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Meet Your Host: Vanessa Levin

I’ve made a career out of teaching, both as a classroom teacher and an educational consultant and trainer. As an early childhood trainer, I have spoken to thousands of teachers in person at popular early childhood conferences such as Frog Street Splash, I Teach K! and NAEYC. But I can only reach a limited number of teachers in person, so that's why I decided to host the

Soar to Success Summit. Through this online venue we can reach teachers around the world and help them have their best year ever! I'm thrilled to have you along for the ride on this groundbreaking adventure!



Sheryl Cooper: Successful Center Time Strategies Center time is a generic term and can mean different things to different people. What does center time mean to you? How does your definition of center time compare to Sheryl’s definition (an area that is child-led, open-ended, hands-on, inviting, full of wonder, and the children can stay for as long as they want to)?



Sheryl says that with younger children it’s important to let go of control and allow them freedom. What comes up for you when you hear this? A behavior of 2 year olds is that they like to pack up their toys from one center and move it to another center. This is part of their exploration and development because they are experimenting. How might a teacher who likes things organized become more comfortable with this behavior? If you know that the toddlers are going to move materials from center to center, what materials might you set out ahead of time knowing this information?



At the beginning of the year toddlers are not sitting still, but rather they are moving around in the classroom. Knowing this behavior, how could you setup your classroom to encourage their exploration? Sheryl says that whenever she has a speech language therapist come in to observe her students, it's during center time because that is when the children are interacting with each other the most, even non-verbally. What is the protocol of getting a speech language therapist to come into your classroom? (Note: if you are curious about speech language therapists check out Marisha McGrorty’s talk on Day 5). With three year olds, there is a deliberate separation of the centers and the students are interacting more with their peers. What social skills do you think the three year olds need to develop that are not found in two year olds?



Vanessa says that two year olds hardly have any attention spans but three year olds are starting to develop some. As a teacher, how might you shift your expectations when you remember that their brains have just not developed yet to complete complex tasks? Sheryl says that one of her favorite things is to sit back and observe the children because that tells you what skills you have to teach the next day or what materials to take out or put back in. How often do you simply observe your children and let them play freely? Sheryl used to beat herself up over the fact that a child might have developed a skill one week but then later on went backwards. She overcame that pressure by understanding that this is part of normal development in young children. Have you ever had a similar experience? What was that like for you?



Vanessa says the amount of materials you have out is a balancing act and varies depending on the classroom and the age of the students. What are your thoughts on the materials you put out? How do you adjust them throughout the year? At the beginning of the year, Sheryl's shelves are quite sparse because the more materials there are the more confused the children are. Plus clean up is more challenging. If a family member asked you why your shelves are sparse at the beginning of the year, what would you tell them? You don’t have to have every center open at the beginning of the year. What are your thoughts? Which of your centers would you close early on and open later on?



Vanessa says that when you play the role of an active observer you are setting your students up for success because you are being very responsive to their needs. Why is this responsiveness important in building the child’s self-esteem and cognitive development? Sheryl wants to set her toddlers up for success so she starts her year using puzzles with 3 pieces and with large knobs. Why is this a great strategy for a child with developing motor skills and a poor attention span? Vanessa says that the dramatic play center and the blocks centers often scare teachers because it can get wild and out of control. Often sharing issues, dumping issues, and throwing issues occur in these centers. What would your centers be like if you only had a few blocks and pieces out in those centers?



Sheryl has to remind herself year after year that the children at the end of last year are at a different developmental stage than the children at the beginning of this year. Reflect back on the children from the end of last year. Write down some of their behaviors & skills. Then imagine the children coming into this new year. What are some reasonable expectations and some unreasonable expectations? Dress up clothes are often an issue of frustration for young children who don’t have fine motor skills. Sheryl and Vanessa overcome this issue by meeting the children where they are at and having naked dolls. What is another common stumbling block for your children and how could you meet them where they are? When planning activities, Sheryl keeps in mind that there is a wide range of developmental skills among her students (even if they are the same age). For this reason she puts out open-ended materials. What are some open-ended materials you could use so you are meeting a variety of students at their needs?



Sheryl says that she is not very focused on themes because the children don’t really care. What could you do in the upcoming year to scale-down your focus on themes and scale-up your focus on responding to the children’s needs? Sheryl says that before a two year old child can learn to write they have to practice their fine motor skills and strengthen their fingers. In what other ways are adults guilty of assuming a child knows how to perform a task when really there are more basic prerequisite steps that a child needs to be taught first? A negative consequence of trying to get a child to do a task they are not ready for is that they will lose confidence in themselves. How might you build the confidence of a child up again if they did poorly with an activity previously?



Jamie White: Successful Circle Time Strategies In Jamie’s class (which lasts three hours) she does three circle times. One as a morning greeting, another as a lesson, and another as a storytime. How many circle times do you have in your day and what do you hope to accomplish in each of them? Sitting still during circle time can be a struggle for the youngest kids, especially at the beginning of the school year. Jamie reminds us to adjust our expectations to meet the children at their developmental stage. If you did this, what might your circle time look like?



Jamie says at the beginning of the school year her circle time last 5-6 minutes and towards the end of the year it approaches 10 minutes. How long do your circle times usually last? For circle time to go smoothly, the children need to learn smaller steps like: how to listen to the teacher, how to talk and listen to each other, and how to come together without hitting each other. How might you teach these smaller steps at the beginning of the school year so that your circle time is smoother for the rest of the year? A tool Jamie uses for children who can’t sit still is to have a song and dance during circle time. Why might this be effective and also reduce the teacher’s frustration?



Vanessa says that teachers often put a lot of pressure on themselves when they set their expectations too high. When have you previously had too high of expectations for your students? Jamie says that sitting and listening to an adult read a book to them from the front of a circle is a foreign experience to many young children. At home, they are often in the lap of an adult and possibly turning the pages with their hands. What comes up for you when you realize this circle time could be vastly different than a child’s previous experiences with books? Jamie saw a need of her children to touch something during circle time so she gave every child a small stuffed animal to occupy their hands. How else might you have occupied the children’s hands during circle time so they are not bothering other children?



With older four year old students, you can’t assume that their previous school experiences were good or that they enjoy school. If a child had a poor school experience the previous year, what might you do as a teacher to ensure that this year is better? Jamie uses songs, a puppet, a bell, and prizes to encourage the children to come to circle time. How might you grab the children’s attention and make circle time enticing this year? Have you ever used a puppet in your classroom before? If so, what was your experience? If not, why haven’t you?



When Jamie introduces a new subject to the children she uses the puppet. This provides a moment of magic that captures the children’s imagination. If you were to use a puppet in this upcoming year, what would be some fears you might have? How might you get over those fears? Jamie says that for shy students who might struggle with eye contact or communication, they open up really well to a puppet. Why might a young child relate more with a puppet than their teacher? When Jamie needs to teach two separate age groups with different developmental skills around something like calendar, she teaches one a daily schedule and the other a monthly schedule. What might be another example of teaching the same subject to two different age groups but with a small tweak so that it is suitable for their developmental skill?



Some of Jamie's best lessons are when a new object is brought into the classroom (eg. snakeskin, honeycomb, etc) and the children use all their senses to explore the object. What might be some new objects that you could bring into the classroom for the students to explore? Vanessa and Jamie talk about how teachers can simplify their lesson plans and adapt what they are doing for one age group for another age group. When you reflect on your own lesson plans, are you able to simplify them and still meet your objectives? Jamie believes that most cognitive skills are not actually learned during circle time and that most of that learning occurs during the child’s play. It’s having signs, letters, numbers, and colors in the play area so that children learn those symbols while they are playing. What are your thoughts?



During circle time in order to captivate the students and teach them colors, numbers, and letters, Jamie uses interactive carpet games. What games have you used in the past to teach these fundamental skills? Jamie and Vanessa share ways of making stories interactive by giving the children objects that they have to hold and then insert into the story. This is useful in keeping the children in control because they are using their whole bodies and waiting for their turn. What is a book that you like to read in which you could use this technique?



Jenny Spencer: Visual Routines to Increase Student Engagement A common trouble spot that Jenny often deals with is the transition that occurs when you are going to center time. What comes up for you when you reflect back on this specific transition? Often the children who are causing disruptions don’t have appropriate play skills and need to be provided scaffolding to learn new skills. What types of scaffolding have you done in the past?



Jenny says that for young children who have not had much practice making decisions, it will be confusing when there are too many choices in the classroom. This leads to behavior problems and those children becoming impulsive. What changes could you make to your centers to meet those needs? When she worked with young special needs students, Jenny spoke about how important it was to have structure, visuals, and routines. Why might these tools be useful for the students as well as the teachers? There is a fine line between having structure and being a control freak. How would you define this line and when would you know that you have crossed it?



A tool Jenny recommends is a visual reminder of what the child’s choices are, and among those choices she includes some of the children’s favorites as well as newer choices that have some skills she wants them to develop. How might you use this great tool in your classroom? Young children, especially those with special needs, will choose familiar choices when given complete freedom. Knowing this, how might you use visual reminders of choices to branch out and scaffold higher level skills for that child? Jenny and Vanessa use personal examples of making impulsive familiar choices at the grocery store and at restaurants. What is an example from your own life when you have made an impulsive familiar choice?



Jenny used a strategy of taking photographs of the classroom centers and placing them inside a file folder so that a child could make their own choice. However she found that once the child was at that center, they didn’t know what kinds of play they could do. She responded to this problem by giving the child a list of choices they could do within that play center. What skills are demonstrated by Jenny during this situation? How have you used a camera in your classroom in the past? For the first month of the school year Jenny only opens a couple centers at a time and they engage in the center as a group of kids, rather than sending the children all over the classroom. Why might this be a useful strategy when you are first starting to role model skills at a center?



Reflect back on the centers you had in the past. Do you remember when a child might have struggled knowing what to do at a center once they got there? How might you approach a child with a similar issue this year? Vanessa says that we can’t assume that the same toys we have at school are the same ones they have at home. What other assumptions might a teacher have that might get in the way of a child’s development? For the upcoming school year what kinds of systems are you going to use for your transitions to center time, for your transitions to snacks, for going outside, and for any other problem areas you might have? And how might you break down those systems into deliberate steps that the children can understand?



Al Stewart: Rethinking Classroom Walls: Creating a Meaningful Learning Environment Vanessa and Al talk about a paradigm shift and thinking about the classroom as the children’s space instead of a teacher’s space. If a room was centered around young children instead of adults, what might the environment look like? Al says that centers should not have all materials/toys put out at the beginning of the year but only a few items that are familiar. Why might this be helpful for children in a new classroom?



Al recommends that families bring in a picture of the child’s family to put onto the bulletin board at the beginning of the year. In the past, how have you made the classroom a welcoming space for new students? Al shows us signs for the classroom walls designed for adults. These are at adult eye-level, have open-ended questions, longer descriptions, and explanations about what developmental skills a child is learning at a particular center. For the various centers in your classroom, what type of descriptions would you (or do you) have written out for adults? Al mentions having sections of the wall at the child’s eye-level called, “Storyboard”, made out of flannel or magnets, and another section of the wall called, “My Practice Writing Wall,” made out of newsprint or whiteboard. How might these spaces be beneficial to the development of young children’s language and social skills?



Vanessa and Al describe a gradual release model (eg. I do, we do, then you do) of retelling a story using flannel boards. Why might this lower the likelihood of materials like flannel being destroyed? Al says that ownership of the classroom is critically important. On the first day, he puts something on the walls that the children have created that was easy for them to do. Envision your upcoming school year. What would be an easy project for your children to create that you could put on your own walls? Al says as the year gets longer, the walls are going to get more filled by meaningful projects for the children. Knowing this, what might your walls look like at the beginning of the school year before the children arrive on the first day?



What message does it send to children when teachers purchase professional color and shapes posters for the classroom walls? A creative solution Vanessa used for her bulletin board borders was adding machine paper rolls. The children could draw on the paper and it was very economical. What could you use in your classroom to allow the children to draw and take ownership of the space? Al says a best practice is to have a space on the wall that is a bulletin board for parents. This would include a lesson plan for the week and upcoming special projects. Within your classroom do you have a board to communicate to parents? What's typically on it?



For infants and toddlers, Al recommends unbreakable mirrors, pictures of their families, and pictures of familiar objects. He recommends different textures (eg. bumpy, soft, rough, etc) and for these objects to be very low on the ground. Why might these items be important for this age group? What are some ways you could utilize pictures of the children’s faces in the classroom? Al says that your children’s name should be on at least 5-7 places around their classroom. (eg. Home/School chart, leaders chart, clean up helpers, cubby space, coat hook, age chart, etc). What are some places you might have their names?



Al talks about having a routine for your classroom, explaining it to the children, and then reviewing it at the end of each day. Why might this structure help a child feel more comfortable in a new classroom? Would you feel comfortable explaining “empty walls” to your administrator at the beginning of the school year? What might give you a little more confidence to explain to your administrator your rationale of giving the children ownership? Vanessa says that a bonus of inviting the children to create things to put onto your walls is that now you have fewer lesson plans you have to create since this could be a suitable activity. If you reflect back on previous activities you have planned, how might they be tweaked so that they are now wall decorating activities?



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