Sunday, June 29, 2014
Reflections on: "Good intentions gone awry"....
Often when I encourage a teacher to reconsider Calendar Time, I encounter a lot of resistance. I know that I ruffle feathers when I suggest, during classes or training, to use this time differently....so-do I ruffle yours? Why or why not? Where do you stand on this issue?
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You certainly did not ruffle my feathers with your suggestions. When we first started to talk about the debate of calendar time years ago it did bring up questions that have since then been answered. Questions like; why, if children are engaged and having fun, repeating back days of the week and month then why is this time being questioned? After further understanding of a preschoolers development and understanding of time concept, I agree that this time could be focused more on age appropriate concepts. Calendar like concepts such as; serration, patterns, and time concepts such as later, after or before would be a better use of this time and likely things that a teacher is already touching upon.
ReplyDeleteThis idea of revisiting your practice to make sure you are making the best use of the little time you have with children is important.
DeleteI agree with you to reconsider calendar time during morning meetings or circle time. Although I am not alone in the curriculum planning for my classroom, we do not use calendar time. Personally, I believe that teaching the calendar to a group of 3-5 year olds is not developmentally appropriate. Although they may remember the days of the week song, or what day it is, I believe that to be rote learning and not authentic. If you ask that group of children later in the day to tell you what was addressed during calendar time, you may get a couple out of the entire class who know the answers - mostly, because they have a good memory. For me, calendar concepts can be taught in a meaningful way in a small group of children. For example, discussing the month of July to a child who's birthday is in July - something he/she would care about, or discussing Friday because on Friday's children wear their pajamas to school. Those are meaningful, authentic learning experiences that children will understand. Our goal, as early childhood educators, should be to enhance and extend meaningful learning experiences for children that they will want to know about and remember learning about.
ReplyDeleteIt is totally appropriate to use calendar in a meaningful ways like to count down to a field trip or special activity or for birthdays. Learning patterns, numeral recognition, etc. can be taught or embedded in more appropriate ways with hands on opportunities that hold real meaning for children like using a counting wand to count children before going outside or using numerals to indicate how many children can play in block area safely.....
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ReplyDeleteI believe teaching calendar to the preschool age children is nothing but waste of time. As we know young children don't understand the concept of time and therefore they don't show any interest in listening to something that does not make sense to them. I liked Sara Jackson's idea about relating the days of the week to something that is relevant to the young children, and what could be more fun for a five year old than wearing pajamas to school on Fridays. "According to Friedman (2000), the ability to judge the relative time from a past event or until a future event in terms of the calendar year is not in place until sometime between 7 and 10 years of age." In my practice I would focus more on what is beneficial for young children rather than hammering the names of the week into their brain everyday. An no, you did not ruffle my feathers by encouraging us to reconsider calendar in our classrooms and I appreciate you for sharing the article with us.
DeleteIt is so important that we take advantage of the little time we have with children and make sure that what we are doing is appropriate and actually meaningful to the children in our care. Teachers should often reflect on what they do and why and make adjusts in their teaching as they gain new insights or understandings.
DeleteAlthough I don't really get to observe or experience much of the calendar teaching moments, but I strongly agreed that focusing on more appropriate curriculums that are beneficial to children's overall development should be the main focus of the daily routine. Some calendar concepts that will help children learn about pattern such as: now, after, before, etc, as Nicole mentioned can be introduced here and there. But I feel like teaching children about calendar as a whole could wait to be taught letter on in their school years. Not in their preschool.
ReplyDeleteMost children are doomed to boring calendar experiences often right up into the 3rd or 4th grade...so you are right, we should let it wait until later and not feel like we need to "get them ready" for calendar- because really, what is there to get ready for?
DeleteNo, it didn’t ruffle my feathers. When i first started as a teacher we did calendar and it was great we thought its helpful, they are counting, working with numbers, its preparing them for kindergarden, etc. We where so wrong it got the the point where the children just picked a random day and said it till they got the right day. We sat down one day as a teaching team and discussed how we could do it differently. We came up with its all about exposure in the right way and we can have days a of the week out and month of the year to talk about but not do a calendar everyday. We don’t sit at circle anymore talking about it but when children ask or an important date to them is coming up we might go look at them together and go over it. We send our time at circle so different now, we do “safe keepers”, school family song, and then maybe a book, lots of discussions, sometimes charting, etc. It has made a huge difference though because the children still know the days of the week months of the year all that stuff but it thru a different approach not an in our face you are going to learn about calendar and like it. It’s the little things like “ Good morning, how are you on this Thursday morning?”.
ReplyDeleteKatlyn
Good for you!!! I just find it so dismaying to watch calendar time in like late Feb or March and when the teacher asks, "What day is it friends...?" and I hear, "Tuesday, Friday, Sunday, Thursday..." and finally someone says Wednesday and the teacher says, "Yes, today is Wednesday, can everyone say Today is Wednesday?" and by this time 2 children are rolling on the floor, one girl has started showing her friend her new light up shoes.... and the disaster continues for another 10 long minutes and at the end, I am never sure what the children learned....ugh.
DeleteOkay I will admit I have been known to make calendar a part of my circle routine. Not with every group but more then I would like to admit. Some years the kids are fascinated by the large calendar we have on the wall and other groups of kids never notice it. I agree with the article that the kids don't get the concept. Day after day I ask the same questions and get the same blank stares and am told that today is July and not friday. So why do I do it? The parents LOVE it. They get so excited when by some fluke their child tells them what day it is. I feel like the parents expect it to be a part of the routine. When I have a group of fours I feel pressured to get them ready for kindergarten and I know that calendar is a part of the kindergarten circle. I find this article helpful and I will use it to get rid of calendar at circle time.
ReplyDeleteHip, hip, hooray! I completely understand the perceived pressure from grades above to get kids ready for Kindergarten, but I have never met a K teacher who has said that skill was anywhere in her top 20 things she likes incoming K kids to have....if you read my response to Katlyn you will see how I really feel about it. And as far as parents go, I might help them better understand school readiness skills and the activities that happen in your room and how they relate to your approach to school readiness- help them see it is more important for children to learn numeral recognition or how to subitize than it is to learn today's date and help them understand how you do this in the classroom.... does this make sense?
DeleteAnd the article is a powerful way to communicate a need for change with folks who are married to their current practices.....
I have gone back and forth on this issue for the past couple years and this past year the lead teacher I worked with chose to use calendar as a part of her daily schedule. I did see the children actively participating and answering the questions we asked correctly, however, I do agree that all these concepts can be taught in different ways that may benefit the children more. During calendar the children demonstrated one to one correspondence, numeracy skills and literacy skills but I do not think it was the most effective use of time. We are a double session head start so I have strong feelings about using time appropriately and effectively since children are only in the program four days a week for three and a half hours per day.
ReplyDeleteYou most certainly did NOT ruffle my feathers. I have experienced calendar time in a practicum setting I was in and to be quite honest I myself was in agony. It was excruciating for me to sit there and hear the children try to answer the teachers questions of "What day is it?" "What month is it?" I think the wall that held the calendar was so overwhelming to me as an adult I can't imagine what those children felt let alone the ones that are experiencing some sensory issues. I do not feel at this age that it benefits the children. There are others ways they hear the vocabulary such as "Over the weekend on Saturday I went strawberry picking." I think just using the language of days of the week and months of the year in general conversations is plenty for this age group. As they get older they will have ample opportunities to learn this concept.
ReplyDeleteAt my work none of the classroom's do calendar time, but at my practicum last semester they did calendar time every morning. The children were engaged and wanted to participate. I am honestly not sure what they got out of the calendar because guidance would be needed for the young children regarding what day it was or month. Calendar is a difficult concept for children to grasp and I think there are other things we could be doing during that time. However, I do think using a calendar to mark special things such as; spirit week, special activities, and field trips is appropriate and a lot of conversation can be created around that.
ReplyDeleteI personally would not do calendar time if I was the lead teacher in my classroom. However I am not and I did my third practicum where I work and I am now a assistant teacher there. The lead teacher is also the director and we do calendar during circle time. We have a calendar helper each week and all the children love this job. We count popsicle sticks out for how many days have gone by in the month. Besides the counting and one to one correspondence I really don't see the benefits because those skills can be done in a more fun and exciting way.
ReplyDeleteNo, you didn't ruffle my feathers at all in this debate. :) I have never chosen to do calendar time with 3-5 year olds except in the case of counting down to a vacation, birthday, holiday etc. I have used it to show the children the days left in a week or how many days left until something. I feel like doing calendar with these children is not developmentally appropriate. At this age and stage I feel like the aspects of the calendar are very memorized and not actually known. These children do from experience know the days of the week song but they do not understand the year, month, day, etc. I think this time could definitely be used for other things. I know at some locations calendar is a must in their curriculum and they can't steer away from that but are able to use it to meet the children's needs and abilities.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in Head Start calendar time was always a part of my routine until one day when my supervisors supervisor was observing me and then she came to me at the end of my circle time and mentioned using my circle time/meeting time as a time to get my children organized and ready for the day by talking about the activities that would be offered during morning choice time and to introduce the "new toys" that might be out and about through my classroom and the correct way on using these toys. I sat down with my assistant teacher that afternoon and we start brainstorming on how we could run circle time differently. Within the next few weeks we completely changed circle time into Morning Meeting. This time was much better used as a time to have conversations around what each child did the night before or if they had something on their mind they would like to share. Then we picked jobs for two days in a row, and sign up for the area where they wanted to play during choice time. Then we would discuss if their was any new equipment in any of the areas; talk about how to use the materials and then we would end with some rhyming songs or finger plays. The children enjoyed this so much better and I did not see as much behavior issues revolving around choice time later on in the morning because the children were able to choose the areas where they wanted to go before we all sat down to breakfast. There wasn't as much confusion and pushing during the transition times because the children were confident about knowing how to use the materials and when they were going to be able to play in each area. It was great! I was not ruffled at all by what you had to say about calendar/circle time. I think the change of it is a good thing!!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the ideas offered by this article, and instead of having my feathers ruffled, I felt inspired. The truth is, the staid format of typical circle times was not that interesting to me either, and it seemed so remote and pointless to have children recite specific information with having it relate to their current experiences.
ReplyDeleteReading this article validated my doubts, and it only made me really reflect on the types of circle times I want to offer children, and how to achieve these.
I found this article so inspiring and interesting, because the truth is, I too am bored by the traditional circle time. Fortunately, through my practicums, I have had the opportunity to observe creative and dynamic circle time presentations because the teachers did not want to inflict boring, predictable morning meetings on the children.
ReplyDeleteThe main idea I extracted from this was the futility of trying to teach children about time and days, because their conception of time is still developing. I will definitely incorporate the suggested, developmentally appropriate activities into my practice.
More than anything else, this article made me really reflect on the type of circle time, and ultimately classroom experience, I want to provide children with.