Early Childhood - Connecticut State Department of Education

Curriculum Chapter 2
TEACHER BEST PRACTICES
Keeping The Children In Mind
• Know growth and developmental characteristics
for the age you teach and at least a
year above and below.
• Gather information by observing and recording
regularly so you can be confident
of your children’s current ability levels and
interests in order to provoke appropriate
activities.
• Become familiar with the community and
families/guardians of the children you
teach.
• Modify planning on an ongoing basis to
build on the needs and strengths of your
children.
• Include children in the planning and preparation
phases.
• Follow up on ideas that children contribute.
• Support and guide children in the understanding
that we can build on one another’s
ideas.
• Create goals that provide opportunities for
nondisabled and disabled children to interact,
support and collaborate regularly.
Play-Based Learning Centers
• Model play behaviors within the children’s
range of abilities so as to encourage social
skills, language development, problem
solving and reasoning.
• Get into the moment with the children.
Your role as facilitator can energize the play
and keep it moving.
• Invest time in promoting dramatic play.
Promote the use of language, symbolization
and getting into character.
• Once centers are established, organize
teachers and other adults with specific roles
each day: observe in blocks; facilitate a
literacy-related book-making activity; float
throughout the room to maintain balance
and productivity.
• Strive for centers that provoke the
imagination, stimulate inquiry and promote
problem solving by using unusual materials
that are open-ended and suggestive.
• Plan regularly to revitalize centers by
adding, deleting and choosing materials
that create varying levels of complexity and
difficulty.
22
• Systematically assess your centers to
determine if they are in touch with the
children’s interests and questions.
Thematic/Project Approach
• Observe and reflect on children’s actions,
interests and conversations.
• Think of yourself as a learner. Bring to
the class your interests and questions as a
model learner.
• Plan time for discussion with the class to
uncover possible questions.
• Hold discussions with the children
throughout the life of a project to determine
continuing interest and new directions.
• Avoid broad questions such as, What do
you want to learn about? These can become
laundry lists of what “pops” into the
children’s minds.
• Re-train your eye to notice unusual, flexible
materials and supplies for provoking and
sustaining children’s questions.
• Save materials and ideas from past
experiences, but avoid the temptation of
packaging these activities for use year after
year.
• Be knowledgeable about the key concepts,
facts and principles for each content/
discipline area. This information can be
tailored to the age and experience of the
children.
• Plan with starting points in mind for
activities, but be flexible based on the
children’s abilities and interests.
Planning Considerations
• Plan for a variety of types of questions to be
used throughout the day.
• Use multicultural resources to complement
and enhance all aspects of the curriculum.
• Strive for the appropriate balance between
teacher-directed and child-initiated learning.
• Use parents as resources. Involve them in
activities, projects and themes.
• Ask: Will the curriculum plan cover all of
the developmental domains?
Is the child’s culture and community
reflected?
Are special-needs children able to
participate with accommodations?
How will parents be involved
in our classroom work?