Three Hour Tour

Three Hour Tour

For the Environment Rating Scale assessment, it is important that children have access to all the materials in the classroom for 3 hours per day.  You can count the early morning, late afternoon and any free play/work time in the daily schedule. 

Make sure ALL areas are open and available during these 3 hours.  Make sure it is clear on your daily schedule that there are 3 hours of access to free play in the classroom.  The data collectors will rely heavily on what you have listed on your daily schedule (posted inside the classroom) to determine if you have the 3 hours of access.  If some centers are closed, you will not get credit for the full access for children.

The 3 hour rule applies to:  music, art, blocks, dramatic play, nature and science, books, fine motor, sand/water play, math/number and diversity.

The ERS assessment greatly values free play and the opportunity it gives for children to make choices about what they do, who they interact with, and time interactions between children with their teachers both 1:1 and in smaller groups.

In free play there is ample time for many of the other items the ERS (and CLASS Assessment) is looking for:

·         Open ended questions

·         Scaffolding

·         Prediction

·         Brainstorming

·         Kids thinking for themselves

·         Using language

·         Informal reading

·         Reasoning skills

·         Critical thinking

·         Peer connections

·         Etc.

Free play also gives teachers more opportunities to work 1:1 with children – individualizing the curriculum to the needs of each child.

How much free play is on your schedule today?

Game Show

At our reflective practice group this month we did a little game show where participants were blindfolded and given large letters of a scrambled word.  Once they were given a clue, they had to feel what letter they had and figure out together what the word was, then unscramble it and hold up the letters to spell the word. 

Here are the clues – can you guess the words?

1.     Having back and forth conversations with children is vital for them to learn communication skills

2.     Get down on the floor, or sit at the table and do this with the children

3.     All ages will benefit from music – do this often

4.     Books and language should be part of every day.  Several times a day, do this with the children

5.     Getting children to talk and think for themselves is how they learn to communicate.  A way to do this is to

6.     As often as you can, relate what you are doing with the children to their real

7.     Show you enjoy being with the children by doing this

8.     This is the kind of behavior you want to give the most attention to

9.     This kind of play will score most highly in the ERS assessment

10. This is a place online where you can review bite sized ideas to elevate your teaching practice

Answers

1.       TALK

2.       PLAY

3.       SING

4.       READ

5.       ASK

6.       LIFE

7.       SMILE

8.       GOOD (really, positive, but it had too many letters!)

9.       FREE

10.   BLOG (you are here !)

What's Up With The Low Health And Safety Scores?

As you may know, the scores for the Environment Rating Scale in the areas of health and safety are coming in very, very low.

You may wonder why that is.  The ERS uses three entities to keep up with the latest research:

›  Caring for our Children  http://cfoc.nrckids.org/   

›  CPSC http://www.cpsc.gov/   

›  USDA http://www.usda.gov

These three set a very high standard that, while best practice, are very hard to attain.

There are going to be some lapses even in the most health and safety conscious program.

There will be a child who wipes her nose and does not wash hands…

There will be a child that does not create enough lather with the soap…

There will be a child that enters the classroom and does not wash hands…

It just happens!

Be aware of these standards since they are a great thing to aspire to.

Focus more, though, on the parts of the ERS where you have a better chance of success.

What Floats Through the Pool Part 2

What Floats Through the Pool Part 2

If you are following along, you know that the UW data collectors will be looking for “What Floats Through The Pool” to determine accessibility of materials for the children.  You will also know that it is important to strategize to get your “Dancing Bears” into the pool.

When will most of the materials float through the pool?  Circle Time?  Story Time?  No – the primary time materials will be accessible is during the free play/work time of your day.

Make sure you have plenty of time on the schedule for the children to choose materials freely and interact with many different areas of the classroom.  This will score the most highly on the Environment Rating Scale.

Free choice/work time gives the children opportunities to think for themselves, make choices, try many things, interact with each other, and be self directed.  All behaviors we want to see lots of and encourage.

Get the Dancing Bears into the Pool!

Watch this video

At our reflective practice group last week, we asked the participants to identify all the materials they have in their classrooms in a specific activity area, say, Music and Movement.

They wrote down all the materials on separate yellow sticky notes.

Thinking back to earlier in the day, any of those items that were clearly in use by the children were stuck to an inflatable pool ring (remember the earlier blog about the UW saying the way they identify what was accessible was to ask themselves, “What floated in the pool today?”)

The sticky notes they still had in their hands were like the dancing bear.   The materials were there, but not obviously accessible.   They might have been up too high, in a closet, etc.  Like dancing bears, they probably would not have been seen by the UW data collectors, and not counted.

We know it is not practical or possible to have 100% of your materials out and ready all the time, so how do we get the dancing bears into the pool?

Some strategies:

Be like the ringmaster in the circus – as you open up your free play time, point out to the children all the options available – including things that are in closets or up high.  If the UW data collectors hear you say they are available, they are likely to count them, even if not used that day.

Use pictures – have photos on the closet door of what is inside.  Point out the availability to the children. Another what to use photos is to have photos of additional materials in the appropriate learning center.  If you have extra dramatic play materials that are put away – show the children they can ask for them using the pictures.

Scores for the Environment Rating Scale (ERS) have been coming in low.  The more we can get things counted, the better the scores will be.

Get those dancing bears into the pool!

Deeper into the CLASS

Deeper into the CLASS

At our April Reflective Practice group, we went deeper into the CLASS assessment.  As you observe the interactions in your program through the CLASS lens, here are a few key things to remember:

1.        Frequency.    As you look for the CLASS behavioral markers, think about the words you would use to describe the frequency.  If you would use words like, “seldom, rarely, infrequently” this behavior would likely score in the low range.  If you find you would use works like, “sometimes, occasionally, partly” this behavior would likely score in the middle range.  If you identify the frequency with words like, “mostly, often, usually” the behavior may score in the high range.

2.       Quality.  As you find evidence of the behavioral markers, also look at the quality of those behaviors.  Even if the frequency is high, interactions that are of low quality may place them lower in scoring.  Perhaps a teacher asks a lot of questions, but none are open-ended.  This would be of a lower quality than open-ended questions.

3.       Effectiveness.  As with quality, ineffectiveness could lower the score of the interaction.  If a teacher asks a lot of open-ended questions, but never actually waits for an answer, they would be ineffective.

4.       Let go of your own values.  Only look for the behavioral markers for CLASS.  Sometimes it can be hard not to think about ways the teacher could have been better, or the way you would have handled a situation, but let those values go and look only through the lens of the CLASS tool.

What Floats Through The Pool

Last week our staff had a chance to attend a training by the person from the UW who works with the data collectors about the Environment Rating Scale.

As you saw in the last blog post, and as I have been constantly telling my Early Achievers sites, the UW scores for the ERS have been coming in much lower than expected.  This was a chance to hear about some of the common issues that are causing the low scores.

I asked if it was OK to have some talking points ready for the interview so that programs can mention items that might not be observed, and she said yes – so have them ready!

Speaking about what items they consider “accessible” to children, she said they always think about the idea of “What floats through the pool”.  What materials actually come out and are used by the children, or are clearly available for them to use. 

A surprising item that is lowering scores is the use of keypads for entry to child care centers.  So many buildings that are completely handicapped accessible have security keypads, and the UW has been trained to count that as not accessible since it requires the use of fingers.   I would suggest to those programs that have this situation, that you create a talking point for your interview about how you have a receptionist within view of the door at all times that will buzz any person with limited use of fingers in so they would not need to use the keypad.

Blocks must be at least 2 inches on all sides to be counted as blocks.  Tiny blocks would fit into fine motor instead.  And as I have already told you all, duplos/leggos are only counted in fine motor.  And an new update for the ITERS block section is you can take N/A if all children are under 18 months.

Ample space – they have been told to identify that as space so large there is actually unused space.

Cubbies seem to be a common problem.  They will be looking for each child to have a cubby that can fit all their personal items with no cross contamination at all.  Nothing touching another child’s items.

In the ITERS helping children use language, in the 5’s, they will be looking for nouns/verbs, and in the 7’s. adjectives /adverbs.  In 5.1 they will look to see that staff respond to the children at least 75% of the time.  In 5.3 on the same page, they will be looking for so many interactions, they could not be counted.

A great update is that for ability diversity in books, pictures and materials, even glasses will count.  Should be easy to find some books with glasses, put glasses in dramatic play, and include pictures with people wearing glasses.

Not as great news is that the Montessori works involving water are not counted as water play.

Those were the notes I took at the training.  I’ll share more as I hear them.  Remember that it is very important to always read the notes for clarification in your ERS spirals, and to check their website form new notes for clarification after the publication of the spirals    http://www.ersi.info/index.html