Project-Based Fun in PV

When I tell people that I am a Kindergarten teacher, I have a feeling they immediately picture a room covered in glittery paste and a lot of sitting around in a circle singing about sharing. I also imagine that they think I might have a partiality to flower prints and that I’m really, really nice. But in a weird way.

So, all of those things are actually true except the flower print preference. There is so much glitter and so much glue. There’s a lot of singing, because if you give children directions in your speaking voice, many of them will hear you, but if you do it in your singing voice, they will truly listen.  Not only that, I’m definitely nice and even more definitely weird.

But what they might not know is that I have a master’s degree with a post baccalaureate certificate in early childhood education. They also might not realize, until they ask me one single question about my job, that I am absolutely and totally passionate about being an early childhood educator. I have spent more than half my life in education, with most of that dedicated to the investigation and practice of teaching children aged three to six years old.

I wanted to be a teacher since I was a child myself. Nearly every day I look around my classroom and pinch myself, because this is exactly what I dreamed of when I was in my student teaching practice: to work in a school that trusted me enough to develop a program where students learn the way they should – through play, through real experiences, through projects.

I have been at my school, the American School of Puerto Vallarta, for nearly eighteen years. I was hired to teach Kindergarten. When I had been at the school for three years, I asked my principal if I could be promoted to Early Childhood Coordinator, while continuing to teach full time. She, having not only faith in me but a great sense of humor, said sure, I could do an extra job while continuing to keep my full time job.

My colleague (a Spanish teacher with a similar educational philosophy) and I developed a project- and standards-based program that emphasized play as a medium to advance learning. We received training in the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, and also continued to research and practice ways to use projects to develop knowledge and skills in our students.

By the time they are six, our children have learned to build structures, make plans and blueprints, and contribute ideas in a group. They learn to write because they need a menu in the restaurant they are making, and they learn to paint and create sculptures when they visit Vallarta’s galleries and Malecon. They learn to use numbers by exchanging play money in a class-made jewelry store (the same principal tried to short change one of the three-year-olds, who chased her down with the receipt and asked her politely to pay up).

Our students invite experts into the classroom and ask them questions (one of my students asked a bat expert if bats really do turn into vampires. You can imagine the collective sigh of relief with his answer). Our children run to their classrooms the minute the gate opens at 7:45am.

The program regularly opens its doors to families to view the students’ art galleries and stores of their own invention. Our parents are invited to museums and sing-a-longs and activity days.

And, now, you are invited too. If you are curious about project-based learning, and you wonder if it would be right for your child, you may want to drop by. My kindergarten students have been investigating a variety of topics related to construction, and they would like to share what they’ve learned with our Vallarta community. We completed our project with a study about museums, and they feel that this will be a great way to showcase everything they’ve built.

They all built permanent sand castle sculptures based on  blueprints that they each drew up

They would love for you and your young children to come to the Shiny Bright Castle Museum (the name agreed upon after a lively debate over how shiny and bright the museum would be) on Wednesday, March 21^st, from 6 to 8pm at the ASPV Early Childhood Playground. Come ready to be dazzled and come ready to play.

Technology and Me

In the field of education they say it’s important to keep up with the latest innovations in technology. If you know and care about me, this will send a chill into the deepest depths of your digestive tract, because it’s an understatement to say that I am not up on the latest innovations in technology.

I am so behind that they have stopped looking for me. I am so behind that I don’t even know what I’m behind on. I’m so behind that, when someone told me that I should download Google Photos, I excitedly got on my phone to do so and realized that I already had it and had been using it for almost a year, unawares. (Sorry, I can’t explain it better than that, because I will stop knowing what I’m talking about).
I can’t blame it on my generation because my parents know more about technology than I do. I can’t blame it on my education because I am surrounded by people with the same education as I have who do tech-y things that I don’t know enough about to tell you. I can’t blame it on my intelligence because I know a lot about things that don’t start with “mega” or end in “bytes” (Or are those no longer even the things I should know about? Help me).
But I can tell you what I know about children and why we carefully monitor the use of technology in the early childhood years in the school where I am the EC coordinator (and not just to deflect the attention from my embarrassing confession).
1) Screens are not normally the most useful language learning tool for young children. Language learning for young children is most effective when they have immediate and specific social feedback from the people with whom they are communicating. This feedback tells them a lot about their speech and helps develop its complexity in so many ways.

2) It’s recommended that children over two don’t get more than two hours of screen time per day. The actual average is much more than that. Children will usually not suffer a lack of screen if they don’t get it all day at school.
3) Currently many of the “educational” games and apps for young children do not promote a lot of social interaction or multiple solutions to a single problem the way that socio-dramatic play does. Even a simple pile of blocks can fall in many different directions depending on how they are stacked and who is helping you. This is important information for a young, growing brain. Creative thinking and real world problem solving need to be fostered in order to have a future generation that will advance technology. What’s more, social skills are in a critical stage of development between the ages of three and six.
4) Technology does absolutely have a place in an early childhood setting.
5) Uh, what did I just say in number four?
Yep, it’s a changing world and technology is growing every day. Children are fascinated and easily engaged by technology. It definitely has its place, even in my own classroom, where many of the kindergartners have had more experience than their teacher with the latest apps. If used in a collaborative, meaningful setting, children can learn that technology is a powerful tool that enables them to find answers in their everyday lives.
In my kindergarten class, for example, my students were planning to build permanent sand castle models. An architect came and showed them what elements were needed and how blueprints were used by projecting his laptop images on a large screen.
When the children decided they wanted to make a play vet clinic in our classroom, we visited the vet, took photos, then used the digital photos in groups of two to plan how to build the tools we needed in the clinic.
We watched video clips of the first moon walk and used them to plan out our own moon landing play area outside on our playground.
Technology is here to stay, whether I can find my data on that invisible cloud or not. I watch my young students use it in ways that I never imagined even five years ago, and I know that there’s still hope for me to figure out my Google Photo app.

 

Kindergarten Graduation

When I turned six and it was time to graduate from kindergarten, I made my own hat out of construction paper. We sang a song that I think was about ducks and they handed me a handwritten diploma. They also gave me a Popsicle, which I understand was standard kindergarten graduation issue in those days. There’s a picture of my class in drooping paper hats. I’m holding a diploma and wearing a flowered dress, both liberally stained with orange Popsicle juice. And I look absolutely thrilled about the whole situation.

These days, kindergarten graduations involve a bit more pomp and circumstance. As a matter of fact, we play “Pomp and Circumstance” at our graduation. Our children don’t just get a Popsicle, they get a brunch. When I was six, I didn’t know what brunch was, although I’m certain I would have gladly eaten one.

I am a kindergarten teacher, and so this is an event I plan. But I find the day of graduation to be a little stressful, and I’ll tell you why.  Even if you don’t have a calendar, you will be able to know that we have reached the date of our annual Kindergarten graduation at the American School of Puerto Vallarta. Here are some handy signs:

• A hurricane threatens to pour several inches of rain directly into our town.
• If the hurricane passes, it is the hottest day of the year so far.
• The electricity goes out around 9am that day.

I know I sound like a doomsday prophet, but it’s pretty easy to predict these things if they never fail to happen. Weather conditions in Vallarta this time of year resemble Old Testament times so closely that prophets in those days would have made a decent living here.

Nevertheless, this is to be the moment I have been looking forward to all year. I have done what some would call impossible: I have turned a group of twenty preschoolers into a class of primary school children. It’s a proud moment, it’s a milestone, and chances are I will spend the entire ceremony fighting back an ugly cry.

I am not struggling with tears because I am sad. I adore my students but I can tell you that by June, these people need to go to primary. They are brilliant and want to show the world. And I am ready to let them go and show their next teacher what a great job I did. No, I’m not crying because I want to keep them with me. I am crying for the following reasons:

• I am thinking about how I hope I don’t cry this time.
• They are wearing adorable little caps and gowns. LITTLE CAPS AND GOWNS. This is kindergarten teacher kryptonite.
• I just watched my class of little guys walk up the aisle to “Pomp and Circumstance”, trying so hard to look grown up and dignified, but 90% of them have their hats on backwards because they like it better.
• I am remembering the time they forgot how to read “the” after 4 months of constant discussion about the word “the” (yes, it’s unfortunately possible to discuss the word “the”), but now they all read that word and so very many more.
• One of my students has just asked me, using the big, batting eyes, “But who will take care of us next year?” Aw C’MON kid, you’re killing me.
• I just handed a diploma to a munchkin and he hugged me around my legs instead of the dignified handshake. I loved it.
• I am reminded, once again, how important it is to be passionate about what you do. And how wonderful it is to love those with whom you spend your days.

Congratulations to all of our graduates here in the Bay! May your dreams come true, as abundantly as there were Popsicles melting in the hand of every child in the spring of 1979.