Christmas Preparation with Young Children

Christmas is around the corner. As usual, the kindy is busy preparing for the festival. We are making gifts to families so children learn to show gratitude during the festive season of kindness. We are learning Christmas songs for a family concert.

However, this year, we have decided to do things differently because of the better awareness of the diversity of cultures of the kindy community. We have Muslims who requested that their daughters be excused from musical activities. Another family specially asked us not to involve her girl in any spirtiual events. As we know that some kindy families do not celebrate Christmas, so we tell children we are making a special gift to bring home for the end of year celebration. We avoid making festive food, nor making Christmas decorations. To tie in with the green culture of the kindy, we let children paint jars with glass paint, which could be used as a decorative jar or for holding a tealight candle.

Before we started practicing for the christmas concert, we sent a letter to families, talking about the upcoming concert and asking them whether their child will participate or not. As such, parents can opt out according to their values.

I don't think we are too PC. it's a natural development out of respect for everyone and all cultures. Most families of non European cultures embrace the Christmas celebration, and they happily let their children get involved in the experiences. Just a bit of extra thoughts and paper work, and everyone feels comfortable!

Blogging with young children

My interest in blogging started when I set up a blog for my kindergarten earlier this year. From an ICT symposium facilitated by the Core Education,  I learnt that using ICT in the early childhood programme is the way to recognize and acknowledge the ICT experiences children are having at home. With an aim to 'make learning visible to our families ', the kindergarten decided to have its own blog. We are aware that some other kindergartens have great sucess in communicating learning with parents and their extended families overseas through blogging,  and similarly my kindergarten community reflects a diversity of cultures, probably the blog will become an effective forum for the teachers to share the learning happening at kindy; and equally important, families will be able to give us feedback, share their views, add a different perspectives, and enrich the teaching and learning experiences.

The path to launch the blog has not been smooth. We organized a parents' evening to explain the reasons to have a blog and how to read and make comments. Despite the turnout rate was low, the parents who participated gave use huge support, so we determined to go ahead. As parents are a bit concerned about opening up the blog, we agreed to have a closed blog, and the kindergarten will invite only families to our blog. As we have chosen to use Blogger, which requires a Gmail account to read the blog; the response from the parents has been disappointing. Even though it's free to open a Gmail account, few parents took the time to do it. We've launched our blog for over 10 months, and only 15% of our families are reading and commenting on our blog. Are the families really so busy that they don't bother to acquire a Gmail? So, recently, we relaunch the blog and switch to WordPress. See how it will go!

Another strategy I suggested is to put the child's voice on the blog. I will regularly compose a post with the children and then send a personal invitation to their parent to go to the blog. Hopefully, the parents will develop a habit of reading the blog. I'll talk about the value of blogging with children next time.

Birthday Celebration

The first week back from the holidays had been extremely busy with several children turning five and going to school. We have a tradition of hosting a birthday mat-time to farewell the children. The families of the birthday children are invited to the mat-time too. The routine includes looking at their learning story portfolios and art folders; reading out a birthday card signed by everyone, children and teachers; blowing candles on a play dough birthday cake; and playing a party game.

The idea of reading the portfolio is to involve the child to revisit and reflect his learning journey, which hopefully helps the child to get ready for the next step of his growth and development. I love to draw the children's attention to their first photo, pointing out that they have grown up physically. As I'm a petite adult, whenever I comment that they have grown taller with long legs and long arms, the child tends to agree and proudly suggests that he is nearly as tall as I am.

When browsing their learning stories portfolio, I will let children choose a few stories of special importance to them to read out loud. It's a moment for the child to assess his learning and achievement. I feel good when the child picks out projects in which he has invested lots of time and energy.  But when the child says his favorite moment is the christmas party or the trip to the museum, I will start questioning whether the teachers have done enough to support the child's learning. I know I'm a bit silly. Who doesn't love Christmas with Santa giving out presents?

For the birthday cake and card, the teacher usually involve the birthday child in making and decorating them. It is a nice moment of one on one, and the child will also learn the little poem to be glued on the birthday card. Later during the mat-time, some confident children choose to read out (from memory sometimes) the poem, or everyone will help reading out the poem together. The birthday child and his family really enjoy the opportunity to show off their 'literacy skills'.

Since the kindy community has become diverse in ethnicity recently. We worry that families of other cultures may feel uncomfortable with the way we celebrate, so we wrote up a note to parents with children turning five, explaining what we are doing at kindy and that it is up to them whether they want to involve their child in the celebration. So far, no parents opt out. It proves that we are worrying too much. It worths the trouble though, as we respect parents as part of our programme.

Cultural diversity - Working with children from a minority culture

As a Chinese teacher working in New Zealand, I feel so privileged as I have the unconditional trust from the Chinese parents. They have faith in me looking after their children well, simply because I am Chinese and speak their language. They like me well before they get to know me. As such, I feel obliged to take on an extra responsibility to take care of the Chinese children.

Interestingly, parents from other minority cultures seem to like me better and tend to talk with me easily. An Korean mother said that she is happy to see a chinese teacher in the kindergarten and feels comfortable to send her girl here. I can't understand Korean at all! Employing a Chinese teacher is definitely sending a clear message to the community that minority cultures are respected in this kindy.

Also, I am quite aware of the cultural aspects in teaching. Though the indigenious culture in New Zealand is Maori, the European/white people are dominating in terms of education, finance, politics and so on. The mainstream language is English, whereas Maori language/te reo is at risk of dying, unfortunately. I am the only teacher at my kindy using Maori songs and reading Maori legends regularly. One day, a Maori parent complimented me for reading a Maori theme book at end of the day mat-time. When I explained that teachers here are all respecting the culture, she remarked that she had only seen me using Maori resources at mat-time. That seems to be true. Since then, I started observing, other teachers use Maori resources during the day, but never at the end of the kindy session when all parents are here, waiting to pick up their child. (A bit shy when parents are watching?) So, it's about making the teaching visible. It needs to be seen to believe it.

Making learning and teaching visible is a big issue in early childhood education. For school children, reports and examination results reflect the quality of teaching and learning that happen, to a large extent. For young children, teachers need to do something extra to communicate with and seek feedback from parents.

children with special needs

We have a beautiful girl at the kindy who has Down Syndrome. She always puts things in her mouth, play dough, toys and even clay. She simply cannot not help herself, but children around her keep reminding her not to. They have been walking her to bathroom to wash her hands and then help her take out her lunch box. They are so friendly and caring that the teachers sometimes need to remind them that the girl with Down Syndrome is competent to do most things. Just don't mothering her!  I am so glad to have her because she brings out the sensitive and caring sides of other children. Yesterday, it was amazing to watch a little Korean boy using his limited English as well as body language to show the girl with Down Syndrome where and how to put away coloring pencils.

The teachers have been learning the sign language to communicate better and effectively with her. We found the sign language quite self explanatory, and it appeals to all children visually.  I'm thinking how the sign language can be incorporated into the program...