Hidden Pictures

Here’s one of those great ideas that came from someone else.  Simply put, these are pictures hidden by sand.  A teacher I shared a classroom with on alternate days came up with this idea that 1) used up some of the mixed craft sand that was sitting around in the supply room, 2) let the kids play with hiding and finding, and 3) let the kids practice fine motor skills with a variety of tools.

We have several biomedical firms in town and they leave these huge stacks of plastic trays at the recycling center.  They are incredibly useful, and since they’re free we don’t have to worry too much about keeping them nice.  The trays are over an inch deep and are clear, so there are all kinds of possibilities with them.  In this case, my co-worker cut some magazine pictures out and taped them to the bottom of the trays.  Then she put just enough colored sand in the trays to cover the art and place a variety of instruments (paint brushes, feathers, sponges, etc.) around to use for moving the sand.  I’m sure you can guess that other instruments were brought from all over the room to try, but that’s part of the fun (yes, that’s a toilet paper roll in the bottom picture).  We put the trays in the sensory table to minimize escaped sand, but you can just as easily keep these on a table if you think your kids will keep them upright and not get too crazy with the paint brushes.

If I were making this myself I might take some pictures of the kids in the room or their parents to use as the picture to find.  You could also use other things to hide the pictures, such as plain sand or rice.  What I like about this little project is that it can be done entirely with recycled materials (with the exception of the tape or glue you use) and costs pretty much nothing.  Free is good, people!

Soap Drawing

Here’s one of those ideas that happened because I was denied the ability to execute the plan.  The story:

We often plan around a vague theme just so we have a hook to hold on to and have an easier time trying to figure out which bits to extend based on what interests the kids.  We aren’t explicit with the parents about these themes because they’re just a launching pad.  We had been playing with vibrant colors and dark backgrounds as well as black/white/gray.  One day we had planned to use our fancy Bev Bos chalk at one of the tables.  It’s called Bev Bos chalk because we but it from her (she doesn’t seem to sell it on her website or I would have linked it; I think we got it at a conference).  They are large, rectangular bits of chalk that you’re supposed to use wet.  They are very vibrant, particularly on dark paper.  They also have an interesting feel to them when you’re using them, neither draggy like regular chalk nor smooth like slick sticks.

When one of us went to the supply room to pull out the chalk, it wasn’t there.  We couldn’t find who was using it, either.  That probably meant that it was in a room somewhere, drying out from the last class who used it (this stuff takes forever to dry).  We were bummed.  The kids were going through a drawing phase and we really felt they need something to draw with.  About to punt with the crayons AGAIN (white and gray crayons on dark paper, natch), we found a bin with hotel soaps in it.  Jackpot!

The beauty of the soap is that it leaves a nice mark on dark paper.  The mark feels like a crayon mark, which makes you wonder what’s in that soap.  It also smells very nice, adding a sensory dimension that we wouldn’t have gotten with our fancy chalk.  Hotel soaps come in all kinds of fancy shapes, sizes, and scents, so you can get some interesting conversations going about that (you’re doing math when you categorize things, remember?).  You can draw with the skinny edges or the big flat side of the bars.  When the soap gets crumbled and crushed, you know that it’s an easy clean-up as well as a new tactile experience.  Don’t stop the crushing, but do talk about it.  Whether you observe that when a bar of soap gets crushed there are fewer bars left to draw with for others I leave up to you.  If you can't bring yourself to "waste" anything, make some clean mud with the crushed bits and you'll feel better.

If you’ve got mouthers in your class this is only a recommended activity if you can have an adult be right at the table while your mouthers are drawing.  Also, there’s always the risk that there’s an allergen (like milk) in those soap bars.  Luckily the paper wrappers often say what’s in them.

Egg Carton Art

Do you remember waaay back when I wrote about making a garbage garden?  That was lots of fun, but we had egg cartons left over.  What to do?  Clearly, the answer was, paint on them!  This is just plain old tempera paint.  We set out the separated cups as well as the solid lids.

So, why would we do such a silly thing?  Mostly, to let the kids use a three-dimensional surface while applying paint.  Later on we also brought out the crayons and markers, which tested their wrist control and hand-eye coordination. 

What I want you to resist is the temptation to MAKE something out of these.  You know what I’m talking about, right?  CATERPILLAR comes to mind, as does ANT if you’ve put out black paint.  Don’t do it!  Unless you’re working with older preschoolers, who sometimes want to make a product, anything you create with these or help them create isn’t really theirs, it’s yours.  The kids know it’s not theirs and they won’t care about it or play with it later.  Parents will just toss the thing in the trash since they aren’t sure you can recycle things with googly eyes, glue, and pipe cleaners.

If you can’t resist doing things with these, have the kids help you make a mobile for the whole class to enjoy.  Or use them to decorate a patch of dirt, explaining to the kids that over time these little cups of cardboard will help make better dirt for plants to grow in (just be sure you’re using planet-safe paint).  You could even use these as little cups for seeds that you plan on planting later.

We Did It!

Holy cow, we got accredited!  And not just barely, either. You only have to pass around 80% of the requirements and we had everything in the 90s% or 100%. Our classroom got a measly 94%! Woo hoo!

The visitation day was less stressful than I thought it would be. The visitor came to rooms based on a pre-printed schedule. She took notes and looked in cabinets and on shelves, but what was really nice is that she sat on the floor and talked with any child who wandered over. I wouldn't say she was overly friendly because she had a lot of paperwork to do, but she paused whenever a kiddo came over. She was really, really nice.

Since our program is part time she spent the mornings in the classrooms and the afternoons going through portfolios. I'm so glad I'm not her! The portfolio business didn't look like much fun, and since I know what was in mine I feel very sorry for her.

The areas where NAEYC felt we had room for improvement were science and technology. The technology part I totally get. Because many of our families are middle class or in grad school the program has made a decision not to have computers and televisions in the classrooms. The kids are only with us for a few mornings a week, so we feel it's more important to give them experiences and interactions than technology, which they will likely get at home. As for the science, all I can say is that many of us may have unconsciously chosen less-messy activities on the visitation days in case we needed to answer the visitor's questions, therefore making it more difficult for us to demonstrate our commitment to science education.

Many of us felt that as long as we did well on health and safety that our program would pretty much speak for itself. I think I agree in that the classroom visits probably would have gone well even without all our stressing. We do a pretty good job in keeping up with the current requirements on an ongoing basis. I know in our classroom we only made minor changes and I don't think they were all that critical.

So, for those of you going through this now, good luck! You can do it!

Chenille Stems and Styrofoam

I am beginning to feel like the styrofoam crusader.  I love the stuff.  I don’t love what it does to our planet though, so when someone drops me a load of styrofoam and asks if I can do anything with it, I tell them yes.  Better to use it until it’s unusable then to throw it out, right?  You’ve seen us use our brute strength to hammer in golf tees.  Here’s an activity with a little more finesse.

This lovely square of styrofoam was decorated mainly by one child with a little help from a few others occasionally.  She spent a solid 20 minutes carefully inserting chenille stems (pipe cleaners to you old fogies) into the styrofoam.  That’s not an easy task since the stems bend if you hold them too far away from the tip.  So it’s an exercise in fine motor control as well as pressure sensitivity, both important things to develop for writing later in life.

The trick with styrofoam is to find the stuff that doesn’t shred into a million little balls as soon as you start poking it.  That stuff isn’t fit to be used by twos and threes.  You end up chunks of torn styrofoam all over the place and then the custodian comes to talk to you for damaging the vacuum cleaner (again).

After you’re done you can keep the piece in your room as sculpture or have everyone help you pull the stems out again so you can start fresh another time.  Just don’t put it in the landfill!

Don't Let the Paint Boogies Get You Down

After a nice spring break this photo is what greeted me in the supply room when I went to fill the day's paint cups.  Cool!  No more paint boogies!

For the uninitiated, when you use pumps with tempera paint they have a tendency to get clogged with dried paint, AKA "boogies," or "boogers," depending on your personal preference.  Even if you use the pumps everyday, the paint still dries.  When you use a pump that has boogers in it, you start the day covered in paint yourself since the paint goes flying everywhere but down depending on how hard you pushed on that sucker.  It's a real pain to clean pumps out, too.  You have to soak them and force water through them, so they generally don't get cleaned out more than is absolutely necessary ("necessary" defined as, "most of the staff is cursing the pumps this morning").

This is an idea that our music teacher/co-director thought up.  She made little chenille stem (pipe cleaner, for us old folks) plugs for the pumps to keep the paint from drying inside.  Brilliant!

I was the first person to use the pumps after spring break and THEY ALL WORKED!  Not a single one was clogged and I went nuts with the colors.

We used to have a sign in the supply room that read: "Watch Out for Paint Boogers" to remind us to block the potential spray with whatever container we would be using for paint.  Well, no more!  At least, I hope not!

Almost As Good As A Cardboard Box

Everyone who spends any time with children knows that the box something comes in is usually more fun than the thing that was in the box, right?  The only thing better than those boxes are the REALLY big appliance boxes.  But, heaven forbid, your box gets boring, what should you do?

Cut holes in it!  A couple of teachers I work with came up with this creation for twos based on an activity they saw in a book (sorry, but I don’t know the title).  The holes are big enough to let extra large pom poms and paper towel/toilet paper tubes go through.  A few of the children figured out how to balance a tube in a hole and then roll pom poms into the box that way.

To spice it up we let them decorate the box, both inside and out, with crayon and marker drawings.  When the box was sitting on the floor some of the children got in the box to push the tubes and poms back out.  When no one felt like doing that, dumping was all the rage as it often is in our class.

So go raid your recycle bin and get some boxes!

Food Allergies at School: Keeping Kids Safe Without Making Ourselves Nuts (a working title)

What do you think of that title above?  That’s the name of my presentation at the next conference of the Indiana Association for the Education of Young Children.  My proposal was accepted!  It’s April 9-10 in Indianapolis.  Now, I need some of your thoughts.

As I’m working on my presentation my list is getting huge for what I want teachers to know.  I only have a little over an hour to talk.  So I want to know what YOU think are the most important things.  This conference is for educators who work with children from birth through age 8 (second or third grade).

Parents:  If you could only tell a teacher 3 things about your child’s allergies, what would they be?  Alternatively, what things have you seen or had happen to you that could have been prevented if the teacher knew whatever-it-was?

Teachers:  What do you want to know?

If you leave me a comment please let me know if I can quote you during my presentation.  I’ll credit you with the name you leave with the comment but not pass out any other information about you.

If you’re in the midwest and you have a teacher in your life who’s attending, please ask them to leave me a note here on the blog so maybe we can chat for a few minutes at the conference.  I don’t expect attendance at my presentation to be huge considering it’s a niche topic on a Saturday afternoon.  I will not have a booth or anything because I want to attend sessions myself. 

I’m excited and a little worried that I’ll miss something important.  This is a great chance to get teachers on board with food allergies.  Help me out!

Patti Whines; NAEYC Responds

A looooong time ago I posted about my frustration with the whole NAEYC accreditation process.  A NAEYC person kindly responded to my post in a comment, but at the time I was only checking mail for emergency stuff because I was spending all my waking time on my classroom portfolio.  (Did I mention that one of our spouses calculated that we were all making about $.19/hr. during that time?  I kid you not.)  Then I decided to take the month of February off from the blog after the portfolio was done to recover, freshen up my classroom, and to start going through the observation requirements, so I am feeling very bad about not thanking the nice NAEYC person (I think her name is Gina).

In fact, a nice NAEYC person CALLED MY WORK to find out if I needed more support!  Honestly, I did not expect that.  It just goes to show you how un-anonymous this whole internet thing is.  So, I have now finally moderated the comment that was left and here I’m going to put my comments on the comment.  Does that make sense?

First, again, THANK YOU NAEYC for being helpful and responsive.  I could not have hoped for more and I admit to being shocked in a good way.  It’s nice to know you’re there for the lowly teacher.

Second, my only complaint at this point is that I just don’t have the time to access the wonderful resources she listed.  I do have a TORCH account, but as I don’t have a computer at work (the office has one computer, our director has a laptop, but those are for sharing and it’s not very convenient) and even when I bring in my own laptop I can only get internet access from parts of the building, it’s inconvenient.  If those materials were sent with our application information, I apologize because I didn’t know they were there.  Again, I work in a part time program.  I am using my own personal time in many cases to do classroom planning.  If I want to do anything other than set up or clean my room it’s pretty much going to be on my own time.  All the accreditation stuff is extra (though our director found a little money to give us as a reward, which was nice but, as she calls it, just a gesture).  Anytime I have to do more digging on my own it’s taking time away from my kids, my studies, and my other obligations.  I know the other teachers were feeling somewhat resentful by the end of the classroom portfolio period, so it’s not just me.

Now the portfolio is done and we’re waiting to find out when our visitation window is.  I’m feeling pretty good about my classroom, but I certainly don’t want to be the reason we fail to achieve reaccreditation.  So I’m dreaming about it at night and occasionally going over the lists again during the day.  I’m feeling calmer and more rested now so I can put it all in perspective. 

So I feel sheepish for not being a good thanker but I still believe some tweaking needs to be done to the process.

The Dance of Accreditation

This year we are going through NAEYC re-accreditation.  At the beginning of this process I looked on it as a way to reflect on my teaching and my classroom.  I had hoped that I would be able to find things that I should improve upon or at least think about.  Now, however, I’m just tired.

The accreditation process is geared toward full-time programs.  I work in a part-time program.  I have some children who I only see for four and a half hours each week.  Other teachers I know who are also being re-accredited work in places where planning time is built into their days, often for as many as two hours each day (I know, some of you barely have time to pee all day while others get nap time to themselves).  These people are in programs where the kids are with them for 40 hours or more each week.  While it’s a bit of a time pinch, they are able to spend a little time each day working on their classroom portfolios.  The teachers in my school only get paid time for set-up and clean-up each day.  We typically do planning on our own time and are often there long beyond what we are paid for.  To add accreditation on top of that is challenging, to say the least.  I chose my work because I’m available to volunteer at my own children’s school most afternoons, which means I’m not always available to spend all afternoon working on my classroom portfolio.  While we are getting paid a little extra because of the time burden, the fact of the matter is that I only have so much time to give.  You can pay me a million bucks, but I’m not going to stop seeing my family for this.

With the process being geared toward full-time programs, some of the criteria will be ones we can’t or won’t meet.  For example, we don’t use TVs or computers in our classrooms.  We don’t feel it’s developmentally appropriate, and we know that most of the kids get too much screen time at home anyway.  The criterion in question involves the appropriate use of “technology,” which could mean just about anything.  I’m going to write a paragraph on why we use physical objects rather than screens, but it seems like I shouldn’t have to prove something that should, in our minds, be standard practice.  We also don’t brush teeth.  The kids come to us after breakfast and the parents pick them up shortly after snack.  If I had to brush the teeth of each child even once a day, I’d have trouble doing all the other things I should be doing.  Heck, diaper changes sometimes eat up 20 minutes of my morning.  That’s a lot of time when the kids aren’t there that long.

Another small problem is that the classroom portfolio thing is new to the process.  We have an official IAEYC person who comes to advise us, but she doesn’t have all the answers and sometimes contradicts herself.  I went to a session at the national conference where I got to see an accepted portfolio and talk to teachers and an NAEYC person about the whole thing.  Some of the stuff we’re being told at the local level isn’t consistent with the national level perspective.  So which do we follow? 

The criteria themselves are a little strange.  Some of them are almost word-for-word copies of others, while some of them contain multiple requirements in one criterion.  So, I have to write up a separate thing for all of them, even if they’re almost the same.  I tried referencing similar ones to each other, but it got hard for my co-teachers and I to figure out which ones had been done already.  Organizationally confusing, you might say.

We are spending a ton of money on printing pictures (we’re printing wallet-size ones on regular paper, by the way, and using black-and-white rather than color when the picture is clear enough), copy paper, plastic sleeves, binders, and a host of other things.  I only use a picture when it seems to demonstrate the criterion in question.  It still seems wasteful.  I wanted to do mine all electronically, but I was told that I’d have to be able to provide a private place for the accreditors to view my portfolio.  We only have two computers for the whole school and they’re in the office, so that was a no-go.  Putting it on a CD wasn’t good enough since they assessors may or may not have a computer that could read it.

What’s also stressing is that all this time I’m spending is time that isn’t spent on the children.  I don’t have time to do extra things to make my planning or my classroom top-notch.  So, I’m documenting something that I’m not proud of.  It’s also changed how I view the children.  While I still plan for their interests, I’m also planning to get a good photo that demonstrates some criterion.  It’s pathetic.  Now I think, “Oh, if I do this activity so-and-so will totally get into it, which means I’ll have proof of such-and-such criteria.”  It’s aiming for the product rather than the process, which is against everything I believe in for early childhood education.  Of course, it’s me I’m talking about rather than the kids, so maybe I’m just feeling put out.  Sorry for the sniping.

Now, you may think that I think accreditation is a waste of time.  But the ideal is still good.  It’s good to know that an accredited program is at a certain level.  It’s important to know that the program to which you’re sending your child isn’t going to hurt them and that they are getting benefits from being there.  What I object to is the massive amount of wasted human resources.  Perhaps it’s just because of our status as a part-time program housed in a church where we don’t have control over the physical facilities (though they are great facilities, I must admit).  Maybe there needs to be a separate procedures for programs like ours.  I know that several programs similar to ours have decided not to get re-accredited this time.  When I see how great they are compared to some full-time programs that ARE accredited, I’m sad.  Some of those full-time programs aren’t that great, but they had the resources to get through the process.

NAEYC, are you listening?

Carnival of Educators for December 22, 2009

It’s my first time hosting a carnival!  Yeah!  I hope I got enough fairway food for everyone…

First up, a couple of items about brain research.  Always learning, we teachers are.  Joanne Jacobs gets us started with some information about learning styles.  Then Alvaro Fernandez shares “a stimulating interview with brain scientist Michael Merzenich. Who will be the "personal brain trainers" of the future? (perhaps educators can add this to their New Year Resolutions?)”  That comes to us from Sharp Brains.

In the There’s-No-Good-Answer-For-That Department, Siobhan Curious wants to know why Lia is so outraged (though she says she’s not) and what she can do to become a kinder teacher while figuring it out.  Andrea Hermitt wonders on Families.com what it is about homeschooled children that makes people think they can pick them out of a crowd easily.  Maybe we should test it in a lineup, just to make sure (I’m kidding about that, people).

On a happy note, have a little fun with a puppet challenge, sent to the carnival by Pamela Jorrick and the Blah, Blah, Blog.  As an adult I love such challenges, but as a kid, well, I found them challenging!

In the Resources section we’ve got online math games and lessons sent in by TutorFi, the top 45 websites to head for if you want a Christian scholarship sent in by Online University Reviews, and 50 essential blog posts on educational reform sent to us by Online Courses.org.

And finally, from the I-Can’t-Believe-This-Crazy-Weirdness-Happens-In-Our-Public-Schools file, Andrea Hermitt shares with us the story of a teacher driven to distraction by…hair.  Add a pair of scissors and you’ve got a heartbroken kid and a bizarre story to share with your relatives over the winter break.  At least you don’t do stuff like that where you work, right???  Right???

Hopefully you all get some well-deserved rest over the next couple of weeks.  I don’t want to hear any reports of strange teacher behavior when you go back to your classrooms!

Christmas in the Twos Room

By now your school Christmas celebrations are over and all the kids have started their winter break.  Now that you have a chance to breathe, I’ll share with you what we did (or didn’t) do.  I’ll warn you, it’s a little non-traditional!

My nursery school is housed in a church, which considers us a ministry of the church.  They are very generous with our program and many of the things are able to do are because of their generosity.  Luckily, they are also a very inclusive faith community.  We do very little that’s strictly Christian and most classes have one or more students whose families wouldn’t describe themselves as Christian.

In our twos classes we were very low key this year.  I had a ficus tree that I strung with some simple lights and we plugged it in for the last week before break.  Each classroom is supposed to have a nativity set to play with (we don’t instruct about it, we just set it out), but ours somehow lost pieces between last year and this one so we left it packed up.  We used red and green paint, glue, and some glitter the last week and we talked about the upcoming break during snack.  We had a holiday party on the last day where parents brought in healthy snacks, hung out, and let us give them a gift we made with the children’s art work.

And that was it.  (Don’t have a heart attack.)

Now, I love the holiday season as much as the next person, but when it comes to little ones, less is more.  In all other areas of their lives they are bombarded with Christmas decorations, music, advertisements, and the gimmies.  If they don’t celebrate Christmas then they are left out completely.  Their little brains need a rest.  They don’t need more sugar and they don’t need more glitz.  They need their usual routines with just a *little* dazzle added.  Not the whole bag of dazzle, if you get my meaning.  Twos are truly experiencing all the special times of the year for the first time since they don’t usually remember the last time clearly.  It doesn’t help to overdo it.

I will admit that other classrooms in the building worked a little harder at the holiday thing.  And that’s ok.  The threes remember the previous year so it’s not completely foreign.  They get that something’s different than regular times of the year.  The fours know enough to look forward to it.  But for twos it’s a crazy enough time.  Relatives may be visiting or they may be traveling.  Parents are stressed.  We tried our best to make our classroom a haven from the winter holiday crazies that seem to take everyone over at this time.

Whatever your personal winter holiday traditions, enjoy them with love and generosity toward others.  And stay tuned for the Carnival of Educators just a few days from now, right here!

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!