User:KassMueller/sandbox

- Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Kindergarten Year (5-6 y/o)

In the Kindergarten Year, children are 5-6 years old, learning through play, community, and social interaction with peers. As a kindergarten teacher it is developmentally appropriate to be modeling positive social interactions in the classroom, fostering positive relationships between students of different cultures and ethnicities, give children leadership roles in the classroom, and teach in whole and small group settings, with peer interaction during instruction. It is important in this year that children spend the majority of the day moving, with little time sitting down and still. They should be working and developing their fine and gross motor skills through this daily movement. Children should also be spending time playing outside everyday, with a regular physical education schedule.

In kindergarten children should be learning body and spatial awareness, as well as key movements like balancing, jumping and catching objects of varied size. Children should have time daily to exercise their fine motor skills, such as through writing with utensils of varied size, using scissors, play dough, puzzles, etc. Along with physical development, kindergarten is a time when students should be developing self-help skills, which should be promoted by teachers through giving students daily activities that teach them to care for themselves. These activities would look like washing their hands, putting on jackets and cleaning up after their own classroom activity.

Teachers should be giving regular time in the classroom for students to be conversing with others, and working in small groups on projects that teach communication, listening and understanding skills. Teachers should provide opportunities for students to verbally respond to questions, describe scenarios, retell stories, and give directions. It is important that English Second Language students are integrated and involved in these discussions and peer work time, in order to develop their listening, speaking and understanding skills.

Academically students should be introducing phonological and phonemic awareness by implementing songs, poems, books, etc. Students should have books read to them on a daily basis. Books should be available in a classroom library at all times and contain a variety of story types. It is appropriate at this age that students be taught the sounds of letters, and writing should be encouraged throughout. Math is taught through manipulatives, block play, games, etc., and at this age it is natural for students to begin to try and make sense of the world through mathematics. Science is based off students natural curiosity and experiences. Science should be a hands on activity.

Technology should be integrated into the classroom through computers, and any other available technology in the classroom, but should foster problem solving and thinking, and by teachers to document children.

Copple, C. & Bredekamp, S. (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs: Serving children from birth through age 8. 3d ed. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

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Article Evaluation:

The article Im evaluating is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Head_Start

The article gives facts about Early Head Start, which is a federally funded education program for young children in low-income families. There are three different options depending on each family's needs, home-based, center-based, or a combination of the two.

The sources were reliable and scholarly.

Overall the article was informative, well written and reliable.

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Deschooling is the mental transition process a person goes through after being removed from a formal schooling environment. It usually refers to children who have been removed from school for the purpose of unschooling. But technically the term applies to any person leaving school, either by dropping out or graduating.