5. PLANNED ACTIVITIES

 Team Planning

Teachers that work together in a classroom, plan together as a team. Planning begins by the team members observing children, understanding their development levels and interests.

Next, the team sits down together (each day or as scheduled) to plan activities that will provoke children’s interest in observing, questioning, exploring and making new discoveries. Activities are specific strategies planned to achieve objectives. Making volcanoes, watercolor painting or scarf dancing are examples of activities. Activities are supported by materials available in the learning centers and may be a one-time occurrence or repeated and/or expanded over time. Refer to the section on PROJECT WORK for more information on how to develop an activity over time.

Some of the planned activities will be for the free choice interest areas found within the classroom environments and others will be for individual, small group and large group teacher-initiated activities and teacher-guided activities. (Refer to section on routines for more information about including infants and young toddlers in group activities).

2. Selecting a Topic

Planning starts with teachers in the planning team brainstorming topics and activities that will meet objectives related to children’s development skills, interests, questions, and content area knowledge the adults want children to know more about (learning standards).  Themes and topics selected must relate closely to the child's immediate world and which are relevant to their experiences. For example, activities associated with home, family, yards and neighborhoods hold the most meaning for the youngest child. As children develop, their knowledge base and interests expand. In this same way, new or additional information can be added to the curriculum.

Teachers can get ideas for planning topics from many different sources:

1. Interests.

Perhaps the best place to get inspiration for planning is with children’s interests. Teachers that are careful observers of children will notice things that capture their attention. Then activities can be designed to raise more questions, make new observations, learn more about the topic through extended explorations, and reflect on what was discovered/learned.

2. Events.

Events in the lives of children are a good source of inspiration for planning activities. It snowed the night before, there’s a special birthday celebration, a new baby entered the family, a special holiday is nearing, are examples of events that might be a good source of activities to plan.

The CDL is a state agency and therefore does not provide religious training, nor does the CDL identify with one religion. Teachers may decide to celebrate religious holidays in their classroom so long as it is inclusive of all holidays celebrated by the families that make up their classroom, and not only certain religion’s holidays.

3. Extending materials in the classroom.

Planning activities that extend the materials in the classroom can provide new opportunities for children to notice, wonder, explore and discover. For example, imagine children exploring how objects fit in a tube that is taped to a ramp. The activity can be extended over the course of the next day’s/week’s by gradually changing the pitch of the tube, adding more length to the tube, changing the items in the basket next to the tube, and so on.

4. Expanding play themes.

Planning activities that extend play themes can provide new opportunities for children to notice, wonder, explore and discover. For example, imagine children are pretending to be puppies. The activity can be extended over the course of the next day’s/week’s by providing additional puppy play props (i.e. bowl, blanket, dog bed, and leash) and plan additional activities that encourage children to notice, wonder, explore and discover more about puppies, pets, caring for animals, and so on.

5. Developmental skills.

When the child is practicing new skills (i.e. cruising around furniture, climbing with alternating feet, cutting on the line), activities can be planned that provide more interactions, activities, and materials to scaffold the learning/development process.

6. Skills involved in the inquiry process.

These include skills children use when participating in the inquiry process. Teachers can plan activities that involve children using/ practicing these skills, for example:

• Activities that focus children’s observations (i.e. watching the worm crawl)
• Activities that encourage children to ask questions (i.e. “Asks me questions to find out what’s in the box” game)
• Activities that involve making predictions (i.e. estimation games, “What do you think will happen?” games)
• Activities that get children familiar with using investigation tools (i.e. measuring tape, magnifying glass) and other resources (i.e. books, computer searches, other people or “experts”) that might be used in an investigation
• Activities that involve describing and keeping records of things that happen (i.e. charts, webs, sequence stories)
• Activities that involve children making conclusions (what happened?)
• Activities that involve children using different ways to “share the story” and represent their ideas (i.e. making a model, drawing a picture, dictating a story, keeping a journal, acting out information in a drama). Videos and cameras are also tools that can be used to record what children did.

7. Learning standards.

The WMELS provide information about what critical knowledge and skills children should learn between the ages of birth to first grade. Learning standards provide teachers with goals and objectives for activity planning.

MMSD 4K Benchmarks provide a common language and guidance to understand developmental expectations of typically developing children upon the completion of 4K. It is designed to help teachers in implementing a high quality 4K program

8. Nature & science content/concepts.

Local resources in the environment and nature provide great ideas for exploration and discovery. Fill the environment and plan activities that capture children’s natural curiosity and interest in their immediate surroundings. Relevant nature and science topics include:

• Physical Science: the physical sciences focus on the physical properties of objects and things (such as how things taste, feel, sound, and smell), how things change, different ways things move (such as back and forth, fast and slow), cause-effect relationships, and how to use the senses and tools to gather information, investigate materials and observe relationships, and so on.
• Life sciences: the life sciences focus on learning about the living environment such as animals and plants, the human body, life cycles, habitats, the similarity and differences among people, and so on.
• Earth sciences: the earth sciences focus on the natural environment such as rocks and collections from nature, properties of the world around us (such as the seasons of the year, the weather, the changes of light each day), and respect for the environment, and so on. 

3. Identifying Goals & Objectives

The first step in planning is to identify your goal and object of activities. This includes what the child is to perform and what the child can “get out of” the activity. When objectives are for a group activity, the goal for each child may be different. For example, in an activity involving drawing pumpkins, the goal for one child might be to add facial features while the goal for another child might be to hold the crayon and make a circle.

• Sometimes you can think of the activity first (because it relates to a topic or theme) and second, identify the objective.
• Sometimes you can start with the objective (a targeted development skill or learning standard) and the objective suggests the activity design. 

4. Designing the Activity 

After the learning objective is clear, think about how to best implement the activity so that the ideas can be meaningful to the children. Remember, children need hands-on opportunities to explore and manipulate concrete materials.

• Create a balance between adult planning and guidance and time for children to be guided by their own questions, predictions, and explorations.
• Use an integrated curricular approach. Weave-in dramatic play, art, music, math, science and literacy into activities.
• Identify questions to ask and ways children can actively explore.
• Scaffold activities appropriately by linking old information or familiar situations with new knowledge. Do this by planning activities that are relevant and relatable from week to week, and to what children are already familiar with.
• Webbing as a useful planning strategy that helps to link ideas together. The following is an example of a curriculum web: 

5. Implementing the Activity: Using Interaction Strategies that Promote Inquiry 

• Be a good role model.

Consciously model the kinds of behaviors you would like the children to demonstrate. Be inquisitive about things. Show children that you do not have all the answers but can explore to find out more about the questions you have. Take delight in learning new things along with the children.

• Follow the child’s lead.

Stay “tuned in” to what children are doing by listening, observing and following their lead. The video “Floor time” by Stanley Greenspan, demonstrates how to follow the child’s lead in interactions.

• Take advantage of “teachable moments”.

Many learning opportunities occur spontaneously, because a child shows an interest in something or the teacher sees an opportunity to point out something interesting that’s worth sharing. Teachable moments provide the opportunity to raise questions and help children think more about things they are experiencing at the moment.

• Be engaged.

Encourage children to notice and observe things that are happening around them. Talk out loud, describing what children are doing. This not only helps to build children’s vocabulary but it also helps them "de-center" and become more aware of their surroundings, their actions, and the actions of others. Limit the amount of time spent doing room maintenance such as cleaning and preparing activities. These things should be done before and after your time with children.

• Guide activities.

Add new materials and ask open ended “thinking questions” that challenge children to take activities just a bit further than they might otherwise. Open-ended questions do not have one right answer but provide an opportunity for creativity, guessing and experimenting. “I wonder what will happen if”, “What do you think?”, “What might happen if?”, “How can you make that object roll?” are examples of open-ended questions. Encourage older children to explain their reasoning, “Why do you think that?” The older the children, the more able they will be to think about the questions they have and articulate those questions to others.

• Encourage exploration.

• • Allow children the freedom to move into uncharted territory and explore what they don’t know or need to better understand.
  • Avoid “correcting” children. Instead pose wondering questions that challenge children to further investigate and self-correct.
  • Allow children to “get messy” as they explore with all of their senses. Families are told (in the policy handbook) to send children in play clothing along and bring change of clothing the child can change into if he/she gets dirty. When the philosophy is “learning through discovery”, one should expect a little mess at times.
  • Follow the children's lead. This means sometimes letting them dictate how the activity develops.
  • Allow time for trials, mistakes and repetition. Sometimes it’s the discourse between what we think should happen and what actually does happen that motivates us to explore more.
  • Let children combine different areas and materials and avoid rigid rules that require materials to stay in certain areas or be used in certain ways. If markers and pens cannot go out of the art area, how can the child make a sign showing where the caterpillar is living?
  • Refer children to each other for ideas and to build community.
  • Provide additional information and/or supplemental materials that may expand the interest and depth of explorations. For older children, this sometimes involves drawing from other resources such as books, computers/websites or the expertise of others.

6. Outcomes: Encourage Older Children to Reflect and Represent

Older children can reflect on the entire process and make representations of what was discovered. Representations are ways for children to share their own thinking and learning with others. Encouraging children to represent their experiences in many different ways will expand their symbolic thinking and creative expression and lay a foundation for broader language and literacy development. Teachers can make representations of the children’s ideas as well. They can write down their words and read them back or take photos and provide captions about what is happening in the photo, tell stories, create finger plays about the children’s activities, demonstrate by making a block structure, and many other ways.

7. Plan Additional Activities that Extend the Learning

More observations and questions typically emerge as a result of the inquiry process, and this stimulates deeper and extended interaction with the material.

8. Project Work

Teachers in the 1-year-old classrooms and beyond can plan activities to engage children in more formal and complex investigations and methods of inquiry that take the form of a project. Some of the project work happens during the teacher-initiated small and large group times, but can continue throughout the day in free play, outdoor time, and transitions, as well. Generally, project work lasts for a period of time (i.e. for several weeks or longer) until interest fades.

Here are some strategies to guide your project planning:

• Determine what would be a good topic for the project. The topic should be of interest and close to the child’s personal experiences, so that the child is able to build on previous learning and experience. The topic needs to be complex enough to allow in-depth investigation that will sustain long term interest. The most successful project topics offer rich dramatic play opportunities. (For example, a project about the hospital offers more opportunities for investigation than a project on autumn leaves).
• Provide focusing activities that encourage children to begin thinking about the topic, asking questions and forming ideas. This may consist of reading or telling a story, presenting an object for the children to pass around, examine and wonder about (i.e. a bug in a jar), an event (i.e. a baby is born), a visitor, a field trip, and so on.
• Determine what children already seem to know about the topic, accurately or with misconceptions. Use a web to document their current concepts and understanding. (Teachers of toddlers may want to skip this step.)
• Determine what they want to find out. Web or list questions that can be investigated. (Teachers of toddlers may want to skip this step.)
• Plan for what children can do to investigate or explore. Ask the children for ideas for things they might need to do to help with the investigation. Posing questions such as “Where can we go?”, “Who can we talk to?”, “How can we find out more about this”, may send them down an interesting path. Provide resources to help the children with their investigations; real objects, books, and other research materials and tools. Arrange opportunities for the children to do field work and speak to “experts”. Suggest ways for children to carry out a variety of investigations and incorporate several core curriculum areas as part of the process. During the process, provide a variety of opportunities for the children to record the data that’s collected. Use semantic maps and visual aids to organize concepts and questions.
• Encourage independent investigations that continue at home and beyond. Encourage families to become involved in the child’s explorations and discoveries. Integrate family activities and resources into the classroom as much as possible.
• Plan ways to “share the story” of the investigation process, and what was “discovered”. Older children can be asked to represent their understandings and discoveries. There are endless ways for children to represent their new knowledge through constructions, art, music, stories, and drama, and so on. Even drawing a poster or picture of the process would be a way of recording what they learned.
• Use a specific strategy called K-W-I-L that incorporates all of the important steps in the inquiry process.

9. Planning guides.

Planning guides are provided to help teachers organize their planning to be in line with the school’s educational philosophy and mission. Lesson plans should be submitted onto the “CDL” Google Drive under “Planning Sheets.” These should be uploaded weekly to be reviewed by the Director or Associate Director weekly and must include: weekly lessons, indoor and outdoor plans, and an environment plan.¹⁷ There are 4 basic planning forms that cover the different planning requirements:

10. Planning for the classroom environment.

Teachers plan for the new materials that will be added to each interest area described in the educational program. The form provides a space for teachers to think about which materials can be added and which ones can be rotated out.

11. Planning for individuals.

In this form there is room for teachers to indicate their goals and action plans for part of the care giving routines (transitions, feeding/eating, diapering/toileting, and sleeping/resting) and also the developmental skills and interests of individual children. This form is used by teachers of infants and young toddlers who must individualize their planning, but it may also be helpful for teachers of older children who are working on specific skills such as toilet training.