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Pre-K KOREH Corner What’s Happening in Your Classroom?
Let’s take a look. There is rhyme and a great deal of reason behind what occurs in the classroom, whether you work at a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Early Education Center (EEC) or a Head Start Preschool. LAUSD EEC’s All LAUSD preschool programs use the developmentally appropriate Developmental Learning Materials (DLM). This research based program is aligned with Open Court, the reading program that LAUSD elementary schools use, so that the children are prepared for kindergarten. DLM is also aligned to the California standards for language arts and math. It encourages learning across all lines including social, intellectual and physical development so children can thrive in their communities, and also create a strong sense of self. One major focus of DLM is on language and reading readiness because these are the years when children can best learn these skills (sound familiar?). Another major focus is on building connections. The schedule, themes and activities are cross-curricular so children can see patterns and make connections, which make their brains stronger and more complex. Specifically, as many of you know, the day begins and ends with Circle Time. This allows the children time to group and regroup and make connections about what they learned during the day. Other activities revolve around group activities about literacy or math, learning centers (small activities to practice lessons learned), and music/movement – time for singing and dancing. Head Start Schools All Head Start classrooms go beyond academic learning. They offer meals as well as nutrition education. They also involve families – they help parents find medical and dental care and demonstrate to parents the importance of issues such as literacy. The Head Start schools we work with either use Creative Curriculum or the High Scope curriculum. All Child Care Resource Centers (Lull, Roscoe Canyon, Sherwood, Valerio and Woodman) use Creative Curriculum. As described by The Creative Curriculum for Preschool, 4th Edition1, this is an environmentally based approach that focuses on helping teachers organize rooms into interest areas while connecting the content for preschool children. Teachers arrange their classrooms by different physical areas including science, manipulative toys, art, library, and music. Children make choices about what materials they’re going to work with and how they will work with them. The teachers connect the learning with language, books, labels, charts and graphs throughout the room. CCRCs additionally use a lot of music and movement in their classrooms to teach healthy lifestyles. All Delta Sigma Theta as well as L.A. Urban League Head Starts (Masonic Lodge, Woods, Beta M. Vista, Burlington, Ozzie Goren and Slater) use High Scope. You can summarize High Scope as “Plan, Do, Review.” High Scope is similar to Creative Curriculum in their use of interest areas, but it has an even greater focus on choice regarding which area the child goes to. There’s also additional planning and recall time where each child plans and describes what they will do and what they did in the area. Hopefully this answered some of your questions about the schedule or class curriculum. A great amount of thought is put into the reading, the running, the jumping, and the singing, and there is great value to all these activities. So when you are with your children, and they want to play hopscotch, you’re still doing great because most activities enhance your children’s reading readiness skills. You can read to the children, but you can also play games, learn colors, and put puzzles together. As the LAUSD and Head Start curriculums demonstrate, anything that helps them enjoy reading, develop language skills, and problem-solve will help their reading readiness skills. 1 Colker, Laura J.; Heroman, Cate; and Trister Dodge, Diane,. The Creative Curriculum for Preschool, 4th Edition. Teaching Strategies, Inc., Washington D.C.: 2002. |
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You walk into your classroom, KOREH L.A. tote bag in your hand, excitement in your heart. You take in the scene, watch your focus children and their classmates. You read with them, you play games. You look around and notice all the activities going on around you – the cutting, the pasting, the running, the jumping, the singing, and of course, the reading. The activity is full of life, and might even feel chaotic. You ask yourself, is there any rhyme or reason here? What’s happening in my classroom?