Sandra, I love your comments, but I want to suggest an alternative to burning the calendars. Especially since lots of teachers spent their own money on that calendar. In training I ask, "At home, if you sleep in the same bedroom as a significant other, do you wake up, turn to him or her and ask, 'What day is it? What day was yesterday? What day will tomorrow be?'" If you do, that s.o. is going to move out SOON! You look at your cell phone, or you go to the kitchen where the calendar is hanging on the refrigerator. So, I suggest that folks move the calendar to housekeeping. Then they will see those children who are developmentally ready for the abstract concepts involved in understanding the calendar playing with the calendar and they can work with those children and not waste the time of all the others.
Years ago, Young Children had a great article on this topic, by our favorite guru, Lilian Katz:
https://www.naeyc.org/files/tyc/file/CalendarTime.pdfIt describes perfectly what is really going on and why we need to change our practice.
The other thing I ask in training is: "If you want children to know what day it is, WHY NOT TELL THEM?" It is rarely effective to tell people what is wrong with what they are doing and that they have to stop, unless you tell them why it doesn't make sense and WHAT TO DO INSTEAD. I learned years ago from a very good young teacher to do the following:
Take the words "Today is Monday." and write them separately on file cards or pieces of sentence strip. Make a set of each day of the school week. Laminate them. During group time, say "Today is Monday" as you put up the words. After a few weeks, you can hand out the cards to the children and say such things as, "Who has the card with the big T on it?" "Who has the card with the word with just two letters." Later in the year, you might increase to "Today is Monday, January 10, 2017." I also sometimes ask, "Who has the cards with words?" "How do we know we are finished with our sentence?" [might get the answer because the four numbers are there OR because there is a period after the number]
THINK of all the skills children are learning, from putting up the cards left to right, to the use of punctuation. And it takes a very short time. And by the way, they don't know what yesterday was except the day they had pizza for lunch. AND THEY DON'T NEED TO KNOW.
Which reminds me: In training, we look through the early learning standards for the state, and the kindergarten standards and we can't find anything there that would lead someone to think that they need to teach calendar the old way.
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Joseph Appleton
Dayton VA
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-25-2017 08:25 AM
From: Sandra Duncan
Subject: Why are we still doing the calendar?
Recently, I was observing an early childhood classroom of three year old children. This is what happened at circle time: (1) recite alphabet twice (once in English and once in Spanish)--then an individual child stood up and recited it--kinda. (2) count to 100 twice (both in English)--then individual child stood up and counted to 100--sorta. (3) chant the days of the week both in English and Spanish--then individual child stood up and said days of week in English and Spanish--maybe, maybe not.
This is grueling ordeal continued with days of the month, colors, and shapes. It lasted 40 minutes and the teacher wonders why children's behaviors were so poor and attention so limited.
So no to rote. Burn calendars and all so-called learning posters. Stop stuffing children's brains with what we think they should know. Stop being a drill Sargent. Recitation does not equal understanding. It just means young children are good at mimicking and memorization.
Sandra Duncan, EdD
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Sandra Duncan
Schererville IN
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-25-2017 05:06 AM
From: Patricia Jack
Subject: Why are we still doing the calendar?
I totally get what you are saying and I applaud using ingenuity during morning meeting.
I do plan to order calendar materials for my new center.
I stated in a previous thread on global warming that calendar and weather may not be understood by all children. But this is what we do know. Children need routines and they love repitition. Some learn about taking turns. Calendar and the weather cover many curricula areas. I think I will stick to it if my staff agrees because the calendar and weather brings consistency to the morning meeting. Then we can delve into the other possibilities.
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Patricia Jack
Boulder City NV
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-24-2017 11:11 AM
From: Rosalie Witt
Subject: Why are we still doing the calendar?
Hello to all the early childhood professionals out there. I am curious how many of you out there have made the transition away from doing the calendar and weather as the staple morning meeting learning experience? I have been in the field for 17 years and for all of this time I have been working diligently to inform my staff and students that doing the calendar every single day is quite limiting and there are other endless possibilities to what can transpire at morning meeting. As someone who supports project work, emergenct curriculum, and Reggio Emilia, I am struggling daily with the idea that we just can't seem to kick this part of morning meeting. I do not mean to offend anyone out there who is doing the calendar. I invite you to enter into this dialogue with an open mind and heart. Would love to hear from others who have taken the leap and introduced varied learning experiences at morning meeting. I need to know I am not alone!!!
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Rosalie Witt
Wilton CT
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