Last night my husband and I went to a new restaurant. This place is well known for their unique menu and superb food. There aren’t many choices on the menu, but the choices you have are really something special! We went with a huge group of friends and it was so much fun!
I had to laugh because when it came time to order our food the scene that unfolded reminded me of an early childhood classroom during transitions! As our super sweet waitress began to give us the details of the menu the room erupted into a bit of chaos. You see, this restaurant doesn’t have individual menus, rather, they have one chalkboard posted in the room and the names of each dish is listed on the board with a price. The extremely patient waitress takes her time and describes the details of each menu item and then begins attempts to take orders. It was quite a circus in the room as we tried to remember all the details of the menu and make a decision about what we would order.
I have to imagine that the scene that unfolded last night is very similar to how some preschoolers feel when in a preschool classroom. The classroom is a wonderland with so many wonderful choices and interesting materials all around. Many classrooms lack the structure and support necessary to help children make transitions successfully and all these choices throughout the day leads to a sense of overwhelm and can lead to some very challenging behaviors. Often, these children “dump and run” or perhaps they just wander around the room and never really engage in purposeful play.
Last spring, I had the opportunity to work with an amazing preschool teacher who was seeking some ideas to help smooth out her transition from small groups to free choice time. In her classroom, she has children who range in age from 3-5 years old. As we all know, even though a child may be chronologically 3 years old, their developmental range may be more like that of an 18-month-old. These children are easily overwhelmed by all of the choices and have a hard time deciding where to go and what to do when they get there.
After reflecting on the problem and discussing several options for helpful solutions, we decided that these children needed more visuals and that the teaching staff needed a better system for helping the children focus on what they want to do and reach their goal.
We developed this super simple tool using a manilla folder, some velcro, and photos of each interest area in the classroom. We wanted it to be user friendly and portable.
As the children finish their table activity, the teacher offers them some visual choices of where they would like to go for free choice time. We discovered pretty quickly that some children need more guidance than just making a visual choice. For example, one little boy chose to go to the housekeeping area. When he got there, he didn’t have a clue what to do. He just piddled around and his play was not purposeful or engaging. He is one of the children who often dumps and runs. So, we took this tool to the next level.
Not only did we need to offer the visual choices, we needed to ask him what he was going to do when he got there. We needed to help him have a plan. He made his choice for the housekeeping area and then we gave him limited choices for where to begin based off of what we knew he liked to do.
“What will you do when you get there? Will you begin with the baby doll or will you cook some food?”
He chose to play with the baby and that gave him some intention and purpose that helped him get engaged in play while the adults wrapped up other responsibilities and could get over to help scaffold some more appropriate play skills.
This tool was so easy to make and it made a huge difference right away! Don’t underestimate the power of visuals and structure in your classroom. Many well intentioned teachers offer many amazing choices to children every day. They are trying to give children a wide menu of opportunities to help them learn in developmentally appropriate ways. The problem with giving so many choices is that these young children just don’t have the executive skills necessary to organize themselves very well yet. This strategy can give you an easy solution that offers structure to scaffold executive skills, yet leaves space for children to have autonomy and make choices that are appropriate.
One of the secrets to success in any early childhood classroom is having systems and structures in place that help children know the routine, make decisions and engage in appropriate activities. When the teaching staff works together to create and implement these systems that help meet the needs of their students, it increases also the health of their relationship and makes the whole classroom run more smoothly.