We Have A Date !
In order to know how long we have to complete our project it was necessary to set a date for our puppet show. Some early childhood settings do calendar time every day. I certainly did in the past. It’s another useless rote teaching method that children 3-5 get nothing from . I mean, they can’t check a calendar and schedule their own play dates. In most cases calendar time is used as another way to teach numbers and counting. We look at a calendar when it has meaning for us.
Me : If you want to have a puppet show and we want to invite others we need to schedule a day . That way we know what to put on the invitations. Who knows what this is ?
Children : Paper ( Some said a calendar.)
Me: What is it used for ?
Children : To tell time. To find birthdays .
Me: A clock is used to tell time . We need it to know when lunch time is or when it is time to go home or to bed. A calendar is not about time or minutes it helps us know what the day is.
I showed them the calendar and when I would be gone. Pax pointed out that his birthday is in February . We had a hard time picking a day. Finally I narrowed it down to three days and we made a graph.
( I showed Holly an old preschool teachers trick. ALMOST always.. when you give a child more than one choice they will choose the one you say last. Like.. do you want Wednesday, Thursday or Friday ? They would chose Friday. I even mixed it up. Do you want Thursday , Friday or Wednesday ? They would chose Wednesday . There are exceptions to the rule especially if the child is in a group . Many times they will answer what the child before them says regardless. This works out well when you want to sway a vote. Try it at home ! 🙂
So , it looks like Friday the 28th will be our puppet show. Most likely we will do two of them We will do one at lunch and one at the end of the day. Pencil that in your calendar.
You might be wondering why is Ms Debbie against calendar time or teaching days of the week? I wouldn’t say I am AGAINST it.. I mean, maybe.. it isn’t harmful. But if you ask your child what they did yesterday or plan to do tomorrow and they don’t get those concepts yet there is ZERO reason they should be able to name the days of the week in order.
Any who— some other wonderful ways I saw evidence of learning today :
Nathan looked at a book and then made his own complete with pictures and correct words he copied.
Khloe made a book too . She is into rhyming and she told me what to write and I dictated. It was a cute rhyming book.
Scarlett was caught “reading” to Annalise . Look at her finger tracing the path of the words. 🙂
And we had friends helping friends calm down in our safe spot. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT LEARNING PIECE ….
But back to that calendar time. If you are really concerned about counting still – today we :
Counted how many apples we needed
Counted how many carrots we needed
Counted names on the graph
Counted blocks
Counted paint bottles as we filled them
Counted chairs
Counted cups
Counted as we washed our hands ( to 20 )
Counted plates, cups and silverware to set the table
And then there are materials like this EVERYWHERE that we can play with and count and sort all day long.
