Open Discussion Forum

  • 1.  Lesson Plans in Preschool

    Posted 01-15-2019 05:19 PM
    Hello fellow teachers and professors,
    I am teaching a special ed grad course for teachers of Deaf and Hard of Hearing children. I will be supervising a preschool student teacher and the lesson plans used for k and up (which I was given) are just not appropriate for preschool. Also, so hard to guide teachers in special ed to allow for more following of children's lead and allowing for learning through play. In the public schools there is SO much about accountability that I feel that preschool is being pushed in the wrong direction. I hope to influence this student teacher and her master teacher (who was also my student) to be more aware of current ideas. Does anyone have anything that would be considered a lesson plan with room for language objectives, but also allowing for more freedom of play and classroom setup. Also any suggestions for getting away from the need in special ed to "teach" more?
    Thanks so much,
    Lydia Sussman

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    Lydia Sussman
    Adjunct Professor
    Cal Lutheran University
    Studio City CA
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  • 2.  RE: Lesson Plans in Preschool

    Posted 01-16-2019 08:06 AM
    Good Morning Lydia!
     Thank you for the time and making the effort to find the tools that use play to learn.  I have a Mentor Teacher who would be thrilled to talk with you about the Teaching Cycle used at the Preschool were we both work.  The idea of the cycle is to observe the child/all children in class, obtain developmental levels across all domains and development drives goals.  Taking the children's interests, combined with the DAP goals, teachers design the weekly lesson plan.  The classroom is then designed with toys, group time topics for discussion, activities that are chosen because that guided play will promote learning.  Once a goal has been met, a new goal is identified.  We use Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards to identify appropriate goals.  WMELS outlines typical development broken down and listing all prerequisite for the significant milestone skills.  Happy to send copies of a blank and  completed lesson plans if you like.

    P.S.  I apologize if I got your name wrong in my post.  I am not tech savvy enough to be able to see your post as I type my reply.

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    Sandra Briesath - Director
    608 849 7322
    Peace Lutheran Preschool
    Waunakee, WI 53597
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  • 3.  RE: Lesson Plans in Preschool

    Posted 01-22-2019 03:49 AM
    Lydia, the principle of our founding mother and fathers should come into play. Deborah did well in listing toys and adoption of developmentally appropriate practice in the classroom. Observation has been the major practice even though practitioners want to do it themselves which is wrong. Student teachers should be taught how to observe pupils during their practice. This they must do during practicum in early childhood courses. If you are aware of this, then you have no problem rather than observing your students' understanding and implementation of the curriculum they have been exposed to. Observing the practicing teachers means that the later are also observing the children behind the mirror to find out the ability of individual child and putting them into records. Thereafter, each child is shown where he/she has done well and where adjustment is required. At the end of each section, you too have to let your supervisee know her short comings. Thank you for seeking contributions from colleagues. I hope this will add to information you have already.

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    Chukwunedum Ikenyiri
    Lecturer
    Federal College of Education (Technical) Omoku, Rivers State,
    Port Harcourt RI
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  • 4.  RE: Lesson Plans in Preschool

    Posted 01-22-2019 01:07 PM
    Thank you for the excellent advice. I am comfortable with the observation and establishment of learning through play outcomes. The difficulty I have is that my university requires lesson plans. I have not found one that involves these ideas; I was hoping not to have to design my own if there was one out there. I would be happy to have less structure, but this is the way we are required to work as university supervisors. I hope to help special education preschools move more towards DAP, but must do that within the structure of the many IFSP outcomes our children have and the pressure on teachers to "teach to these oucomes." This is my dilema!  
    Thank you so much for the responses. I'll be incorporating all of your toughts into my supervision this semester.  

    Lydia 







  • 5.  RE: Lesson Plans in Preschool

    Posted 01-16-2019 09:35 AM
    ​Dear Lydia and Sandra, I am in support of what both of you are sharing.  I have recently created a workshop for Minnesota's professional development for Early Childhood Educators.  It is called Connecting the Dots - integrating play, observation, and ECIPS (Early Childhood Indicators of Progress for MN).  I use photos of children at play and have educators reflect upon the learning they see.  Then they think of next steps which should be ways to tweak the environment so that children can continue to learn through their own hand-on experiences in small clusters of children socially constructing knowledge together.  Then the educator goes to the standards.  In Minnesota we use the Early Learning Indicators of Progress (ECIPS) which are the Minnesota Standards.  This highlights the learning from within the children's play and from a developmental perspective. 

    Play is definitely being shortchanged even by people who advocate for it. Many do not fully understand what play looks like and many do not yet see children's full competencies.  I also teach for Champlain College.  I am currently teaching an on-line master's class in ECE called Math and Science for Young Children.  I am using Charlesworth's book titled Math and Science for Young Children.  This book highlights the need for naturalistic play described as play where children control choice and action.  Without such play, there is minimal internal learning taking place.  We early childhood educators must make a larger claim to our expertise in young children.  Dear Lydia, know that you are not alone in this most important quest for young children.  Wishing you much strength and success.
    Deb

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    Deborah Schein
    instructor and consultant
    Minneapolis MN
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  • 6.  RE: Lesson Plans in Preschool

    Posted 01-20-2019 11:01 AM

    Greetings, 

    Sandra and Deborah gave great suggestions. I taught special education preschool for a decade, which included low incidence disabilities  (children with autism and visual impairments and children who were deaf or hard of hearing). I see the challenges I had are still there. For me I literally had to build a lesson plan from scratch, because every class was so different and every child's need was so different, but since our classes are a lot smaller it makes that individualization more feasible. 

    I really like Sandra's idea of observing, going to the standards of your state, and building from there, because that is what I did. I also regularly did formal and informal assessments to see if what I was doing was working. All teachers do assessments, but for special education documentation is even more important as you want to be the guide for the next teacher, because as you see there are very few guides and when you teach special education preschool, you're the beginning of the journey and everything you do and document will be used by future teachers, so I was always mindful of that. 

    If you want to add more communication elements into your classroom reach out to the speech pathologist. The great thing about teaching special education preschool is that you have many professionals (occupational therapists, speech pathologists, and psychologists) who are more than happy to support you in creating your goals and as a new special education teacher their expertise is invaluable. 

    My speech pathologist was my best friend when I taught in classroom where students had hearing impairments.

    I will definitely be following this thread. 

    Cheers, 

    Lark



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    Lark Sontag
    MA, Early Childhood Education
    Alumna Pacific Oaks College
    Trainer, Adjunct Early Childhood Education Faculty, and Early Childhood Education contributor to 30seconds
    New York Metro
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  • 7.  RE: Lesson Plans in Preschool

    Posted 01-20-2019 12:52 PM
    ​Hi Lark, I actually think that all children should be taught like this.
    d

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    Deborah Schein
    instructor and consultant
    Minneapolis MN
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