Our First Full Week With Face to Face Learning

We are so excited to be back to learning face to face, even with our COVID restrictions! You can tell the kids are so happy to be here! Even though it was the last week of October, we needed to start from the beginning as we do the last week of August. Before any academics, the kids needed to learn about our school-wide rules (1. Be safe, 2. Be respectful, 3. Be responsible), build a community together that feels safe both physically and emotionally, develop relationships and learn how to be safe, respectful, and responsible with our materials.

Our “Be safe” rule had some additions from what it was in the past! We had to learn about the importance of hand washing, sanitizing before touching any materials and mask wearing. We read these two books to get the discussion started.

They have been doing great keeping their hands sanitized and germ free and keeping their masks on. They have to wear them all day except when eating and recess. They can also take mask/drink breaks during the day. 

They started out exploring the environment, their learning tools, and getting to know each other within their Friendship Pods.  It took some practice but they have gotten very good at staying in their assigned area even though I can tell they really wish they could choose to go anywhere in the room. At first I heard a lot of, “Why can’t I go over there?” and “Why can’t I play with them too?” Hopefully this arrangement will be temporary but they are getting used to it and showing such great self control staying in their pods (To read about how our Friendship Pods work, click HERE).

You may see them exploring a lot of play items! In our classroom, they are developing very important skills as they play! As they explore through play, they are learning how to problem solve, think both creatively and critically, collaborate and work as a team, how to do hard things, deal with disappointment and problem solving social issues that rise up with their friends. They develop grit when things don’t work out yet they don’t give up! These are the life skills needed for their future careers. At this age, they already have these skills! We just have to allow them the opportunities to use them! We often feel we need to do everything for them, but then they do not have the chance to show that they do have these skills. Children are so, so capable! I feel it is my job not to squash those skills by having them just sit and do what I tell them all day long, causing these skills to diminish as the years go on. 

As I observed and documented how they play, I noticed that this group loves to create stories within their play! Story making teaches them so many literacy and language skills! They are exploring (without knowing it) and creating story sequence with a beginning, middle and end, characters, a setting, problems the characters run into , and solutions for those problems! These are skills they need to use for reading comprehension and writing! Later, they will connect these stories to our writing workshop time making it a story workshop! Here are some photos of the stories they were creating and playing:

We had a story about dragons:

We had a story about jungle animals:



Stories about a cupcake store...stories everywhere!



We also explored new tools we will use as we explore and learn! I have a mystery box that each day contained a new tool! No tools in our room can be used until they show up in the mystery box. The first was our crayons and pencil. We learned how to take care of them by keeping the points up so they don’t break and putting them away when we are done! 

As the days went on we learned how to be safe, respectful and responsible with many other tools such as scissors, glue sticks, markers, permanent markers, water colors and oil pastels! 

We practiced with scissors and glue by creating three dimensional collages! This also introduce to them the meaning of both two dimensional and three dimensional which they will need to apply to shapes later.

The kids practiced with watercolors and jars of water by using creative thinking and creating whatever art they wanted to! They were so creative! You would be amazed at how responsible kids are with real tools such as permanent markers because they know how important it is to be so! They also know they will not be allowed to use them if they are not. 

We learned about oil pastels and chalk pastels and how wonderful they show up on black paper and how great they work together with watercolors! One friend wanted to explore how they worked dipped in water and he liked the result!

I displayed their work to show what we have been working on.

Halloween was also during our first full week back! We painted our pumpkin and had a costume parade!

It was such a full, exhausting week, but I have never been more thankful for the exhaustion that I feel! Having these kids here face to face makes it all worth it!

Keeping the Environment as the Third Teacher During COVID.

For my new parents getting to know me, my teaching is very heavily influenced by the way of teaching in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The founder is quoted as saying, “Nothing without joy!” This teaching philosophy is hands on, experienced based, student-centered, relationship driven and uses self-directed learning. When children have choice and are interested in what they are learning, they are more engaged in their learning. Through topics that the students are interested in, they use academic skills in authentic ways as they play and explore their environment. The Reggio Approach to teaching believes there are three “teachers” in the classroom: The child, the teacher and the environment. Since the environment is considered to be the third teacher, every part of it is planned to be safe, supporting and stimulating. No matter where children go in the classroom, learning in authentic ways will take place, with or without me. 

Because of COVID restrictions and safe distancing, learning through relationships, collaboration, and teamwork will be a challenge but I don’t think impossible! To see how my classroom environment is run in a typical year, see this post about The Environment as the Third Teacher  Here I will show the changes made to keep our students safe, yet the learning joyful, interesting and engaging.

The wonderful Mrs. Albanese has been teaching face to face since school started. From her blog(You can visit it here) I saw how she divided the class into Friendship Pods. Each group stays in their Friendship Pod for a whole week. They only interact with each other. Small groups is one key in keeping the spread of the virus down and helps with contact tracing. I started thinking about how I could make this work in my classroom. Here is what I came up with! 

Here is a map of my room divided into our four Friendship Pods (Each color represents a pod):

/

A small group of three or four children are assigned to each friendship pod. They can only play with the other children within their friendship pod. The friendship pods will explore and create in one area for a full week, then rotate to the next area for the next week. They have to stay in the area that their friendship pod is assigned to. Each pod area is large enough for those within the group to social distance. 

Each pod area has a main attraction, such as building/math, dramatic play/literacy, art/sensory, and maker space. Then I added books, math, literacy, writing, building, art, small world play, and science exploration materials on shelves, tables and in bins or trays to each pod. That way they have choices from all of the areas within their own pod along with the main attractions of their areas. Here is what their Friendship pod areas look like with some examples of activities available in each one for them to create with and explore (The colors don’t match the ones in the map):

When the kids come in, they will all be wearing masks and sanitize their hands. Before exploring anything they have to sanitize hands again to ensure no germs get on the materials. When we are done, we will sanitize again and wipe down surfaces. At the end of the day I will spray everything with a spray provided by our district. At the end of the week they will rotate to a new pod. They rotate once every week to give them a chance to explore and create in all of the areas. 

They have their own individual tools to use and take with them around their pod. They do not need to work at the tables. To help with social distancing, some may choose to work at the tables while others may grab their tools and clipboard and work on the floor or another table in their pod. 

In the past I used community tools in the center of their tables like this. 

This year they will each have their own individual tools. Their tools are displayed rather than thrown in a box or pouch because they tend to take better care of their tools this way. We usually only go through one or two boxes of crayons per year!

They also have individual math tool boxes to use with our whole group or small group lessons. 

They have bins to store all of their materials such as clip boards, paper, individual play-dough and math tool box in. 

This is my plan for getting started. Once the kids come I will observe how they interact with the environment and then I will make changes as needed based on my observations. I know that this will not all work perfectly at first but it will evolve based on the kids and how they use it and ultimately, even with these restrictions, we will make it an environment for a community full of joyful learning, creating, and exploring! 

Geology in Kindergarten: An Exploration of Rocks

It all started when a little friend brought in a beautiful geode to show the class. 

They were absolutely enthralled with the crystals growing inside! She set up a station where friends could come and look closer. The next day, another friend brought in a beautiful geode that looked a little different. They started wondering all kinds of things about the geodes which lead to discussions about if other rocks can be geodes and have crystals inside. I asked if they wanted to explore further to find out and they most definitely did!

Here is my planning web.

I set up one area for them to look closer and use their writing and drawing skills to document what they noticed. This area also was a perfect opportunity to sort objects based on their properties and attributes, then use writing and pictures to record how they sorted them.

This was a favorite area to visit! I mixed science with art in our art area! I set out some polished agate that the kids thought were so beautiful! 

They used the digital microscope to look closer and notice the crystals and rings. Then they used water color to create the beautiful, colorful rings. That last step was to add salt to their wet watercolor to create the crystals and see how the salt grabbed the water color!

 

I also set up an area with magnets for them to explore.

I put some rocks in our sensory table with the sand and some photos of transient nature art for inspiration. 

Below, some friends worked to show feelings using the rocks.



Some loved creating animals.



Unfortunately, we were only a week into exploring the rocks and learning about the different types of rocks, crystals and jewels made from them when the schools were all ordered to close so we were not able to finish this exploration. This group really loved looking at these rocks and I hope it sparked an interest in geology for them. Some had big rock collections already and some started collecting during this study. I hope they continue to collect, observe and sort their collections by attributes. Egg cartons are a great way to keep their rock collections organized. 

Here are a few pictures to show some things they created in other areas of our room at the time. 

It has been over a week without seeing them and I miss these little friends of mine so very much! I am working on what my virtual/digital class will look like. I will work hard to help parents continue the discovery based learning that their kids love so much through our life experiences at home. The environment of our classroom was considered a teacher on its own in the way it was set up, but they also learn from their natural environment at home! Hopefully my next blog post can help with that! Until then, stay home and stay healthy!