Ideas from the Field

Don't forget to tell your employees how much you appreciate the work they do and how much you value their service and dedication.

I am writing through tears because I just received news that the infant brother of a past student, and brother of a prospective student, died last night in his crib. Mother found that the baby suffocated on his vomit because he was placed on his back for a nap, as was instructed by the medical community, and early care professionals.

As a director I have to follow the rule of placing a baby on his/her back, something I know from personl experience that can lead to death. On August 11, 2008, (yesterday) I saved a baby's life while he was playing on his back in his crib. His care giver was sitting in a chair close to him feeding another infant, heard him playing, but did not see, or heard when he threw-up, and was about to be suffocated by his vomit. Luckily I walked in just in time to clear his nose and mouth. Yes, he was burped and waited several minutes before he was placed in his crib. Yes, in my 27 years, 7 months and 11 days workng at the center, that was not my first experience.

I know from the saving of my life that placing a baby on his/her back does more harm than good. When I entered my early teens , my mother told me that a dog saved my life. Lying on my back, playing, I began to stifle from my vomit and would have choked to death if it were not for the agitated barking of a pet dog that alerted her that something was wrong. She was just in time to clear my nose and mouth.

We all hear about SIDS. I have no doubt that SIDS is caused by babies spitting up and suffocating on their vomit. Doctor's don't know everthing. How many of them have watched babies sleep for long periods or play with infants in their beds? In the Caribbean we place babies on their tummies and they do not die from SIDS.

I will continue to follow the rules as specified with very strong doubts. I use this medium to share this story because I do not know if others share my views or able to alleviate my doubts. The death of that mother's child has impacted me so much because I had saved another baby from a similar experience during the day.

do not prevent a person who takes initiative. It will kill the I CAN DO SPIRIT.

WOW THE ACTIVITIES FOR PRESCHOOL IS WORKING. TEACHERS NOW KNOW WHAT TO TEACH. Researching on the recorded brain of a child. Children record a lot of words from conception and play it when neccessary as the grow and talk. Will come out with a big bang soon

At long last God has seen me through. i have come out with a unique learning plan for preschools. Its great to see it.In this book every subject and its objective. Have not seen a kind. Glory be to God.

Biting Incidents in the Classroom
When children between the ages of infancy through 36 months old share equipment, toys, adult attention and classroom space, the occurrences of biting are frequent and often pose a challenge for teachers, children and families. Biting incidents are a normal and natural part of a child's early childhood development, just as tantrums and toileting, but tend to evoke more emotions from everyone involved when they occur. As educators of young children we need to partner with everyone involved to provide and maintain a safe environment for all of the children in our care when biting incidents occur. First we must communicate with the families involved to provide them with the information to understand that biting is a part of all children's natural developmental stages and that their child's teachers will be working on opportunities to decrease these incidents in the classroom. Second, it is important to identify the motivation behind the biting occurrences by shadowing the child during the day and especially at the time in which the biting is most often occurring. Typically, the motivations fall into one of four categories of investigative or exploratory, frustrated, threatened, or power biting. Being proactive by understanding these developmental factors that contribute to the biting incidents, teachers can make efforts to diffuse the situations before they occur and plan for appropriate intervention. Lastly, the following steps have been proven to be successful in decreasing the amount of biting occurrences in classrooms:
• Evaluate the classroom environments to ensure there are enough duplicate toys, chairs, and choices without requiring the children to having to wait to ling for their turn.
• Evaluate the outdoor environment for toys and riding equipment, again, to eliminate long wait times. Eliminate blind spots or hiding places where biting might occur.
• Use biting occurrences as teachable moments with children for coaching them on self control and use of language.
• Keep a predictable classroom routine to eliminate frustrations and threatening situations.
• Decrease waiting times between activities by involving the children in classroom transitions such as finger plays and songs.
• Provide many sensory-motor choices such as playing with dough, finger painting, sand and water play.
• Re-direct children to other choices when you notice a child becoming frustrated or a biting situation evolving.
• Check the daily schedule for appropriateness, such as a lunch too late, or rest time to long.
• Never force all children to join in with the other children if they do not choose. Young children need their own space, too.
• Always give children positive praise for a job well done, positive interactions and use of language.
• Be especially aware of any changes in a child's life that may cause disruption to their schedule, home environment or well-being.

I have experienced that the most safe and successful classroom environment is maintained by interacting and being involved with the children at their level!

I've have suscribed on and off for the past 15 years. I really, really miss your past director's exchange - where ideas were sent in. I need a quick read, which presents quick ideas to help me refresh, highlight, gain new ideas. One of the best was baking a loaf of frozen dough each morning to create a wonderful smell when children and parens arrive in the early a.m. I need ideas like this - to help me in my busy day. Some articles are so long I never get to them.

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

A success story that is in its second year is the sharing of lunch after staff development. We are a staff of 22 with three different sites represented. We rotate responsibility for lunch serving between the site teams. This has brought the teams closer planning who is to bring what, but also the opportunity for an informal sharing of ideas, support, and comradre between all staff regardless of their assigned tasks or responsibilities.

For the past two years we have carefully scheduled our staff to enable them to be out of the classroom from 1-2 P.M. once a week (it meant. sometimes, combining classes at nap time to maintain ratios.) We are a Professional Development School and have a University liason professor who was willing to teach one of the classes once a week, the Director, Assistant Director and a Lead Teacher teach the other three. Each class lasts 8 weeks, then the leaders go to a different day. Teachers stay on the same day for the entire year. We have done beginning and ending surveys to document learning. Not only has it been good staff development, but it has been helpful in school family development. There is usually one representative from each team in a group. We will be presenting these ideas and the results at the next naeyc conference. It has provided all of our busy teachers with a possible 32 hours of staff development!

At our small center in rural Massachusetts, we take weekly field trips during the summer by school bus to a local lake. The ride is 45 minutes long, and I always follow the bus in my minivan in order to have a second/emergency vehicle and to transport gear. After we load all children and staff on the bus and I have taken the offical role call, I call out a staff member's name, adding "You're in the hot seat." The rest of the staff jokingly calls out their "Uh-oh's" as that staff member exits the bus. Throughout the summer each staff member gets a chance at the hot seat. In reality, they get a quiet, air-conditioned ride with my undivided attention. We discuss an array of topics - sometimes work, sometimes life. Sometimes I bring in two staff who both need attention on the same topic. I have been able to discuss staff development issues, to really let them know how much I appreciate them, and/or to let them know that I have some concerns. These are the best staff time sessions I get all year! And since it's a round trip for me, I am guaranteed two of them every Wednesday throughout the summer! And the staff and I both love it!

At our program we have an administration team of 8 people. We have weekly one hour meetings where we go through a leadership book. Most books take us 6 months to get through. We started with the book The Secret and have done others including; The Fred Factor. Each leader reads a chapter during the week and we use the meeting time to discuss it. After completing the book each administrator passes it to a lead teacher that they have been assigned to mentor. I began this in our program about one year ago and it has drastically changed the professional atmosphere and trust within our program.

I wanted to introduce children to technology and find motivators for introducing bilingualism using Internet content with an educatice slant.

I sought quality age appropriate content on the Internet and was constantly frustrated by the difficulty of finding content that was age appropriate and suitably engaging for small children. Search sites, such as Yahooligans etc. only list sites and these can cater for all age groups, not have an educative focus and have content that ranges from good to dreadful. In addition, small children (upto adults, I fear) have little patience for downloads that lead to poor content.

The solution was a website, the Kindersite Project ( www.kindersite.org">http://www.kindersite.org) that includes very carefully collected content, defined in to games, songs and stories that are appropriate for children from age 2 to about 6 and 11 for English as a second language.

The Kindersite has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams and has now received registrations from 11, 400 schools in 137 countries plus 1,000s of child-carers, homeschool and parents.

It is being used for:
An introduction to technology
Introduction to English (first and second language)
Special needs, communication and socialization skills

In addition the team have been invited to join multiple education projects were their expertise in technology and young children have been utilized.

One of the most successful activities I organized while a Head Start Director for a program serving over 200 childen, was to organize a "switch day". Some of the classroom staff were always complaining that they didn't think the office staff and coordinators did "anything". So with about a month's planning, the office staff and coordinators moved into the classrooms for one morning while the teachers became the administrators. What a glorious day it was! One of the loudest protestors stated during our discussion meeting after the morning, "I will never complain about ________ again. She has to wear roller skates to be able to keep up with her job". Another teacher who had decided to take on the director's role was overwhelmed with all of the administrative "stuff" that had been left for him to do. And the administrative staff loved being able to be in charge of a classroom, even if for just a morning. Most of the administrators had been classroom staff who had moved up the career ladder. By the end of the class day, the new "administrators" were standing by the classroom doors clamoring for our attention to respond to "crisis" that had come up. One of them expressed "We thought you never would come out of the classroom." Twenty years later, some of the staff still talk about that day as a wonderful learning experience.

Ebenezer Child Care Centers, Inc. holds Family Fun Nights monthly. The purpose of our Family Fun Nights is to provide opportunities for families to participate in fun activities together! Not only do children and their parents/caregivers get to spend quality time with each other…parents/caregivers learn about topics related to raising children such as how affection boosts brain power, encouraging independence, and managing bedtime power struggles. Our Family Fun Nights begin with a nutritious meal served family-style and are followed by activities for children and their parents/caregivers participate in together.

"A 'dangling' detail I find easy to lose track of is keeping batteries fresh in our program's emergency radio and flashlight supplies. I dread the thought of need emergency supplies just to find them "out of juice."
So, to keep up-to-date and prepared for emergency situations-- even if my memory fails---, we maintain small (about 8" square by 2" deep) hand-generated emergency radios. They really work. Camping stores or catalogs carry them and some radio speciality stores.
The small appliance takes about 2 minutes of hand-cranking to generate enough power for the radio and light to work; children can even help with the cranking to help pass time. It would also give preschoolers to school-agers a constructive "role" to play if you as a Center need to respond to an emergency.
The radio accesses local NOAA weather stations and alert broadcasts. Depending on the model, you can get: a built-in light, a red flashing alert light, a siren (in case a group needs to be located by sound rather than sight) and a connection to power up a variety of cell phones.
A shoulder-strap carrying case is a nice feature in case hands-free evacuation from a building is needed. And in case there is information on the radio you only want adults to hear (because it might scare children too much,) you can use headphones with the radio for privacy.
Whether we live in hurricane, earthquake, flood or tornado-prone areas--it seems we all sometimes have to face lack of power--even if our buildings have generators. The "human-powered" emergency radio is a low-tech resource we found that helps us keep "current" during quickly changing natural disasters or other emergencies.

As we are gearing up for new children to enter the classrooms in the fall I remind staff to make the environment safe for all children and their parents. To do so I use the "stop/go" light with a black piece of construction paper and red, yellow, and green circles glued on to fashion the stop/go light. I then challenge staff to think of what makes their environment "red," "yellow" or "green." A "red" environment can be not safe physically, such as walking alone in the dark, the first person to arrive or the last person to leave the workplace, etc. and it can be unsafe emotionally, such as joining an unfamiliar group (i.e. attending a workshop) or being in a setting where a different language is spoken or the "rules" are not apparent. A "yellow" environment is safe only some of the time, while a "green" environment is safe all the time. This hands-on learning activity has been very beneficial for all staff to think of room arrangement, rules, and messages, both verbal and non verbal children and families receive.

As a program that begins a partnership with many new families each September we realize the importance of establishing safety and trust. As a staff we began to think about "what does this look like, feel like and sound like to families"? During a staff meeting we challenged ourselves to be specific in thinking about safety and trust in concrete terms and created a display for families. The display included pictures of the current children and families, newsletters, and lists of how safety and trust present themselves from different points of view. For example, from a child's perspective, safety and trust may be found in consistency (a schedule), emphasis on the positives, a friendly environment that encourages independence, and adults showing interest in children's discoveries. Similar concepts were also listed from the family's and staff's perspective. We found that when we take the time to establish meaningful relationships with families and find ways to support their parenting efforts, we can make a difference in their lives. Staff discussions revealed the idea that perhaps families may not actually see and understand the work that staff does in establishing safety and trust. This work helped staff to think from the family perspective and to be more intentional in working together with families.

Making Classroom Science and Math Centers new and exciting in all 15 classrooms. Many times I would attend conferences or go on a trip and find an item which would peek the interest of a 3-4 year old. Since I only bought one bear claw, giant quartz crystal, alligator puppet or shark jaw, I devised a system of boxes for science and math centers. Using storage bins I put all items for a theme into each of 15 Math and 15 Science center. We label every item with an Arabic numeral for math and a Roman numeral for science. These bins circulate via teacher power by a schedule which each teacher receives at the beginning of the year. Since 1978 our classrooms have the most interesting, hands-on math and science centers you will ever see. You will never see one ugly pumpkin sitting in the science center from October through Spring. Teachers love the materials and even will contribute some of their own treasures. The children are inspired by the props to investigate their own interests. Every summer we clean them up and add to them.Photos of most are available. Heart/Health, Wild Animal, Reptiles, Birds, Matching, Sequencing, Sorting, etc.

We have been trying to make our monthly staff training sessions more interactive and practical. At one staff meeting we shared some criteria for creating areas in the room for provoking children's interest and sense of wonder. Prior to the meeting some of our program coordinators had assembled collections of interesting objects, fabric, and pictures. We chose collections that could be manipulated by the children. Children could assort piles of rocks, for example, in various ways – by color, design, numerically, etc. The idea is to let them give order to the world. Children seem to be drawn to that. Other collections of objects included playing cards, driftwood pieces and jars. Teams were then challenged to transform a corner of their room into a place of wonder. About half an hour before the end of the training session, each teaching team visited one other classroom. We had made up a critique sheet which teams used to leave comments and suggestions about the area of the room that had been transformed.

The next day, energy and curiosity were high as teachers asked each other how the children had reacted to the newly arranged materials. Because other teams had visited other classrooms, the conversations were rich and specific - everyone cared about the other's work.