teachers to wear. If a teacher had on a busy hat, the child needed to go find another child for help. It worked like a charm.

With the strategic planning of activities that forced the kids to work together, we saw a huge improvement in the classroom community culture. Kids got much better at seeking out other kids for play, rather than adults. By March, they felt like a really solid group. and the teachers were able to sit back and watch them play and take data on their learning.

Ever since that year, I have paid attention to the birth order in my class groups. I also learned a trick about putting the class list in birthday order, to get a sense of how old or young your class leans each year. It really helps to go into the year with this knowledge to maintain developmentally appropriate practice. A group that in young, for us very heavy on summer birthdays, you plan slightly different expectations, than if you have a group who will all be turning five in the fall.

Happy New Year, Everyone.

When Children Fall Through the Cracks: Thoughts about The Hungry Heart

I watched the movie The Hungry Heart last night at the Vergennes Opera House. This documentary depicts the epidemic of opiate addiction in Franklin County, VT among young people and one pediatrician's work to try to offer help to his patients. Fred Holmes, who is now retired, was one of the first doctors in Vermont certified to prescribe Suboxone®, which is the drug buprenorphine, that can help addicts calm the cravings for opiates, such as percocet or oxycodone.

I worked at the Franklin County Early Childhood Programs and Dr. Holmes was one of the pediatricians I regularly received referrals from when he suspected that a child in his care may have a serious developmental delay. As I watched the movie, which featured teenaged patients of Dr. Holmes as well as older addicts who described addiction and recovery, I was struck by the familiar faces. This movie hit so close to home.

What it did brilliantly was humanize the the story of addiction. These people were not "the other." They did not fall into our stereotype of the drug addicts. Represented among them were the farmer's hard working son, the exuberant boy with a great smile, and the girl we all go to school with.

There were examples of kids who got their first opiates from a parent, from friends at school, or from medications to control a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Another common theme was that the opiates helped them to not feel pain (emotional or physical). Some were children of addicts or kids who had been bouncing around in the foster care system for years. A common theme was that they did not feel like they had adults in their lives that loved them.

Dr. Holmes ended up being a person for these kids who was willing to listen to them and offer them help to make it through recovery. He talks about how using Suboxone® is controversial in helping addicts. Some people think it is just substituting one drug for another. And, it is a drug that is abused by addicts in an injected form. However, one of the addicts in the movie made the point that if you broke your leg, you'd get a cast, and then when the cast was gone you may still need crutchs while your leg is regaining its strength. She said it was fine with her that people referred to her Suboxone® as a crutch because a crutch was exactly what she needed to kick her addiction.

When the movie ended, the audience had an opportunity to talk with six of the people from the film, including Dr. Holmes. Of the many things they said can help with this problem in our community is reaching out to people who are in crisis and treating people with humanity. Included in those options were making sure early intervention services for kids and families were stronger to help both paretns who may be struggling as well as not letting young kids head down a road with little or no positive connections to adults. One of Dr. Holme's nurses said that her daughter, who is a kindergarten teacher, was in tears after reluctantly viewing The Hungry Heart because she could see kids in her classroom who were at risk for being addicts in their teens. I understand her reaction, because I think I could even see this possible future for some of my preschool students.

The message I took home from the movie was to not cast a blind eye to the problem. It is alive and well and growing. When the panelists asked the audience if they knew of anyone struggling with addiction, most of the hands in the room went up. When they asked the audience if they thought addiction was an issue in Vergennes, they got the same response. It is difficult to ignore a problem when it stares you in the face.

Issues that face addicts are that they are made to be outcasts, rather than people who have a disease that needs treatment. And, when they do get to a point where they want treatment, there are often waiting lists for up to two years for space in treatment facilities in Vermont. There are also a limited number of doctors who, like Dr. Holmes, are treating patients with Suboxone® to manage their cravings.

But we are not helpless. We can ask our own doctors to consider treating addicts to increase the number of options that those addicted to opiates have for treatment. We can put pressure on our state and federal representatives to fund more treatment facilities for addicts so there are less wait times. We can safely dispose of our old prescriptions of Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycodone by bringing unused, legally prescribed pills to our local police station for proper disposal. We can also question the amount of these drugs that are legally prescribed to us. Do we really need 30 pills to recover from that surgery, or could we get by with ten? We can reach out to people we know who might be struggling with addiction and let them know there are options for treatment.

Here is a link to the movie trailer: The Hungry Heart Trailer

Vermont Moving Forward with Early Childhood Framework

Vermont's executive branch has been focusing on early childhood, defined as birth through 3rd grade, with laser beam intensity this year. I participating in the Governor's Early Childhood Summit on Tuesday, October 29, 2013, a gathering in Montpelier of 250 people from around the state who were charged with reviewing the draft of Vermont's Early Childhood Framework, a document that will drive the state's Early Childhood policy for years to come. 

This was a workday. The people in the room represented early care and education providers, administrators, parents, funders, the Agency of Education, legislators, and I am sure I am forgetting some other groups that were there. Governor Peter Shumlin stopped in to speak at lunch. He said, "If everyone can bring 10 of their neighbors, friends, colleagues to this discussion, we move this thing faster than marriage equality. We can move it faster than many other issues that have come before us. And I say that when Vermont gets this one right, the others will follow."

The work did not start on Tuesday. There were eight "Pre-Summit Sessions" held across the state with different topics that started in July. More than 700 people had input on the document, that is now in final draft form. 

We spent summit day working in small groups, giving input to the document. In my group, we spent our first session just going around the table and giving our initial reactions to the Framework. Overall they were positive. The Framework seemed to provide meat to the shared Vision Statement that has been adopted by early childhood stakeholder groups, "To realize the promise of every Vermont child."  The six goals outlined in the document are:

• Goal 1: A Healthy Start for All Children
• Goal 2: Families and Communities Play a Leading Role
• Goal 3: High-Quality Opportunities for All Children
• Goal 4: Invest Now for Our Future
• Goal 5: Know We’re Making a Difference
• Goal 6: An Innovative and Connected System 

In my group, we liked the connections between health, education, and well being, the holistic view of early childhood. We also liked that it covers birth to grade 3, because we felt that those early years in elementary school are being forgotten in the early childhood fold. There is a commitment on paper in the document that priorities are family-driven. We also liked the shift to focusing on prevention rather than treatment. The document is strengths-based and hopeful. We really liked that.

There were also some cautions and critiques from around the table. Is the document truly inclusive? I commented that I would like to see the picture on the front be more representaivel of all kids. While it is ethnically diverse, there are no babies, no kids with visible disabilities, and maybe there should be some parents with a stroller. A few folks in our group also took issue with the phrase that all children enter kindergarten, "ready to learn." We had a lot of agreement that kids are ready to learn, but we have to be ready to teach them with evidence-based and developmentally appropriate practice. I have always had push back when questioned by people if my transitioning preschoolers were ready for kindergarten. My typical response is, "Yes, they are 5 on September 1. That means they are ready." My real question back was, "Is kindergarten going to get ready for my rising preschoolers?"There was also some concern in our group that public school from K-12 was not well represented in the room. Given that the document does stress going up through Grade 3, we felt that there needed to be more involvement from the K-12 world to inform the document.

One really interesting idea that came out of our group, which would also effect the K-12 world, was to have a required high school course on parenting and being your child's first and lifelong teacher. It was echoed through all of our work sessions that this would be great. Another idea in a similar vein was to pair parenting and Le Mas courses together and make them more widely available to pregnant couples. 

One other positive note from the day that I'd like to comment on was the voice of fathers. We started the morning listening to and asking questions a a panel of parents, three of whom were fathers. They talked about how Head Start programs and Fatherhood classes had been a source of support and growth for them as parents of young children. One father pleaded with the educators in the room to accept them as parents. He said that often fathers get lost in the mix. When educators call, they ask to speak to his wife, as if he is not there. He said that he wanted to acknowledged and to remember to leave a message for the dad. I took that message to heart. I am sure I am guilty of doing this in my past as a teacher. It is one of those societal prejudices that we do not always notice until someone throws it back at us. I heard that father, and I will not make that mistake in the future. 

Moving forward, the next phases of working on Vermont's Early Childhood Framework is to finalize the document and then come up with an Action Plan to meet its goals. One of the themes of the day, emphaiszed by the governor in his speech, was to pass the Prekindergarten Education Bill (H270) in the Senate this upcoming legislative session. This bill will require school districts to offer publicly funded prekindergarten for all students who are 3 and 4 years old. Other areas Vermont will need to consider is building on the systems that we have in place, determining and assuring high quality programming from all early care and education providers, and figuring out how we will pay for all of this. 

Governor Shumlin made a great point when he said that we currently pay about $54,000 a year to house prisoners in Vermont. If we were starting from scratch, would we let the problems of families fester until there children drop out of high school, get addicted to drugs, have children as teenagers and perpetuate those issues and spend the money after they are out of school in the corrections system? Or would we invest in families and children's well-being up front to alleviate those issues that are likely to come up later in life when kids do not get the fair start that they deserve? How do we want to proceed, Vermont?

When Play Gets Rough

I love play. This is most likely why I have stayed in preschool for so long (going on 20 years). When I was a kid, we were sent outside to play. We were not expected to bother our parents until they called us in to eat dinner. We had a lot of freedom and we figured a lot out. When outside was not a choice, we played cards, marathon Monopoly and Risk games, and made stuff up to do...dance routines, American Idol-type performances, long before American Idol.

Some of our play was cruel, hierarchical, and bullish. I remember playing baseball in our backyard and I was the catcher. I got too close to the batter and was smashed in the head with the swing of the bat. I was knocked out. I remember, as I came to a few minutes later, hearing my siblings and friends, who were generally older, saying, "You big faker!" and, "You baby! Get up and play." And, I did. Today my parents would probably be reported for neglect.

The day of the school shooting in Sandy Hook, CT, I was in New York City for a long weekend. I had, literally, just finished reading Under A Deadman's Skin, a book about violent themes in young children's pretend and fantasy play. The main premise of the book is that in our current culture, children are exposed to violence in many different ways. these include television shows, video games, the 24-hour news cycle, and movies. For whatever reason, many parents are not vigilant about minimizing the exposure children have to violent images and video. I do not know if this is due to parents being oblivious to what children actually take in or understand, or if there is so much of this imagery pervasive in our culture, that filtering proves to be an impossible task. There can be other factors. With divorce, the kids may be in houses with different rules for what is okay to view. Older siblings may not be aware of how they should be shielding younger children from violent images in video games and on television.

Preschoolers, like the kindergarteners in the book, work through new knowledge as they play. This is how they process information safely. They are trying to make sense of the world as it is being delivered to them. When things like Zombies, Power Rangers using martial arts moves, and Superhero Good versus Bad Guys creep into their play, they are generally trying to process and understand something they have seen or heard. They actually need to do this to process images and information they have witnessed. Since young children do not yet completely separate fantasy and reality, those shows on in the background, or video games that are way too violent for them (and are rated as such) become a part of their play.

While girls, typically (but there are exceptions), fantasy play in the area of princesses, house, and  daily routines like grocery shopping and school, boys (typically, and a few girls), go for the monster, wild animal, and superhero strong-man kind of play. Of course, there are always exceptions to this typical gender division. I have known many girls who are right in there with the boys chasing each other and growling and snarling, and I have known just as many boys who are content to sit out of the mayhem and take the daddy role in family play.

When play becomes violent, it can be alarming to adults, but there are some parameters we can put on the play in order to make it work for the kids psyches, but still have some balance. In my classroom, since we spend a lot of time talking about how we are all on the same team, no real kids can be pegged the "bad guy." Teddy bears, play figurines, and invisible people can be the bad guys and we are all the good guys trying to figure out how to save the world. When the goal of the play has turned into killing the bad guy, I try to help shape it so they creatively think of ways to trap and capture the villain. This way, we can think about ways to give the villain consequences for his actions.

I also work in a place that has a vibrant hunting culture. So, rather than saying no gun play in school, we set the parameters to be that you cannot point to pretend gun at people, only pretend animals or targets that we make.This seemed to satisfy their need to include shooting in their play.

I had a group of boys and a couple of girls who really liked to get involved in rough and tumble play when we were outside. They wrestled on the grass constantly and I was regularly breaking it up and redirecting them to make a different physical choice on the playground. After listening to Olga Jarrett speak at Champlain College last spring, I changed my reaction to this kind of play. She pointed out that rough and tumble play is important to children's socialization. She compared it to what animal young do, like puppies at play. This made sense to me. That is how puppies and kittens socialize. She coached us to watch the play and look at the children's expressions when they are involved in this play. If everyone is giggling, laughing, and happy, and no one is getting hurt, could we, as teachers, just let it happen? I followed her advice, and began to see the benefit of this play for the children bonding with each other, as well as gaining more physical skills.

As teachers, we do not have a lot of control over what our students are exposed to outside of our classrooms. We can coach parents, but at the end of the day, they make the decisions on how to parent, what television shows or movies are on in the house, or letting the news play when kids are in the room. There is some research and advice on how much screen time children should be exposed to from both the American Academy of Pediatrics and from the National Association for the Education of Young Children.  But, when it comes down to it, our job is to support and observe children as they play, as well as have conversations with them (and their parents) about how they are making sense of the world.

Visual Schedules

My first post on getting ready for the year included a nod to getting a visual schedule made. It got me thinking about how important it is to have and teach the schedule and routine to young children in your care.

I have always used a visual schedule in my classrooms. When I was a paraeducator in the late 90's at the Hosmer Elementary School, all of the inclusion classrooms used visual schedules and it was one child's job each day at Morning Meeting to review the schedule. While I liked the idea then, and loved that it was reviewed at the first whole group meeting each day, I did not yet understand why it was such an important part of any classroom.

As adults, we use many tools to keep ourselves organized. We've got calendars, to do lists, watches, reminders on our smart phones, alarms, bookmarks on our online browsers, and even strategically placed Post-It® notes.

Now think of preschoolers...

How do they know what they are supposed to do each day or what is expected of them? They do not yet have the skills to use the tools we adults thread throughout our daily lives, so we have to help them out.

One way to do this for young children is to just keep to a regular routine. When I was a nanny, we had the same basic daily routine. We woke up slowly, had breakfast (either at home or at the Bagel place), then had a morning outing (sometimes this was fun and sometimes this was errands). Then, home for morning nap, lunch, read books, afternoon nap, then outside for a walk, and then back home to prepare dinner and wait for her parents to come home. I never put this routine into a visual schedule, but we rarely deviated from it. I do think kids thrive on the predictability of a regular routine.

Think about when you are driving down the highway, just cruising along at 65 happily. Eventually, you cruise up behind a huge tractor trailer that is going 60. You're stuck behind it for awhile. How does this make you feel? Do you feel anxious? Are you wanting to pass him at the first chance? Why?

You want to pass that truck, because it is blocking your clear view of the road ahead. You can't see the highway signs until it is too late for you to act on them. You are not always sure of exactly where you are, because the landmarks you are used to may be blocked.

That is what it is like in an early childhood setting for the kids when there is no visual schedule. They can't see what is going to happen. They don't know when the day will be over and when they will see their parents again, and they are not sure what's coming next until the teacher springs it on them with only auditory directions.

Having that predictable routine and a visual schedule that reflects it keeps the kids cruising down the highway and able to see that open road up ahead. There is no guesswork. And, then they learn the routine and what to expect more quickly.

But, you can't just post the schedule and hope they know what it means. You have to make time to review the schedule with the whole group so they can learn how this visual support works for them. In my preschool classroom, one child's classroom job was to be the "Secretary" (the one who keeps us on schedule). They would use a pointer and narrate the schedule at our first group meeting of the day. They will also be responsible for moving a clothespin down the schedule as we move through the days' activities. Another option is to take off activities as they are completed. This can help students who might want to know how many things are left before they go home, or get to a favorite activity. This job is difficult in September, when kids do not yet know what happens in the room, but it gets easier in October and for the rest of the year.

After the Secretary "reads" the schedule, they have to answer the question, "Are we are about to have a "regular" day, or a "different" day?"  This reading of the schedule each morning lets us preview anything that might be outside the regular routine. I even have a symbol for any "special activities" that I put on the schedule so there is an additional clue to the kids that something has changed. We may have a special guest coming in, or we may have picture day. Any of these "surprises" do not take the kids by surprise. We take the time to review changes  and have a discussion about what that different activity will look like. If the change will be a big disruption, like a field trip that changes the whole day, I'll also have a social story ready to preview with the group to further support their understanding what that different day will look like.

The greatest thing about having that schedule posted and teaching the kids what the meaning is behind it, is that it can help ground and anchor children who are having a difficult time. If a boy is having difficulty moving from one part of the day to another, you can bring him over to the schedule to show him that even though play time is done now, after we clean up, we get to do music. Or, when a girl is missing her parent, you can bring her to the schedule and show her the parts of the day that a left and talk about when her parent is coming back to pick her up. Reviewing the schedule like this can help ease some anxiety, or remind children that there are fun activities coming that they may want to be a part of. It really does map out the road ahead and is a powerful tool for helping them know and feel secure about the routine.

So, how to make one? There are many styles. I use a foam board that I cover with Veltex® fabric (this is fabric that looped-back Velcro® will stick to) and then I laminate construction paper labels with words and pictures for each activity. In addition to my regular routine activities,  I make labels for Special Activity (which can be anything), Movie, Field Trip, Gym, Library, Special Guest, and Cooking. Here are some tips for making them from the Technical Assistance Center on Early Intervention.

I have seen other examples where teachers have used pocket charts or magnetic schedules that stuck to the white board . The trick is, it should be easy to see for all of the kids and there should not be so many activities that it is overwhelming. All day programs may consider having just the morning and then just the afternoon so that the schedule is not too long. You can use icons, cartoons, or real pictures. Those decisions are up to each educator's individual flair. Just know, that it makes a world of difference to get past that truck blocking the road.

Welcome to All Together Now

Now that I have taken the plunge and left the preschool classroom to dedicate all of my time to training, consulting and teaching adults, I have decided to start this blog in order to share much of what I have learned teaching in inclusive preschool classrooms for more than 18 years. 

Visual Daily Schedule

As the school year begins, I would normally be going over my checklist of things to prepare for the classroom. That list includes updating any Boardmaker visuals I need for Morning Meeting, my visual schedule, steps for hand washing, snack, and lining up. I then need to take a bunch of digital pictures of all of the classroom spaces and materials in order to make a class planning board and put visuals of materials on the shelves and boxes where each material belongs. This will help the kids be more independent in cleaning up and keeping materials where they belong.

This year, I was going to make a new "rules" chart with just the following three: We take care of ourselves. We take care of each other. We take care of our world. I can't remember where I saw this last year, but I think it encompasses everything I want to teach in preschool in order to get kids ready to move on to Kindergarten next year. Early in the first week or two, we would do an activity at meeting coming up with ideas that show examples of what these "rules" look like in real life.

Then, there are the lists. I like to have my class lists in alphabetical order by first name, and another one in birthday order, and yet another by last name. I use these lists to make the sign in/out sheets for each day's attendance, data sheets for participation at meeting and small groups, and for the classroom birthday chart. 

Check-in Flip Chart

I also make a check-in board for the kids. Each day, they go to the Veltex® board and look for the card with their name. They flip their name over to sow their picture. Later, at Morning Meeting, when we are trying to figure out who is missing form the class, the kids learn that this board is a good place to get clues. 

Another must at the beginning of the year is to update our class-wide social stories that I use the first week. They include what happens when we visit the school library,  he gym, and how we walk in the hallways, and specific expectation on the playground. I also use a few stories already developed from the Center for Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning, which includes Tucker the Turtle, I Can Be a Superfriend, and What We Do in Circle (though, I change the word "Circle" to "Meeting"). 

Those are the big things. There is always getting the parent paperwork ready for Home Visits, and readying the whole classroom for the open house right before the first day of preschool. And picking and choosing books for the the first few weeks. Teach Preschool has some great ideas on using books to teach different areas of the classroom. 

It makes me a little sad that I won't be doing these things this year, but I am happier for it in that I have some time to share these ideas with more people by posting it here. 

Have a wonderful start to the beginning of the year.