Friday, August 24, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Clean-up Time
http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.ca/2010/02/clean-up-time-its-not-my-school-its.html
This article contains examples of the philosophy of community that we strive to bring our young learners at "clean-up time". For example:
"Rather than being an annoying, yet necessary part of our day to hurry through, this act of coming together to care for our school is the single most important community building activity on our daily schedule."
We (the teachers) try make simple informational statements like, "There's a block on the floor," or "The dolls go in the crib." rather than give commands.
We notice effort with statements "Max is helping clean-up the drama area," "Alex is putting the stuffed animals in the basket," rather than thanks - they are not helping us (the teachers) clean our room, they are making the decision to clean their room.
"When children continue to play during clean-up, I give them informational statements like, "This is not playing time, it's clean-up time," or "That's closed. We're cleaning up now." I then follow it up with a directly applicable informational statement like, "The playdough goes in the playdough container."
When a child wants to talk to me during clean-up time, I ask, "Is it about clean-up?" If they say, "No," I answer, "You'll have to save it until circle time because it's clean-up time now. I only want to talk about clean-up." My own desires and opinions are informational statements and during clean-up time I'm a single purpose clean-up machine.
When a child simply retires to a corner with a book, or sits quietly, I generally just let it go. That child will eventually join us, if not today, then in the future.
And finally... in those rare instances when a child steadfastly continues to play in a way the disrupts or impedes the group activity of clean-up, she is given the choice to either join clean-up or "stay out of the way"
Early in the year we teach clean-up strategies specifically through circle games and modelling. We involve our students in making decisions about how to organize our toys and materials, to deepen their ownership and understanding of where and why we put things away.
We (the teachers) try make simple informational statements like, "There's a block on the floor," or "The dolls go in the crib." rather than give commands.
We notice effort with statements "Max is helping clean-up the drama area," "Alex is putting the stuffed animals in the basket," rather than thanks - they are not helping us (the teachers) clean our room, they are making the decision to clean their room.
"When children continue to play during clean-up, I give them informational statements like, "This is not playing time, it's clean-up time," or "That's closed. We're cleaning up now." I then follow it up with a directly applicable informational statement like, "The playdough goes in the playdough container."
When a child wants to talk to me during clean-up time, I ask, "Is it about clean-up?" If they say, "No," I answer, "You'll have to save it until circle time because it's clean-up time now. I only want to talk about clean-up." My own desires and opinions are informational statements and during clean-up time I'm a single purpose clean-up machine.
When a child simply retires to a corner with a book, or sits quietly, I generally just let it go. That child will eventually join us, if not today, then in the future.
And finally... in those rare instances when a child steadfastly continues to play in a way the disrupts or impedes the group activity of clean-up, she is given the choice to either join clean-up or "stay out of the way"
Early in the year we teach clean-up strategies specifically through circle games and modelling. We involve our students in making decisions about how to organize our toys and materials, to deepen their ownership and understanding of where and why we put things away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)