Recall Time in the {Special Needs} High Scope Classroom

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's been SEVEN months since I wrote a blog post...whoops! Anyway, this summer I had the opportunity to attend a 5-day workshop on High Scope in the preschool classroom. My district uses the High Scope Curriculum, so it was super helpful to learn even more about it. As some of you may know High Scope focuses on the "plan, do, review" model during what they call "work time," also know as center time in the preschool classroom. This is when the students are able to visit the various learning areas of the classroom such as the block area, the library, the writing area, etc.

I use a "planning board" with Boardmaker pictures during our planning time. Students put their picture under the area they plan to go to. Here's the planning board I used last year...

Now when it came to the review or "recall" aspect of the day (post work time) I had trouble. Many of my students were unable to verbally communicate what area they played in, who they played with, and/or what toys they used. After my High Scope training I came up with a way to help my students participate in recall, and that is through my picture-based recall book.

Let me tell you this book was NOT quick and easy to make! I had to upload each one of my pictures I use as labels in each area. I made them all into symbols on Boardmakeronline.com This way the student could choose the toy(s) he or she played with during work time from pictures of our ACTUAL classroom materials!

The book is somewhat leveled, so the first page asks "What area did you play in?" The student can then choose from pictures of the different areas (these match with the planning board pictures).

The second page asks a slightly more difficult question, "Who did you play with?" The students can then choose from pictures of their classmates.

The final page asks "What toy did you play with?" For this question I have pictures (organized by area) of all the toys in our classroom. As you can imagine this section of the book is quite large so it is separate and is held together by book rings.

 

Here are more pictures of the toy choices from each area. 

I'm sure I'll tweak this system throughout the year, but for now this is what I have come up with! If you have Boardmaker Share online then you should be able to find these items by searching "recall book" in the activities or by trying clicking here.

Embedding Life Skills in the Kitchen Center

It's been awhile, but I'm back! Hope everyone had a lovely winter break. Over break I did a lot of thinking about how to work on my skills in the classroom, and I also wanted to address them in a way that felt natural and play-based. So, with some inspiration from others these are three new tasks I came up with for my students to do while at the kitchen/home living center. 

Here's the drawer set I use to store each task. The top for utensil sorting, the middle for table setting, and the bottom for food sorting (by color). 

I picked up some simple utensil sorting trays at Walmart and created fork, spoon, and knife labels on Boardmaker. This way my students have a visual of where to sort each item.

Place mat template found here!

I had seen the idea for place settings like these on Considerate Classroom awhile ago and loved it. So, I created something similar with the help of a template I found online (link above). This task has helped my students match item to picture and begin to expressively identify different utensils/plate/cup. 

The last task is a file folder where the students have to sort pictures of food by color. I adapted this activity from this freebie. 

Overall, my students are responding really well to each task, and loved being introduced to each one. I'm sure I'll change them as they start to master them. If you're interested click here for the drawer labels I created and here for the utensil sorting labels.

Addressing Multiple Skills in Art Projects

Oh, the fall. Seems like the season of art project after art project. I am not that into super teacher-directed projects because I feel like the students lose out in building independent skills and it just makes it overall a less meaningful experience. Since we moved into our new class/modular building I knew I had to get something up on the walls outside the classroom door. I searched Pinterest forever, but couldn't quite find something I loved. So, I decided to create my own project that would address a multitude of skills while still allowing the student to make independent choices.

I cut out the brown body shape for the turkey and wrote the student's name in yellow marker across the bottom. I also drew the black lines separating the letters. For students with long names I would put two letters in each section. The student then had to trace their name and cut along the black lines. We worked together on putting the pieces back together like a puzzle and using a glue stick to stick them back on. Lastly, the student chose the feathers they wanted and I aided them in gluing them on.

Here are the finished products! I love that each turkey is unique and has the student's name right on the front. Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Just a label I put on my bulletin board for others to see what skills/standards were addressed while making these turkeys.

Bread

After completing our units on apples, pumpkins, and leaves I have decided to talk about bread. I have big plans to make our own "bread in a bag" and homemade butter next week. For today we started with reading the book "Bread, Bread, Bread" By: Ann Morris. I found this book in one of those "everything-in-your-bag for $5" kind of sale- so good. It's actual photographs and simple text. It also depicts people from all over the world, what could be better? So, after reading this my students did a bread size sequencing activity. It was super simple with only one type of bread because my students are just learning about the concept of small, medium, and big. I use the word big, but I know some people might like to use large so when I created the printable I made a "large" version also. 

I made two versions of this activity. One where the students had to independently sort the bread under each given size and one where the student is matching picture-to-picture in order to sort, so it's more of a matching activity. I differentiated because some of my students are grasping the concept of small, medium, and big and others are still in the very beginning stages of comprehending it. 

If you would like a copy of the bread size sequencing activity click here to download the PDF. 

Pumpkins Everywhere

I was hoping to get this post in under the October wire, but no such luck. Anyway, I wanted to share some of my favorite pumpkin activities I did in my classroom for the past few weeks. As any preschool teacher knows pumpkins are HUGE in the early childhood classroom. What is it about those big, orange squash that students just love?! I know my students love to point out a pumpkin where ever we are, so these activities were a big hit.

1. Pumpkin Insides Book: I got this idea from my friend Carissa who did this with her students during our student teaching semester. Check out her blog here! We glued pumpkin seeds and orange yarn as pulp and the front cover reads "What's inside a pumpkin?" I also had the students trace their names on the back because I aim to constantly expose them to their names/writing. 

2.  Mini Sticker Pumpkins: This was a last minute addition to our art center last week. I had bought mini pumpkins for our dramatic play center and I didn't want them to go to waste towards the end of the week, so I allowed the students to place Target Dollar Spot foam stickers all over them. Removing the paper on the stickers was great fine motor practice.

3. Pumpkin Measuring: This lesson exposed my students to the terms small, medium, and big as well as estimation and nonstandard forms of measurement. I had pre-cut pieces of yarn and the students had to determine (with teacher prompting/help) which string would go around each pumpkin. For example, would the tiny string go around our big pumpkin?

4. Pumpkin Seed Counting: The students worked on their one-to-one correspondence skills by doing pumpkin seed counting lesson. I modeled the pumpkin counter for them (a laminated pumpkin with a number and corresponding amount of seeds drawn on it) and how to count out the seeds/pick them up with their pincers. Pumpkin counters were made more accessible to students by drawing on the corresponding number of seeds they should put on each pumpkin. (pumpkin mats found at prekinders.com)

5 & 6. Pumpkin Play Dough: Homemade, no cook pumpkin play dough made with Jell-o brand pumpkin pudding mix added to a traditional play dough recipe.  

My pumpkin play dough recipe. I use this as a visual for the students while making the play dough.

Addressing IEP Goals in the Writing Center

I teach a preschool self-contained class for three year olds, so all of my students have IEP's (Individualized Education Plans). I aim to address many of their personal goals and objectives through center time in addition to more teacher-directed activities. 

In this post I will show how I address some popular preschool IEP goals through my writing center activities...

This is a super simple task I created last year to address a student's goal of "will color in basic shapes." It also works for "will color within lines." I am not a huge coloring in fan, but it is important for them to learn the fine motor control of coloring in the lines. I created this in Microsoft Word and I have attached a link to a downloadable PDF of it here!

 

The name-matching folder is one of my favorite activities that I came up with last year. It not only works on letter identification but also addresses the goal of a student identifying themselves in a picture. In my experience students LOVE to see themselves and are more motivated to complete this activity when they see their picture.

(found at Childcareland.com)

This shape tracing activity is seasonally appropriate and addresses a popular preschool IEP goal of "will name basic shapes..." It also works on the goal of "will develop a tripod grasp" since the student is working on using a pencil/marker/crayon to trace each shape. 

(found at totschooling.net)

This is a fun, seasonal take on the classic pre-writing skill/IEP goal of "student will trace/independently write horizontal and vertical lines." I learned a trick from an OT to tape a paper to the wall and have the student write their lines that way because it forces them to use a more correct grip on their writing utensil and it works!

Science in the Preschool Classroom

STEM in the classroom is huge lately. I feel like every other day I see ideas on Pinterest on how to incorporate it into the early childhood classroom. My goal is to also make the NJ Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards accessible to my students. So, today I did a sink or float lesson with my class. This addressed standard 5.1.2 (Observe, question, predict, and investigate materials, objects, and phenomena during classroom activities indoors and outdoors and during any longer term investigations in progress. Seek answers to questions and test predictions using simple experiments or research media (e.g., cracking a nut to look inside; putting a toy car in water to determine whether it sinks))

I created a pictures using Boardmakeronline.com (free trial again, woo!). One says "sink" and the other says "float" and have the corresponding visuals. I decided to do this activity with fall items- an apple, a stick, a pine cone, a leaf, and a mini pumpkin. I also made visuals on Boardmaker for these items. This way the students got to choose which items we put in the water  first, second, etc. 

My students LOVED this activity. I mean water and preschoolers is an instant hit no matter what, but seriously they enjoyed making predictions by pointing to "sink" or float." This was also a great lesson on choice making for them. After we were done placing each item in the water and determining if they sank or floated I allowed the students to have some free play with the fall items in the water.