Preparations During the First Week of School

Prepare The Floor Space

·        Count the number of tables and chairs needed. Arrange to have the damaged furniture replaced and sufficient furniture brought in. Ask for needed items well ahead of time. Do not be hostile if things are not as you want them, especially if your requests are made at the last minute.

·        Administrators and custodians are truly helpful people and want quality education for the children as much as you do. Get to know them and you’ll discover that they are competent, cooperative, compassionate and helpful. They are not the ogres the negative teachers would want you to believe they are.

·        Even if you plan to change your room arrangement during the school year with the tables in rows facing the teacher. This minimizes distractions, allow you to monitor behavior more readily, and help you become familiar with the students in your class.

·        Tables do not have to be in traditional rows, but all chairs should face forward so that all eyes focus on you.

·        Place students’ tables where students can easily see the teacher during whole class or small group instruction.

·        Keep high traffic area clear. Do not put tables, chairs in front of door, sink or paper baskets.

·        Have a strategic location ready for student who need to be isolated from the rest of the class.

 

 

 

 

 

Prepare the Work Area

·        Arrange work areas and table so that you can easily see and monitor all the students and area no matter where you are in the room.

·        Students should be able to see you as well as frequently used whiteboard, bulletin board, screens, demonstration areas and displays

·        Keep traffic area clear, allow enough clearance to move up and down and around the last seat in the row.

·        Keep access to storage area, bookshelves, cabinets and door clear

·        Learn the regulations regarding fire, and have an escape plan, so that the classroom is ready for such emergency

·        Make sure that you have enough chairs for the work areas.

·        Be sure that you have all necessary materials for your work area, such as books, laboratory supplies, media, activity cards, tools and instruments.

·        Test your equipments to make sure that it works before you intend to use it.

·        Use trays, boxes, cans, dishpans, or whatever to store the materials students will need. Arrange your room for these to be readily accessible to the students.

·        Arrange the work areas so that activities can be carried out smoothly without waste of time in rearranging and cause confusion amongst students.

 

Prepare the Student Area

·        Save yourself many a headache, plan area for student belongings now. Provide space for their binders and workbooks, backpacks, tumblers, snack box, lost-and-found items

Prepare The Wall Space

The most effective class are those where the students are self disciplined, self motivated, and self responsible learners. Teach your students to consult the bulletin board for information on what to do and how to do it. You do this by teaching procedure and routine.

·        Cover one or more bulletin board with color paper and trim, and leave it bare. The purpose of this bulletin board is to display student work, not to be decorated by a teacher to look like a department store show window.

·        Display your discipline plan in a prominent place. You can relocate it after the first week.

·        Post procedures, assigned duties, calendars, clock, emergency information, escape plan, schedules, menus, charts, maps, decorations, birthdays and student work.

·        Have a consistent place for listing the day’s or week’s assignment.

·        Post a large example of the proper heading or style for paper to be done in class.

·        Post example of test student will take, assignments they will turn in and paper they will write.

·        Display the feature topic, theme, chapter or skill for the day or the current unit.

Prepare the Teacher Area

Maximize your proximity to student and frequently used materials and equipment. Time is lost when teachers and students waste steps to reach each others, gather materials or use classroom equipments.

The closer you are to your students, the more you will minimize your classroom behavior problems. When the teacher is physically close to the student and can get to them quickly, their on-task behavior increases. When the teacher is far from a student and cannot get to a student quickly, the student is more likely to stop working and disrupt others. Maximize your proximity to minimize your problems.

“A teacher’s discipline problem are directly proportional to the distance from the students”

·        Place the teacher’s table, file and other equipment so that they do not interfere with the flow of traffic. Do not create a barrier between yourself and your students. Place your table so that you can move quickly to a student 6to assist, reinforce or discipline.

·        Place the teacher’s table so that you can easily monitor the classroom while at your table or working with individual student.

·        Place the teacher’s table away from the door so that no one can take things from your table and quickly walk out.

·        If you choose to have everything on and in your table treated as personal property, make this clear during your teaching of classroom procedure and routine.

Prepare The Teaching Materials

·        Have a letter ready with the materials you want your students to bring from home. Have a place and a procedure ready for the storage of these materials

·        Have a method ready for matching students to a table. Have name cards ready and on students’ tables. Or use a chart correlating table arrangement with the students name

·        Have your basic materials ready for the first week of the school. These include books, papers, pencils, rulers, glue, markers, stapler, tape, eraser, color pencils, marking pens. And most of all a container or bag for these materials. Label your containers, and place in each an inventory card listing everything that should be in the container.

·        Store seldom-used materials out of the way, but be sure they are inventoried and ready for immediate use.

·        Place electronic media where there are electrical outlets and where the students will not trip over the wires. Have an extention cord adapter plug handy.

·        Organize and file your master,  extra worksheets so that they are immediately ready for any students who were absent or who need extra help.

Prepare Yourself

·        Keep your belongings in a safe location.

·        Have emergency materials handy, such as tissue paper, rags, paper towel, soap, first aid kit. Store this for your use, not for students

·        Obtain a syllabus guide and calendar for each of the subject that you teach.

·        Make sure you know the lesson plan formats that the administrator required. 

·        Obtain a supply of the forms that are used for daily school routines, such as attendance forms,  Since you will use these forms each day, place them where you can find them immediately.

 

 

How To Change The Culture Of Education

Education reform can be accomplished in the next 10 years by changing the culture of the new teachers coming into the profession. A major attribute of a profession is that there is a systemetic enculturation of it's new mwmbers - Jon Saphier The enculturation of new teachers begin with an induction program :- Without help and encuturation , beginning teachers perpetuate the status quo by teaching as they remember being taught. And if we do not reach these teachers, they will in turn listen to the same people with the same message and have things validated in the same way, and we will repeat the same cycle generation after generation in education, going no where. What is Induction Induction is s structured program that takes place before the first day of school for all newly hired teachers. During the induction process, effective principlas and senior teachers teaches their teachers how to become effective teachers. Training is the best way to send a message to your teachers that you value them and want them to succeed and stay. Much worse than training people and losing them is not training them and keeping them.

Parental Involvement in Preschool

Parental involvement (most commonly mothers' involvement) in preschool children's learning is instrumental in children's educational success. However, parents' work and family commitments prevent most of them from being physically present in preschools and from being involved in their children's learning. An action research approach was used in a case study of Bell Nursery in order to improve the quality of parental involvement among a group of working parents. The High/Scope curriculum was used at Bell Nursery. During periods of 'Plan-do-Review', nursery staff observed that children often planned rich play activities that were connected to their home culture. Three action strategies were implemented to increase and evaluate parental involvement: (1) ask parents and children to plan together at home (2) observe children's play during 'Plan-do-Review' time (3) ask parents about their involvement through planning As a result of parents and children planning together at home, clearer plans of activity were produced. Plans were continued and developed at both home and preschool. Planning at home resulted in a regular pattern of interaction between children, staff and parents. Staff reported that planning at home produced 'living play' that was based upon children's own lives. Living play enabled staff to develop an improved understanding of their teaching role, but also made them fear losing control of the preschool curriculum. Parents thought that 3-year olds were too young for planning, but 4- and 5-year-olds were capable planners. Although parents said that they were more involved in their children's learning, they did not know what children learned from the plans. There are important theoretical and practical implications of this action research. Policy makers and teachers must be aware of the importance of culture and context in children's learning. The crucial influence parents have on their children's culture and context must be allowed to feature strongly in the preschool curriculum.

Toilet Training

Toilet or potty training should generally take place between the age of 2 to 4 years. The child's chronological age is an important consideration when deciding readiness for toilet training. Boys often start later and takes longer to learn compare to girls. For children with special needs, it is important to consider their developmental age when deciding if toilet training is appropriate. for example, a 4-year-old child may not be ready for toilet training if his/her developmental age is lower than 2 years.

Sign to look out for when determining a child's readiness for toilet training :-

* Stay dry for two hours or more during the day.
* Wake up dry in the morning or after nap.
* Show regular bowel movement
* Able to follow instructions
* Able to balance self and sit on potty/toilet
* Able to pull down pants/diapers
* Show discomfort over soiled diapers or pants and want to be changed
* Facial expression, body language or words showa that child is about to urinate or
have a bowel movement
* Recognises sensation of a full bladder
* Shows interest in using thepotty/toilet or wearing underpants

For effective training, develop and consistantly follow regular scheduled times for using the potty/toilet. Carefully observe when the child urinate or has a bowel movement in order to develop an appropriate schedule. Start with a daytime schedule. Nightime training can start when the child has been fully trained during the day.

You can increase a child's success with urinating on a regular and predictable basis by increasing and monitoring their fluid intake during training periods. Let the child have additional fluid about 10 - 15 minutes before scheduled toileting times. Adjust the times and amount of fluid intake sos the learner is most likely to urinate in the potty/toilet during scheduled toilet breaks.

Many children with autism have unusual reactions to various sensory stimuli (i.e. sight, smell, tactile, sound) that can hinder their toilet training. a child may dislike being confined in a small toilet with dim or bright lighting. He/She may react negatively to the smell of disinfectant or the feel of cold tiles. He/She may also fear the sound of toilet flashing and noisy pipes. Watch out for these signs to help prepare the child with autism for what to expect. You may need to make changes to the toilet environment to make it more conducive for him/her.

Tips For Toilet Training

1. Never pressure the child to potty train, just offer exposure and experience. Inquire if the child would like going to the potty to 'pee pee'. If the child declines, ask him/her if he/she would like to join the other children while they use the potty/toilet

2. Peer pressuer and role modeling help promotes toilet training. Children tend to model their behavior on what they see as being appropriate and conform. Asking older peers to show the child how they go to the toilet may make the whole process easier.

3. When children show readiness, let them go without diaper. Children need to feel wet to get the concept of toilet training. take then to the toilet every hour on the minimum. For children who need more motivation, set a timer to go off every hour or help them set the timer.

4. It is often recommended that boys start training by learning to sit down to pee. Once he can comfortably pee and poop while sitting down he can be taught to pee while standing.

5. use simple words, particularly for children with special needs, when directing then or talking about using the toilet such as 'go wee wee' or 'poo poo'. As children grow older or become more verbal, use proper ssentences and give them proper names for their body parts.

6. Teach 'going to the toilet/potty' by using books, props and playacting. use a doll, teddy bear, potty, diapers, artificial poop etc. to help children understand better. Get then to participate by taking off the doll's diapers, sitting it on the potty or cleaning up with toilet paper etc. Such learning is fun and effective especially when conducted in agroup setting.

7. For children who are non-verbal, they can be taught to indicate their toileting needs by using gestures, signs or picture symbols

8. Visuals help in children's grasp of the toilet training concept. for children with special needs, a sequence of visual cues can be used to prompt them on 'what to do' when using the toilet.

9. It is important that parents and teachers/child care providers discuss their approaches to the toilet/potty training process and be entirely consistent in their approach.

(by Inclusive Link)

Raising Trilingual Kids

It is in fact very common for children everywhere not just in Malaysia or Singapore to acguire a second language through formal education than to continue their studies exclusively in the first language. We also see another phenomenon :- Parents starting multi language education for their children at a young age, and encouraging them to become at least thrilingual speakers.

The benefit of being trilingual are many. They are able move arround socially and gain rapport with others is integral to human socialising. Once there is mutual understanding, the children will have a head start to have a wider network of friends and relationships.

Children who are multiligual also tend to handle concepts in flexible, multiple ways. They have to digest and process a concept well before they are able to explain it in three different languages.

According to linguistic experts, the environment is crucial in terms of language input for the child. Generally if the environment is language rich, the child will eventually be able to make meaning of what he or she is hearing. there may be some mixing, but if parents speak to them consistently using complete sentences of a good quality, they will not have a lot of problems.

Another interesting method that the well regarded preschool uses is the One Person One Language approach. In this approach, children associate each person in their environment with one particular language. For example, mum speaks Maderine and dad speaks in English at home.

In school that is reinforced by having at least one English speaking and one Manderine speaking teacher in the class, which help children to associate the English language with one teacher and Chinese language with another teacher.

Associating a third language with an enrichment centre is also an option for some parents

The

Sibling Rivals

Sibling relationship are important in building character and problem solving skils. These relationship allow your children to practice negotiations, compromises and expressions that they willuse as they get older in the real world. As parents we often want to 'rescue' our children from uncomfortable situations. However it is importantr that parents give their children the opportunity and room to resolve conflict by themselves. It is therefore all right for your children to bicker if it is not excessive or results in aggressive towards one another. If your children seem to bicker frequently and are not able to devise a solution from it (i.e "you can have my teddy for 5 minutes and then it's my turn with it") then you may step in during this resolution stage. You can guide them by saying "it is nice to share. you can play together" or "Let's swop toys". Should your children follow your advice then praise is a great way to teach your children what to do in the future. Say something like this "Mummy is so proud that you two are playing nicely" or "I knew my kids were great at sharing."

Is Preschool really necessary ?

I'm sure many parents have asked this question at one time or another. Those who have travelled the preschool journey know that it is not an easy one. What can we expect from going through this process ? How do kids and parents cope separately ? Will this preschool option work for some parents / kids and not for others ? What are the implications of holding a kid back ? These are the new critical questions to ask.

Preschool education provides certain key benefits which are critical to a child's development.

For a strt they learn to adopt to a routine. Waking up early and sending kids to school is a good routineto adopt. In one sense parents are educating their children to get ready for school, and they are also getting ready for their day (work or otherwise)

While some parents would like their children to adopt early, social and academic skills, for other preschool education serves as a welcome break especially if there is no immediate family support.

Next, social expectation or intersaction is something that is difficult for us to assimilate for our children in the home environment. We rely on the preschool to teach our children these early skills.

Finally, most parents tend to do everything for the child but we know that preschool encourage children to be independant.

Nowadays, parents send their children topreschool earlier as they recognise the benefits. These days, children from 18 months to 6 years old attend prescchool, and they are enrolled in full or part time programme.