Teaching THE UNIT

First, I must say how much I enjoyed being in the classroom again teaching the little ones!  I just love their eager little faces and random comments. I start a conversation about Community with "We have been talking about Communities, and the people, buildings and things in your community like your families.." I am immediately interrupted with "I have a family!!!  I have Mommy, and Daddy and Tia and Gigi, and....." with other children also naming every member of their extended family. Since this is Pre-K and we focus our curriculum on children's interests, we have to follow this line of dialogue for a bit, until there is an opening to swing it back around to communities, and the topic at hand MAPS.

The technology worked well in this instance.  The children were very engaged with the maps projected on the white board.  Problems I encountered were:

• Pointer wasn't where I thought it was.... :/
• Child too short to reach the map to use marker on dry erase board and I couldn't lower map, so got him a step stool.
• Lunch was wheeled in on a cart and I lost everyone's attention to the LUNCH CART for several minutes.

What I'd do differently:

Even though the Teacher's Guide and Map instructions for Big Day call for talking about the compass rose.  With this particular group of mostly 2.9 and 3 year old children.  I would skip that and just focus on up= north, down = south.  East and west would be introduced and reviewed another day.

Using this type of technology with such young children could be frowned upon by purist early childhood leaders, who feel children should spend the day moving through experiential, kinesthetic activities. I felt the use of the white board lent itself to  a circle time activity that was not too academic, but more of an opportunity for young children to develop vocabulary, schema and spatial awareness. They were able to participate to their ability without stress, and were eager to do so.  2-3 children had no desire/ability to actively participate, so were allowed to participate passively. Earlier in the week I had walked in to find the children watching a Curious George video before nap time. I feel the children get enough screen time at home and frown upon use of the white board as a movie theater, but the children were engrossed, it was only 14 minutes long, and then they settled down nicely for nap.  In this situation the video did serve well as a transition tool, but I do not want to see this practice more than once or twice a month.

I am experiencing difficulty loading the video from the unit I wanted to share.  So far I have not been able to upload it to Facebook or YouTube. I will keep trying.