Balancing Curriculum and Development: Teaching with Young Learners in Mind ~ Ep. 62

Episode Summary

How do we balance developmentally appropriate practices and the structured nature of elementary-focused curricula in early childhood education? That’s what this episode is about. There is a disconnect between the holistic approach of early childhood education and the more isolated curriculum areas typical of elementary education. I discuss practical instructional shifts that can be made, including the need for shorter, dynamic lessons and the incorporation of playful, hands-on activities to engage young learners. Providing choices in learning to enhance student engagement and ownership is so important. Throughout this episode, you will hear me stress the importance of leveraging play as an educational tool. By reflecting on our teaching strategies and prioritizing developmentally appropriate practices, we can enrich learning experiences for young children.

In this episode, I share:

• Developmentally Appropriate Practice
• Understanding Curriculum Discrepancies
• The Importance of Play in Learning
• Reflection on Expectations and Learning

Related Episodes:

• Balancing Curriculum and Play in Your Kindergarten Schedule ~ Ep. 48
• Easy Lesson Engagement Strategies ~ Episode 34

Connect with Zeba:

• Instagram – @kindergartencafe
• Facebook – @kindergartencafe
• Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
• Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe

Read the Transcript

[0:00] Hey teacher friends, today we are talking about how to balance developmentally appropriate practice, what we know as early childhood educators is good for young children and their learning, balancing that with the demands of intense curriculums, scripted curriculums, elementary focused curriculums. We’re going to get into why there’s a disconnect and also how, what we can do about it. I know this is a question a lot of you have, and so let’s get into it.

[0:32] Music. You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone.

[1:13] Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.

[1:26] So what do I mean by developmentally appropriate practice? Well, I think it’s important to know that the people who create curriculums, people who make curriculum decisions, the people who are in our administration, all of those people tend to have a background in elementary education.

[1:47] And when I was in undergrad, I noticed a very big difference between the elementary education program and the way that they taught teachers to teach versus the early childhood education program. So in Massachusetts, that’s pre-K through second grade was early childhood and first grade through sixth grade was elementary. So I know it’s different state to state, but that was my experience in Massachusetts. But either way, I think that the key differences, no matter what the grade level distinction is in your state, the differences remain between the way we teach teachers and prepare teachers for early childhood education versus elementary education. What I noticed was elementary education was very focused on the silos of each curriculum area, so like teaching math as math, teaching literacy as literacy, teaching science as science, and it was very focused on how to teach those curriculums and how to make the lessons for the kids. It was very curricular focused. Early childhood, what I noticed was more focused on child development, understanding the development of the whole child, the social emotional, the language.

[3:04] The gross motor, all of these things in addition to the cognitive development. And then the learning that we did was tended to be on how we can combine a lot of these curriculum areas into ways that make sense to the child and then ways to be developmentally appropriate when teaching the young children. So I don’t know if you noticed that when you were in your teacher prep program, I’d be very curious to know, like if you studied elementary, if you studied early childhood, what your thoughts were. That’s what I’ve noticed. And so when I think about the people making the decisions, the people making the curriculum, they’re going off of their background of elementary teaching, where the curriculum areas are separate and the curriculum areas are more teacher driven of the teacher gives the information, the students take it in, they practice. It’s less on the whole child. And so I think that’s where we see issues when we’re trying to take this elementary curriculum and use it in kindergarten with young children, with young learners. I think that’s where we see a disconnect.

[4:16] So I’m going to talk to you about some ways that we can take the curriculum that we’re given that’s written for elementary, has to be the same structures K through 5, which like fifth graders are very different kinds of learners than kindergartners. And ways we can make it more developmentally appropriate. So one small shift that we can do is the work expectation, the work time expectation for our young students. They have very short attention spans. And when we ask them to work longer, sit longer than they should, it leads to misbehavior. It leads to disengagement. This is why we have issues on the rug when we have 20 minute lessons. We can’t even blame the children when they start misbehaving after that long, because they literally, they can’t do that. They can’t sit for that long and we’re asking them to. So no wonder they’re going to start talking to their rug mate or start touching things on the rug or start rolling around on the floor. When we keep it short, we help keep them behaving the way we expect.

[5:17] Same with work times. You know, there’s a curriculum that I use where the reading and writing sessions for kids, they’re supposed to be independently reading and independently writing for 20, 30, 40 minutes.

[5:34] And I’m sorry, but have you ever met a five-year-old? Clearly not. Because they can’t do that. And when we push them to do that, that’s when misbehaviors happen. That’s when kids start crying because you’re asking them to write. That’s when kids start getting up out of their seat and, you know, bothering other kids. That’s when misbehaviors happen. So when we keep it short for like 10, 15 minutes at max right now in the fall, winter, I’m sticking with 10, 12 minutes of like independent work time. And then we change it up. So we can use things like hands-on practice to keep it way more engaging. We can use like wiki sticks or play-doh or sand or shaving cream to practice writing letters or writing our sight words we can make things more gamified making the learning through games so using roll and write activities using board games for practicing identifying letters or sounds or reading or go fish i mean these are all such fun ways to practice the skills we’re teaching them way more developmentally appropriate than saying, sit at your seat and read for 20 minutes. They can’t do that. They just can’t. And if someone’s saying that they can, again, have they ever met a five-year-old?

[6:52] There was a time where I felt like a bad teacher because my kids would have such bad behaviors when I was asking them to write for 25, 30 minutes, the last block of the day. So it’s like three o’clock and they’re misbehaving and getting up out of their seats and I’m getting frustrated with them and I’m feeling like a bad teacher because they can’t do it. It took me a long time to realize I’m not the problem. The expectation is the problem. The kids aren’t the problem. The expectation is the problem. I’m asking them to do something that they can’t do. And something that, a phrase that I like to think a lot when this stuff comes up is, just because they can, doesn’t mean they should. Can they sit and write for 25 minutes?

[7:41] Some of them, I suppose. And so some people take that as like, they should be doing that. But no, it doesn’t mean they should. Just because they can, doesn’t mean they should. It’s not what’s best for them as learners. They need to keep it short, and then they need hands-on practice. They need games. They need playful learning as ways to practice what you’ve been teaching them. The same thing in math. I always do a little whole class activity or a whole class lesson, but my main practice time, I don’t want to be worksheets. I don’t want it to be sit at the table and solve this problem and have it be the whole time. I want my kids to spend the bulk of their time doing hands-on activities, practice, games, playful learning. That hands-on learning is just so important. And so we use centers and they can change centers. Having choice is so important.

[8:38] Choice lets them be way more engaged. So let them choose the center that they go to. Let them choose which game they play to practice the skill. In that time where they are hands-on, playfully learning and practicing what we taught them, that’s where they’re getting their best practice in. That’s where they’re doing their best learning. It’s not from them sitting on the rug for 20 minutes discussing a problem. It’s from that hands-on learning. So I’m not saying don’t do the whole class lesson. Just keep it short and keep it mindful that young children can’t sit on the rug for 20 minutes. And if you are, you know, it’s happened to me, but I’m keeping them on the rug because I’m just trying to get through one more thing, one more thing that I just want to get through that like the main teaching point, I want to get this in. And then I start to see behaviors on the rug. I can’t get mad at them for that. They’re telling me it’s been too long on the rug. And so if you’re seeing a lot of behaviors on the rug, which I know many teachers are, and there’s lots of reasons for that. One of the things you might want to look at is are the behaviors happening throughout the lesson or towards the end when you’re keeping them on the rug maybe too long. Maybe try keeping them on the rug for a shorter time and see how that helps.

[9:49] Same with during practice time. Is it after five minutes of reading? Are they all getting out of their seats and misbehaving? Well, maybe we start the clock at five minutes of stamina and then add in extra hands-on playful learning and see how they do with that and then build up their stamina to increase that independent work time. This is why center-based learning I think is so beneficial for young children in a way that is just different from other grades in the elementary school. So the centers add that playful learning. They add that hands-on learning. They add that choice. Hopefully, the kids can choose which centers they go to or how they do the centers, how long they stay at a center. I mean, that’s all up to you. I have a whole podcast talking about centers, so I’ll link that below. But the idea is to include hands-on learning, playful learning, and practice for literacy and math. I think they’re beneficial for both areas.

[10:48] And the aspect of choice is so important. So centers can do all of that. And when kids are engaged, they are learning. They’re not misbehaving. Like that’s the key is you want kids engaged and the misbehaviors will decrease dramatically. Exactly.

[11:04] Another way to do this is through play. And I know schools are getting rid of play left and right, and it breaks my heart. And we have talked about how I balance play with my curriculum before. So I won’t get into it too much, but I just think that kids learn through play and not everyone in administration and curriculum gets that. And so if you know that you’re meeting a teaching point through play, then that’s great. Do that instead.

[11:34] In science for play, we have a science area where they’re constantly observing different things. And our sand table or water table is all science, right? They’re observing the changing states and they’re doing their own little experiments right then and there. And even in the block area, they’re doing some engineering, right? They’re doing all this stuff in those play areas. So do I need to go then do like a worksheet on changing matter, I’d rather not. I’d rather let them just play in the water table and talk about it and then maybe talk about it as a whole class, see what people think.

[12:08] Same with social studies, you know, the dramatic play or block area can really connect to those more complex topics that you’re using read-alouds for, exploration, maybe they can build their own community, and then that’s way more beneficial than going through and doing a worksheet on the different parts of a community, right? If they can actually just build it and play with it, oh, so much more powerful. So just to recap, there’s a reason why the curriculum you’re being given or routines you’re being asked to do are probably not working for your young learners. And that’s probably because they’re not developmentally appropriate. They’re written or created by someone who doesn’t understand the young learner,

[12:47] the early childhood student, and they understand more the elementary framework. And if you’re seeing those misbehaviors on the rug during learning time, it might be time for you to reflect on the expectations that you’re putting on the kids and maybe change it up a little bit to include more hands-on learning, playful learning, and less sitting at their seat or sitting on the rug doing their own work for 20, 30, 40, 60 minutes.

[13:16] Doing that hands-on learning, that playful learning, it doesn’t actually compromise the academic standard. It complements it. It enhances it. It gives children another chance to practice and come at it from a different angle. And it really helps make connections between all the things that you’re teaching as opposed to just being, you know, one worksheet on one topic. They’re really practicing lots of skills at the same time. So I’d love to hear from you. I’d love to hear what your opinions are on this matter. So send me a message. Give me the code word developmentally appropriate. It’s two words. I know. And let me know what you think. Let me know your thoughts. Do you see the same thing that I’m seeing?

[13:55] Did you try changing up your lesson? And how did that help your behaviors? I want to know. I want to know it all. And next week, we’re going to be talking about creative winter play ideas. So if you’re like, I want to do more play, I don’t know how to do more play. Stay tuned next week because we’ll be talking all about play with a winter theme. Okay. Okay, quote of the day, six-year-old boy said, oh, if Godzilla were real, I’d be so happy.

[14:26] That was not what I was expecting him to say, was happy. I was expecting him to be like, I don’t know, scared. But I love it. So that is the quote of the day. And I hope you enjoyed this

[14:40] episode and found it helpful. Please leave a review. It really goes a long way to sharing the message of the podcast and have a great day.

[14:47] Music.

[14:53] Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.