Outside the Parent-Teacher Conference: Communicating with Parents, pt. 1
“They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.” We often hear this line when it comes to encountering frightening animals. However, the same line can be applied to parent-teacher communications. Teachers often dread the daily or semi-annual meetings with parents, but what they often don’t realize is that parents often dread meeting with the teacher just as much as the teacher dreads meeting with the parents. The last thing a parent wants to hear is that their child is havi
Inclusion: Benefits for Peers Too!
Inclusion of young children with disabilities is more and more the norm for early childhood classrooms. It is abundantly clear how beneficial an inclusive classroom can be for a child with disabilities . The ability to watch and learn from typically developing peers, increases children with disabilities’ academic (early literacy and math) and social-emotional outcomes (Odom, Buysse, & Soukakou, 2011). For more ways children with disabilities benefit from inclusion, check o
Build Children's Observation Skills with Sit Spots
When I switched from a traditional school setting to a nature school, one important question I needed to answer was “How are the children going to spend their time outside, and how will I make it meaningful?” One of the most successful activities our class does on a regular basis is visiting our sit spots. A sit spot is a child-selected space where he or she can observe nature. Sit spots provide a good starting point for teachers and classes wanting to try nature-based learni
Modeling How We Respond to Frustrating Situations
As early childhood professionals, we know it’s important to model skills for children. We use language that we want them to use, we demonstrate social interactions that are considered polite, and we sit at the table while we eat so that children will learn to do the same. But how often do we model how to make a mistake and recover smoothly? Do you explicitly spell out what you’re going to do when you drop something or do you just stoop right down to pick it up? Most of the ti
