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.