Balancing Curriculum and Play in Your Kindergarten Schedule ~ Ep. 48

Episode Summary

In this podcast, I discuss the importance of play in kindergarten, schedules, recommending at least 45 minutes of purposeful play daily. I differentiate between playful learning and purposeful play, offering practical tips for incorporating both in the classroom. Despite challenges, I emphasize the benefits of balancing play, literacy, math, and hands-on activities for holistic student development. I encourage you to prioritize purposeful play and playful learning for optimal learning outcomes.

In this episode, I share:

• planning a kindergarten schedule
• advocating for play in kindergarten
• differentiating playful learning and purposeful play
• connecting play areas to learning
• challenges of fitting everything in

Related Blog Posts:

• Starting Purposeful Play in Kindergarten? Outstanding!

Related Episode:

• Child-Led Play and Learning with Melysa from PRE-K Spot Talks ~ Ep. 27

Connect with Zeba:

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

Want specific help with planning your schedule?

Read the Transcript

[0:00] Hey, teacher friends. In the spring, I asked you what you wanted to hear about on the podcast, and overwhelmingly, people asked a couple of questions that were kind of related, so I’m kind of combining them here today, which is how to plan a kindergarten schedule, how to get all the curriculum areas crammed into a day while still leaving time for choice and exploration, and how to incorporate play in your day. So I’m going to try to answer all those questions in this podcast. I do want to just mention that every school is different. Every state is different in terms of like expectations. So in my school, I am given a schedule that I have to follow. And I don’t really have much say in the number of minutes that I have to have for literacy, math, all that stuff is provided by the district. States have different rules about how many minutes a day the kids are supposed to be doing, reading, writing, all that stuff. So I’m going to kind of be generic, knowing that every school is kind of different. And I know that some of you have to plan your own schedule from scratch. So I just want to be clear, I don’t have to do that. I’ve never had to do that. And I kind of share like what we do in our schedule.

[2:15] And every district is different. I’m not going to sit here and tell you, well, you need to have an hour, a minute, an hour of reading every day and an hour of writing. No, I’m not going to tell you that because every school has different requirements.

[2:28] What I will say, blanket statement for everyone, is there definitely should be play in your day on your schedule for kindergarten. So if you are making your own schedule, that’s something to focus on. Play is how kids learn. It is developmentally the most appropriate way for them to learn at this age. They gain so much learning during this playtime, and it’s the perfect time to integrate their learning and to really connect all the things that you’re teaching them in the different content areas. I know that there’s growing academic pressure to get rid of play and to prioritize academics and to have more, you know, sit at your desk and do these worksheets kind of like pressure. But as kindergarten teachers, it’s tasked on us to advocate for what we know kids need. Unfortunately, most school districts don’t advocate for that need. They forget all the insane amount of research there is that says, guess what, five-year-olds learn better from playtime. And then they’re all surprised when their third, Third, fourth and fifth graders have all these social emotional difficulties with their peers and they haven’t learned how to handle unstructured time and they can’t be successful at recess for 10 minutes because guess what? They’ve never learned how to successfully play with other people.

[3:49] Mind-boggling to me that people are then confused why this is happening when we look to kindergarten and see that there’s no play in the schedule. So unfortunately, it does fall to us to advocate for more playtime with the district, with our admin. We can share with them all the research. We can share with them the research like in the book Purposeful Play by Christine Mraz and Allison Porcelli and Cheryl Tyler. They mentioned that really the ideal amount of purposeful play a day for kindergarten is 45 minutes. So ideally, you would have 45 minutes of playtime in your schedule. Now, some people get their be all in a bonnet about just having the words play on their schedule. Okay, so what are some other things you could call it? One idea we had was purposeful play because all play is purposeful and all play is valuable. But saying purposeful makes it sound really important as opposed to just playtime, which just sounds like they’re just having fun. even though as teachers, we know that this is when they do their most important learning. But put that aside. Let’s call it something other than play. Choice time, I sometimes call it. Learning labs, I’ve called it. Center time, you could call it. You could kind of call all these different things.

[5:06] Imagination station, free choice, project time. There’s just lots of things that you you could call it. But sometimes that’s the issue is seeing play on the schedule. People freak out. But then as soon as you say project time, they’re like, oh, how developmentally appropriate. Great. Which is ridiculous. But so if you can, you’re finding 30 to 45 minutes a day for kids to play. The reason you need that long of a time is because it takes kids a while to get into their play, should choose where they’re going to play, how they’re going to play, to set up a plan, to actually act out the plan, to reflect on the plan, revise the plan, like all that is such valuable learning and valuable opportunities for them to practice. And when we shorten the play time, they don’t have time to do all of that. By the time they figure out what they want to do, boom, play time’s over. And then you have misbehaviors, you have tantrums because they did not get to actually try out this thing they’d been planning this whole time. You can also get a little bit more out of the play purposefully if you give them time to reflect on how their play went or to make a plan for the next day or to figure out like what materials are they going to need and who’s going to be what role. All that is really valuable and you need time to make that happen.

[6:28] You need time to introduce different play areas or different play materials that you’re purposefully choosing for them, knowing that it’s going to help them develop. So maybe you’re purposely choosing this new material for science and you want them to explore with it and do an observational drawing. Well, you’re going to have to teach them how to do that. You’re going to have to introduce that. That takes time. That’s why ideally it’s 30 to 45 minutes a day, if not an hour. I mean, if I can, there are days where like I sneak in and we’ll have like a special day and I can give them an hour or an hour and 15 minutes. Like they will play that long. They will be highly engaged. They will be working hard and enjoying their time. It just takes time to kind of build up that stamina if they’re not used to it. But having that long, if you can, that’s great. Do it if you can. am. But really, according to the research, ideally 45 minutes of play a day for kindergarten. Longer for younger kids, shorter for older kids, okay? Or fewer times a week. Now, that’s not always possible. That’s in an ideal world. So I understand that some programs, some schools refuse to let you have any play. Well, then you have different options. Can you close your door and give them and play time as they arrive in the mornings and maybe extend that a little longer because you know it’s what’s right for your kids.

[7:54] If not, maybe you can incorporate play into other times of your day. Because again, some of the issues is just seeing it on the schedule. I want to be clear about something here. And this is the hill I will die on. This is the hill that I will just run up and down 20 times a day because people do not understand this for some reason. And by people, I mean curriculum department heads and decision makers and policy makers and all that stuff. There is a difference between playful learning and purposeful play. When I say purposeful play, I just mean open-ended generic playtime for children. Playful learning is great. Playful learning is developmentally appropriate. Playful learning is hands-on. It’s games. It’s activities. activities, it’s centers, like that’s great. That’s how they should learn. But that is not open-ended playtime. Because in playful learning, you are still being very clear about what materials and activities you are putting out and you’re giving them strict choices and you have a timed rotation maybe, or you have a set of time that they can engage in these.

[9:07] It’s just not open-ended. It’s not free flowing. They can’t all go here and do this math game. They have to use a different math game. And then when that math game’s over, they have to go to a different math. It’s more structured, right? And it’s developmentally appropriate, but it’s not this chance for them to take the lead on choosing what play they want to do and how they want to do it and who’s taking on what role. And those decisions are so important and such important practice for them. They really don’t understand what to do with unstructured time. And so we have to give them the chance to practice it and really do it. So with that being said.

[9:45] If you are literally refused from giving the kids playtime on your schedule and you’ve been advocating for it, it’s still not working. Here are some ways that you can incorporate playful learning into your day. So if you have center time, you could add in a science center. You could add in game-based activities for word work. You could have more hands-on or sensory activities like making words or letters with Play-Doh or wiki sticks, drawing the letters or the words in sand. You could have them retelling stories with puppets or little stick figures or magnets, magnet retelling things, felt retelling things.

[10:28] So retelling is very playful, but very much full of literacy skills. It’s structured because you’re telling them the book to retell. They’re not just like imagining their own story, but it is playful learning, right, is good developmental practice for them instead of just saying, giving them a worksheet and say, draw what happened in the beginning, middle, and end. Like retelling is way more engaging. You get my point. You could have a storytelling box where you have some objects and you’re promoting oral language development and storytelling where they’re picking up the objects and telling their own story and making their own story up. That’s a cool way to make playful learning during literacy centers. Maybe during literacy centers, you can open up the dramatic play center or the sand table because you know that these centers do encourage crazy literacy development by all the talking that they’re doing and planning. And maybe you add in for the dramatic play center, maybe you add in writing opportunities, authentic writing opportunities like writing a menu or taking an order or adding a bill where you’re writing down done what the customer bought. Whatever your dramatic play center is, there’s always an opportunity to add in literacy. Maybe your dramatic play center relates to a book you’ve been reading in class.

[11:45] There’s different ways to connect those play areas to your literacy work, your math work. Maybe the block area has, you have a challenge for them based on a book you’ve been reading, like with Three Little Pigs. Maybe they have to make the house that’s not going to get blown down by the wolf, and then you have them try to blow the house down and see if they can do it. Or they’re connected to math. Block area is a great way to practice working with shapes and composing shapes and decomposing shapes and counting and science and engineering because they’re building structures like I could go on and on. We know there’s so much benefit to all the play areas and that there’s learning. So if we know that we can prove that, then maybe during some center time that you have, you not only have playful learning, but you have these centers open as well. Something to think about. Now, for me, how I plan my schedule, like I said, I’m given the schedule, so I don’t plan my schedule. I want to be open about that.

[12:40] Sometimes I wish I planned my schedule. Sometimes I can change my schedule around and be like a little bit flexible to the kids in front of me, but I do have to adhere to different district requirements because other people’s schedules depend on my schedule, special ed, ELL, literacy, all that stuff. But I do have time in my day for play at the beginning of the day. It’s not as long as I would want. So there comes in the advocacy a z-piece, there comes in the close my door and do its best for kids, extending the playtime a little bit, knowing that the playtime that they’re doing is them learning, is them doing the work. And I also find time during the day for playful learning because that is important as well. I don’t think it should replace playtime because the kids need the opportunity for choice. They need the opportunity to lead their own work and make their own plan and all that stuff. follow their own path. But it’s just good teaching for this age group. It’s just good developmentally appropriate practice.

[13:41] So I really hope I answered your questions that you asked me on how to fit it all in, because that is the question we’re all asking, how to fit it all in. And I think at the end of the day, my thought is every day you’re teaching them important skills, and every day they’re learning new important things, and you’re moving them closer to where they need to be at the end of the year. And you’re going to hit the standards again and again and again. You’re not going to hit them once and be done with it forever. So like at the end of the day, if we can prove that we’re hitting the standards in different ways through playful learning, through play-based learning, like, I don’t know, I’m kind of rambling on here, but I guess you’re not, my point is you’re not going to get it all done in one day. You’re not never going to fit it all in in one day, but every day you will move them closer to fitting it all in. And thinking that you need to fit it all in in one day and you need to do it all perfectly in one day and they need to like it’s just it’s gonna burn you out so I guess I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.

[14:42] That you’re not going to fit it all in one day. It’s not possible. In an ideal world, you set up your schedule so that you have distinct play time, that you have literacy time, you have math time, you have science and social studies. For us, we kind of rotate those or integrate them together. You have time for kids to be hands-on with their learning, flexible.

[15:02] Center time, playful learning, stuff like that, because that’s where they’re really going to practice what you’ve been teaching them, really put it all together. I don’t really have a good answer for you, but I want to have a good answer for you. So I’m struggling with that a little bit, but how to fit it all in. And I guess it’s just important for you to know that you probably can’t fit it all in. It’s not going to be perfect because you’re up against demands from the district and the school and all these different things, but you’re going to do your best every day. And every day your kids are going to learn and you’re going to move them closer to where they should be at the end of the year. And you’re going to hit the standards over and over and over again because that’s how they learn. You can’t just teach the standard once and call it done. Like you’re going to hit the standards multiple times and in multiple ways. And that’s the best way to teach them. I hope that helped. Please let me know if that helped because I’m feeling uneasy about that. I wish I had better answers for you. You’re all in such different places too with like your schedule demands, what’s given to you, what’s not given into you, what’s demanded of you, what’s required. Like, if you want to talk more about this, if you want me to look at your requirements and your schedule, just reach out. Send me an email, send me a DM. We can chat anytime. I’m happy to help you think this through. All right, our quote of the day has to do with playtime. A boy was playing with a car and was asked to kind of describe it. And, you know, he’s playing with the toy car and he goes, well, the car delivers you to New Hampshire.

[16:28] Being in Massachusetts, you can totally imagine this boy clearly goes to New Hampshire on weekends away, and that’s like the only time he associates with being in the car. But so that’s where all this stuff learning comes out. It’s playtime, right? Anyway, hope I answered your questions. Let me know if you have more. I’m happy to chat more and share this episode with a friend that you think might find it helpful or leave a review.

[16:54] Music.