Under (Very Little) Pressure

It's really difficult to teach something as subtle as “gentle” to a two-year-old.  Last year I had a kid who thought that “gentle” meant he was supposed to give a hug!  Pressure is a difficult concept, particularly when children are still learning what their little bodies can do.  And let’s face it, in preschool we’re always trying to get them to more, not less, so it’s easy to understand why asking for less of something would be confusing.

I like to use gak to let children experience pressure.  I’ve talked about gak before, once with a picture and once without.  It’s a substance that’s fluid when you allow it to move slowly and more solid when you interact quickly with it.

We made gak as a class last week.  This week I set it out on little trays (more about the trays in a sec).  The trick with gak and markers is that the markers only make a nice mark if you use a gentle hand with almost no pressure.  Once you poke it in the marker gets gunked up and doesn’t do much of anything other than make a hole (which is a fine experiment all on its own).  After your gak gets colorful you can fold it or flip it to write some more.

Gak will get to a strange purple-y color after awhile when you’re writing on it.  That’s ok.  Before all the colors mush together you can extend the learning a little bit by folding the gak like you would pastry dough each time you want a clean slate.  Then you can cut into the gak to see all the layers of color you’ve made.  If you’re really on top of it you can have some examples of rocks with layers for comparison.

You will have children who either can’t or won’t press lightly.  If the child in question is frustrated, don’t push it.  Just suggest another activity.  If that child is frustrated but still trying to figure it out, offer assistance but don’t do it for him or her without asking.  With permission, take his or her arm in your hand and demonstrate what it feels like to use very little pressure.  For the ones who insist on poking, give them their own gak (it’s hard to write on bumpy gak) and make sure they have markers that are already dead or something else you can clean off easily.

When I pulled out my gak this time I couldn’t find my handy mini crate from the last time but I found something in the supply room that was almost as good: a dishwasher basket!  It was so fun.  Our gak was a little on the firm side so it didn’t flow as fast, but it was still cool. 

Oh yeah, about the trays.  The trays we use for stuff like this come in two different sizes and are FREE.  We live in a town with several biotech firms.  One of them uses these trays to store sterilized parts for medical devices before they are assembled.  Then they leave stacks of these trays at the recycle center.  They are so clean I really would eat off of them without washing them first (I do wash for the children at school though!).  We use the trays to contain a lot of messy things and for drying artwork.  We tend to use them until they are totally gross and can’t be cleaned out anymore and then we recycle them.  I scored some totally new ones for these photos.  They are so slick to the touch it makes me happy.  Yes, I’m weird.

NAEYC 2009-Bound

Yeah, I know I’ve been a slacker.  But between accreditation, working 5 days with 2 different teachers, and preparing for the NAEYC conference, it’s been busy!  We leave Wednesday afternoon for the conference and won’t be back until late Saturday night.  Is anyone else going?  If so, let’s meet at the Tweetup spot they’ve got scheduled!

Preventing Food Allergy Emergencies

I am in the midst of an occasional series on food allergies for classroom teachers. I hope to eventually put the posts all together for a presentation at a conference next year, but I’m having trouble deciding what teachers need to know. As a parent of food allergic children, I know a lot more than teachers should be expected to remember or take care of. I need to find the right balance of information. I’d love to have specific feedback on these posts in order to make them accurate, understandable, and helpful. Other topics were/will include: Food Allergy Basics, How to Handle Food Allergy Emergencies, and Instructional Implications for Food-Allergic Students. Thanks for your input!

How can I avoid an allergy emergency?
Planning! Assess the times when children in your care will be around food in order to manage their exposure.

1. Lunch. If a child has an allergy that requires epinephrine, consider creating an allergen-free zone at a table with signs. Only children who do not have that food in their lunches can sit there. It takes teacher support for this to work without becoming alienating.  Some schools make this a special treat for the non-allergic kids.  There’s nothing sweeter to a parent’s ears when their kid comes home and beams, “The peanut-free table was PACKED today!”  You do not need a separate table for each allergy, just the ones that may be lethal.  For example, my own son has multiple allergies, but there’s only a peanut-free table at school.  That’s totally reasonable, since, in his case, he’s unlikely to go into anaphylactic shock with his other allergies.

As children age, the “free” zone should be re-evaluated, depending on the allergy.  A kid with a severe contact sensitivity to something that can easily be spilled (like milk) may have to be separated for quite awhile.  And though peanuts are often a severe allergy, since they don’t tend to spill you may be able to eliminate the separate table once all the children are aware of good etiquette depending on the allergic response.  The age will depend, but my personal feeling is that somewhere around second or third grade is a good time to start moving to shared tables.  You can even talk to children that age about allergies and let them know to get a teacher immediately if they think a classmate has been exposed by accident.  You may want to make a strict “no sharing food” rule at lunch.  Make sure you enforce it.

For preschools, if an adult will be sitting at the table with the children you can share the table.  Just make sure the food-allergic children will be unlikely to come in contact with the allergen.  If you are lucky enough to use several small tables for snacks or meals, then it’s easier to quietly designate one where the allergen won’t be served.  The children don’t even have to know about it.

If your school has children wipe the tables (a good, responsibility-teaching job), make sure any allergic students clean tables that are unlikely to have their allergen, wear protective gloves (which may be problematic socially), or do another, similar chore.  Do not let them get out of doing work or other children will notice and they will feel as though they aren’t good enough to contribute.  Don’t make a big deal about it, but make sure they do something so no one feels it’s unfair if you’re asked.

2. Snack. Provide safe snack foods. If you don’t have control over what’s served, make sure your food allergic students have a safe backup snack you can serve them on days when the provided snack isn’t safe for them.  Learn to read labels (and do it every time, even for things you’ve served before) or have the parent of a food allergic child do it for you if that’s practical.  Another alternative is to request that each child bring in his or her own snack and don’t permit sharing.  If parents bring snack, remind them to bring in any packaging that came with the snack or ingredients for the snack.  I remember one nice family making chocolate chip cookies for my son’s class using a recipe that didn’t include any of my son’s allergens.  They gave me the recipe so I could check it, but didn’t bring the package for the chocolate chips so I couldn’t let my son have the cookies.

For both lunch and snack, it is advisable to wash hands not only before but after eating when an allergen has been consumed by the rest of the class. Allergens are not washed away with hand sanitizer. Mechanical removal is required. Hand wipes are acceptable if the children are taught to wipe the fronts, backs, fingers, and between fingers. Ask for wipes as part of your supply list if you know a food allergic student will be in your class or arrange for the parent of the food allergic child to supply them. Some wipes have allergens, so ask for brand recommendations.

3. Class Events. Let the parent of the food allergic child know IN ADVANCE that there will be a class event that involves food and what that food will be if you know. Ask the parent to provide something similar for the food allergic child. If possible provide food that everyone can eat so you don’t have to think about it. Parents of food allergic children are happy to provide recipes! Even if all the food you will be providing is safe, parents of food allergic children like to know that an event will occur so they can be available in case the worst happens by accident. If you plan to leave the classroom and food will be involved, bring the epinephrine with you as well as an antihistamine if it is in the child’s action plan.

The reality is that a food allergic student is much more likely to have a reaction in times and places that are not normal food times.  Parties, field trips, and class treats can turn into a nightmare if you’re not prepared.  Plan a little in advance, communicate with parents and helpers, and you can make sure everyone has a good time.

4. General Measures. Communication and practice are the keys to prevention. As a school you should have procedures in place to ensure that all adults who are responsible for the well-being of children are ready to provide emergency assistance. Your communication plan should include classroom teachers, aids, specials teachers, office staff, field trip chaperones, substitute teachers, extended care providers, cafeteria personnel, and cafeteria helpers.  Do a run-through of an emergency.  Remind specials teachers at least once during the school year who has what allergies.  Since specials teachers deal with many more students each week than a classroom teacher does they tend to forget unless they are especially sensitized to allergy issues.

In regards to the food allergic children themselves, remind to ask “Is this safe?” of any food they don’t normally eat.  Children trust the adults in their lives, but they need to learn to look out for themselves.  Even the most diligent parent of a food allergic child has accidentally given that child an allergen.  You can’t expect more from a teacher with more children to take care of.  Food allergic children should always question the caregivers in their lives and their caregivers should encourage this without getting annoyed.  The 130th time you are asked may be the time you forgot to check the ingredient list and the manufacturer just happened to change the ingredients.  Being asked may remind you to check, so encourage it.

Questions?  Comments?  Post them here!

A Very Preschool Halloween

How do you celebrate Halloween with little ones? Carefully. Some children are easily scared, but most twos really don’t get what all the fuss is about. At our school we focus on the seasonal aspects of Halloween. There’s a lot of orange and black, some extra dress-up available, and subtle room decor changes. Children who wish to wear their costumes to school may, though that’s our everyday rule and not a change for Halloween. Sometimes the whole pre-K class decides as a group to wear costumes and they visit the other classes to show them off.

In my classroom we put some pumpkins out in the kitchen area (above) to change the decorations slightly from our usual fruit bowl. Since we had sand in the sensory table at the same time, you can be sure that everything that started in the kitchen ended up holding sand at some point. We also had plenty of orange and black paper and paint. I’ve resisted trying it in the past, but this year I used the “Make it Shimmer” and “Make it Glitter” paint additives you can buy so that matching paint and paper would show up against each other. I do actually love glitter paint, but I’ve never bothered to make my own with the additives before. I must say I liked the effect, though you can’t really tell from my picture.

Older children have the opportunity to nail golf tees into large pumpkins (like we do with styrofoam), and sometimes we open up pumpkins to show to the children. This year the week before Halloween was short because of fall break and we had many absent children, so we skipped the pumpkin opening. Pumpkins and their guts get dumped in the garden when we’re done so we can watch the vines grow in the spring. Older children are also presented with a variety of face paints in addition to extra dress-up.

The only thing that might be counted as crafty is that we let the kids paint their own mini pumpkins. We tend to stay away from crafty activities because art for twos should be about exploring the medium rather than beginning with an end in mind. Some of the mini pumpkins were so covered in paint it was hard to tell there was a pumpkin underneath!

I didn’t take a picture of it, but we also try to have Halloween books available. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find Halloween books for young twos. Yes, I know that Five Little Pumpkins is a great book/fingerplay. But much of what’s out there seems to be for older kids. I’d love some ideas if anyone has them.

So what do you do to celebrate Halloween with young ones?

Too Many Pumpkins

Too Many Pumpkins, by Linda White and Megan Lloyd, is my favorite pumpkin book. I truly enjoy looking for it when we pull down the Halloween box each year at home.  I got my copy through a book club order because it was the 99 cent book of the month. How could I lose, right? Anyway, the art in this book is just fabulous. The little details are great, especially because the book has a lot of words for a picture book.

In the book, Rebecca Estelle (and her cat Esmeralda) hate pumpkins.  Through a pumpkin truck accident they end up with more pumpkins than they know what to do with and they come up with a creative, kind, and generous way to get rid of them all.

Besides the enjoyable art I love that the book goes through a whole year and the cycles of the seasons as though they were nothing special.  Nothing screams, “fall is when we harvest!” at you, like so many other books do.  I love that the protagonist is an older woman who has a history that informs her current preferences.  I love that several of the pages end with, “until…” implying that something new might happen and letting you guess what it might be before you turn the page.

This is not a book for very young children.  The main problem is that the very first page has a lot of words and very little art other than the page border and a small drawing.  3-year-olds who love to read may be able to sit for it.  I’d say it’s more for 4s and 5s. 

This year, my own kids (who are 6 and 8) informed me that I didn’t need to read it to them when we pulled it out of the Halloween box.  They told me they could read it themselves (which they can), which deprived me of my snuggle time with them and my enjoyment of the book.  In desperation I read it to the Kindergarten class at my school.  I figured only a few would listen, but most of the class sat and paid attention.  They loved the page with all the carved pumpkins.  At least someone wants to hear about Too Many Pumpkins!

Baby Washing

After I took this picture I realized how creepy it looked, so let me explain.

We sometimes put soapy water in our sensory table.  We often wash dishes or just play with the water.  We also like to wash the babies (well, baby dolls).  The kids get great joy out of this activity.  We provide lots of washcloths and large towels so the babies can be washed, dried, and wrapped up in a nice, warm towel.  They usually get fed at some point after this, too, and then put to bed.

Our school has special babies for washing.  Yup, they live in a crate in the supply room labeled, “Babies for Washing.”  Why?  Because babies with movable limbs get water inside that’s difficult to get out and that eventually gets mildewed.  Our washing babies are either sealed or they are old enough that we don’t care much what happens to them.  While we’re washing babies I put our regular classroom babies out of sight so the kids aren’t tempted to add to the collection of bathing beauties.

The tricky thing, whether it’s dishes or babies, is that other things will migrate to the sensory table.  It’s helpful to decide in advance what you’re willing to allow so you’re not caught off guard.  My personal feeling is that if I can clean it up and there’s no harm to be done by letting them try, I let them.  But things that might rust, mildew, or dissolve I don’t allow.  You’ll have to decide if you can stand painty water from hands that were just at the easel; I don’t have a problem with it.  You have to wash and bleach the dolls at the end of the day anyway, so what’s a little paint?

Water: The Simplest of All Art Supplies

Teaching twos is kind of like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get.  Some years, we have paint-eaters.  Other years, we have paint artists.  Some years, we have both in the same class.

I like to start the year with something simple at the easel.  I’ve had one year when no one knew what to do at an easel because they’d never seen one before, so it’s good to start simply.  Here’s a shot of my beautiful art (the kids hadn’t arrived yet) using water on dark paper.  Any dark paper works, so if you’re feeling purple, blue, green, red, or black this is the activity for you.  Fat brushes seem to work better than thin ones.  And since this picture was taken on the first day I supplied three cups on each side of the easel so that if everyone wanted to do it at once we could manage it.

The one negative with water is that you can’t really take the art home with you unless you’ve impregnated the paper with something that will bleed.  That’s a whole other art activity, in my mind.  The beauty of water is that you can reuse the same piece of paper over and over.  You get to watch the art disappear and you get to use words like, “evaporation,” and wonder aloud about where the water goes.  If someone puts on so much water that the paper disintegrates, well, that’s another good word to use.

In my classes this year we seem to have lots of painting pros.  We didn’t have to keep the water more than a few days before it got old.  In other years we’ve spent the first several weeks with water at the easel because of the aforementioned paint-eating (actually it’s more like brush-sucking).  Some kids like to put brushes in their hands and walk around the room.  I usually let them do this but substitute super fat stubby dry brushes so they’re less likely to stab anyone or hurt themselves.  It’s typically more about having something in hand than having a particular brush.

On a personal note, I used to set my own kids up with brushes, dark paper, and water when I needed to cook a meal.  If the water spilled it was no biggie and they felt like artists without much adult intervention.  Try it!

My Classroom 2009

I haven’t posted in awhile.  But as everyone is getting ready for school, you’ll forgive me.  This year I’d like to show you around my classroom.  We’ve made some changes this year and I like them.  The other two teachers I work with made some of my thoughts turn into a real room.  We all need such nice people who help us to do what needs to be done.

 

So, on with the show!

To the left of my door (and this text) we have the hooks outside the door with the children’s names on them.  Each child gets a bucket for the year in which to put his or her spare clothes and which we use to put art to be taken home.  The buckets are big enough to put boots and raincoats in them.  I have two classes named after colors (take a guess what they are) so there are two rows of buckets waiting.

To the right are our mailboxes.  I believe their original purpose was as shoe organizers, but they work pretty well for family mail.  Each family has a mailbox outside each of their children’s classrooms (this is located to the right of my classroom door).  Families with multiple children have a dot on all but one of their box labels to indicate that school-wide items only need to be put into one box.  I tend to use electronic communications more than paper, so my families only get school-wide stuff in their boxes.

Step inside the door and turn to your immediate left.  There you’ll see the easel and our classroom sink.  We ask that parents help their children to wash their hands immediately upon arrival.  The door to the right of the sink is our scary little bathroom.  We’re very limited in what we can do to make it nicer, but we’re working on it.  Most of our kids aren’t using the bathroom yet except for the sink.  It’s nice to have two sinks, isn’t it?  I highly recommend it!

If you turn your body a little to the right you’ll see the next picture.  The bathroom door is still there, but then you see cubbies up above and stacked chairs with the housekeeping area next to them.  Why both cubbies and buckets, you ask?  The cubbies are for diapers and wipes, since the changing table is on the wall against the bathroom.  The kitchen play area tends to move around a bit, and this is the first year I’ve had it there.  We don’t use chairs much.  The kids sit in them for snack, but at their heights they usually have more leverage at the tables without chairs.  I typically put two chairs at each of our two tables.  We can always get more, but if they aren’t used they’re in the way.  Chairs have to be stacked at night for vacuuming.

Turn to the right a bit more you’ll see the kitchen area again and one of our tables.  We usually use one table for play dough and the other for art experiences or a manipulative that doesn’t fit on the shelves.  You’ll also see the door to the play yard.  Hanging next to the door is our classroom backpack.  In the backpack we keep first aid supplies, medication, and all the emergency cards.  The backpack goes with us wherever we go, so if we ever need to leave the school for any reason we can get a hold of everyone’s adults.

Turn a little more to the right and you can see the other shelves.  I didn’t think to show you what’s on them, but it’s mostly blocks, vehicles, instruments, phones, and tools right now.  That will change as the year goes on and we get to know everyone.

Turn to the right again and you’ll see our reading area.  Not five minutes after I took this picture someone covered the couch, so it’s much prettier in real life than you would think.  There’s also the doll bed and wee chair for nurturing dolls and listening to stories.  We’ve left the wall empty for now.  Between these two pictures you can see our sensory table (filled with sand right now) and our one-way mirror.  We are the only room with such a mirror in the school and it is dead handy for those separation anxiety parents.

To the right again is our big closet in the corner.  The metal cabinet belongs to the church, which uses our room for child care during services.  My room is small so it’s hard to have an extra cabinet I can’t use, but it’s in a better location than where it’s been the last 5 years so I can’t complain.  At the edge of the photo is the edge of my door, so we’re all the way around now.

Here’s what the room looks like when you’re standing in the door: 

Pretty spare, isn’t it?  I purposely left the room very plain this year.  As the kids start making stuff we’ll put that on the walls.  If they come up with an obsession or interest we’ll decorate with that in mind.  I’ve found, over the last two years, that kids get very over-stimulated in school.  I’m trying to keep it cool for awhile until we get to know everyone.  Everyone who knows what a clutter bug I am has been telling me how nice the room looks this year.  Dirt may not stand a chance with me, but I find it hard to remember to put things out of the room as fast as I bring them in.  We’ll see how the year goes. 

I forgot to take a picture of the fabulous geometric shapes hanging from the ceiling.  Our music teacher makes them for fun and the kids adore them.

There it is, a tour of my room!

Reading Magic by Mem Fox

Poor Mem Fox. On my edition of Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Foreverthere’s copy on the cover that implies that if you follow Fox’s advice your child WILL be reading by the time he or she goes to school.  I couldn’t bring myself to read yet another “get your baby to read” scheme so I put off reading this book despite advice from people I trust that it’s a good, rapid read.  I’m sure the implication that your child will read before school sells more books to the average, freaked-out parent, but teachers will be put off by such a statement.  Since I’m pretty sure Fox wouldn’t want to make such silly promises, I give you permission to ignore the front copy and read the book anyway.

Of course SOME children who do what Fox says WILL be reading before school.  But this book isn’t about teaching them to read, it’s about providing the foundation for reading.  Whether the reading happens at home or at school for the first time isn’t really the important thing.

So here’s the big fundamental: reading isn’t about decoding the sounds but about decoding the meaning.  This is an important distinction because we often make it difficult for children to comprehend what they’re reading by making them read aloud.  Yes, they’ll eventually learn to read all the sounds.  But if they can’t get any meaning out of their reading, then they aren’t really reading.

According to Fox, there are three “secrets” to becoming a fluent reader.  The first secret is the “magic of print.”  The second secret is the “magic of language.”  And the third secret is the “magic of general knowledge.”  Let’s look at them quickly.

The magic of print is really just about how fun print is.  You have to get familiar with the printed word.  Many people call this “print awareness.”  It’s about recognizing the print that’s all around us, such as in signage, as well as the print in books.  Fox points out that only 50% of English print language is phonetic, so there’s only so far phonics can take you.  Children need to learn the patterns of the printed language in order to decipher the meaning.

The magic of print is about playing with language.  Nursery rhymes are covered here as well as how to play with language as you’re talking with young children.  Fox encourages us to talk with our children a lot, describing what we’re doing and what we’re thinking.  Children won’t be able to read if they don’t have any language skills.  She also talks about how reading aloud can help our children learn to apply language skills.  Even if they can’t read a certain story it doesn’t mean they can’t understand and enjoy it when it’s read to them.  But things you read to children should be fun for you to read to them and fun for them to listen to. 

The magic of general knowledge addresses how a child who isn’t reading words strictly phonetically can figure out what the words are.  The child with a large vocabulary and knowledge of many topics will be able to figure out a new word in print if he or she has been exposed to it in speech.  It’s all about context.

So, should you read this book?  Critics have pointed out that Fox doesn’t exactly cite the “experts” she uses for her source material.  That’s true.  But I think everything else I’ve read does back up her opinions and I didn’t read anything that struck me as unreasonable.  I think if you’re a teacher you may not need to read this book unless you’re looking for something to recommend to parents.  If you’re a parent and you’re uneasy about how to get your child to become a reader, this is a great book for you.  It’s easy to read (heck, read it out loud to your kids!) and it’s upbeat enough to be motivating.

Just do me a favor and ignore any claims about getting your baby to read!