Quality kindergarten teaches you all you need to know

DepEd is still searching for quality preschool curriculum and its corresponding teacher training. Can they work on this before the school year starts in June? Quality kindergarten teaches you all you need to know — HOW TO LIVE. Usually, parents keep looking for preschools with scholastic materials for the three R’s instead of social materials. The latter develops the child’s behavior and lifetime character. When love for work, order and independence are instilled between three to four years old, reading, writing and arithmetic are easily learned by the fives.

The mixed-age class or the traditional one-age class

At home, a mother with six children finds them easy to manage. But when there are twins or if other children are brought in of the same age, things become harder, since it is very tiring to cope with children who are all wanting the same things. The mother with six children, is better off than the mother with one.

To segregate by age is one of the most inhuman thing one can do. It breaks the bonds of social life and deprives it of nourishment. A child of three will take an interest in what a five-year-old is doing, since it is not far removed from his own powers. All the older ones become heroes and teachers, and the little ones are their admirers. They are not discouraged by an older child knowing more than they do, for they sense that when they are bigger their turn will come.

Preparing the environment:

Work or play?

A quality preschool for children under five is called a junior kindergarten and for five and above, a senior kindergarten or pre-Grade I class. The three-year-old works best with Practical Life and Sensorial Apparata in a good Montessori preschool. Otherwise, he is usually saling cat (a temporary visitor in a regular preschool).

TRADITIONAL PRESCHOOL GROUPED ACCORDING TO AGE — A junior kindergarten classroom would have two low picnic tables good for 24 to 30 four-year-old children. Each table would have two benches and four single chairs for the ends. Thus, there are two working groups of fours. Low open cupboards alongside the wall should hold baskets of loose crayons, trays of drawing paper, boxes of scissors and paste, several framed wooden puzzles with 10 to 16 pieces each, plastic trays of colored dough with cookie cutter and rolling pins, a large box of blocks, a carpenter’s box with small hammer, medium-sized and wood scraps.

Two easel boards each folded out so two children can paint on each side are prepared with Manila paper to paint on. A nature corner nearby has a cage with pair of rice-birds, a terrarium with a turtle and an aquarium with an angel fish. Specimens of cocoons, earth worms, beetles, etc. are kept in bottles for “new sharing”. Small pots for germinating mongo, lima beans, tomato or eggplant seeds, garlic or onion bulbs are laid in a plastic covered open shelf, which can also hold the bird and fish food.

FURNITURE AND MATERIALS FOR A PRESCHOOL WITH A MIXED AGE GROUP — A true Montessori preschool class would have a mixed age group of three to four years old for the Junior Casa and fives to sixes for the Senior Casa. Casa is derived from the official name of the Montessori kindergarten — the Children’s House, has an average class of 30 children.

Three types of table are available: single ones for the very young and new child, table for two, and tables for four. The five open shelves carry Practical Life, Sensorial Apparata, Language, Math and Cultural Arts materials. (Please refer to last column, for details — Maximizing ECE to Achieve Primary School Competency.)

How social behavior is fostered

For preschool with same age group: After the greetings, the routine schedule works out for three hours.

8:00: Health inspection of teeth and fingernails. Children put wary bag with daily change of clothes and snack bag in cubbyholes.

8:30-9:30: Activity period. Workbook time for the fives. Cut and paste puzzles. Dough play. Daily artworks with paint (Paint spattering with leaves, Potato stamping, Finger painting). Doll house play. Easel board.

Senior kindergarten activity period instead focuses more on workbook like Language (writing alphabets and words, reading phonetic sounds and word. Math (reciting and writing numbers 1 to 100), Social Studies (family and community), and Science (plants, animals, magnets, weather, etc.)

9:30-10:00: Wash-up. Toileting. Snacks of juice and cookies.

10-10:30: Playtime in the school yard. Monkey bar. Slide Swing.

10:30-11:00: Music. Storytime. Departure.

For preschool with mixed age group: The routine schedule of 2 1/2 to 3 hours is similar as the above except for the Individual Work Period instead of Group Activity. It makes use of the Montessori apparata. Each child follows the “cycle of work” freely choosing from any of the five types of materials. Each material has a tray, basket or box, which is automatically returned in place after work. The trained teacher demonstrates to the children individually at the beginning of the year. Most of them learn to work independently, allowing the teacher to attend to the new timid child, the advanced classmate who requires more difficult exercises and the handicapped child.

At 9:30-10:00, After Wash-up is Snack Time. Three children with aprons set the table with placemat, breakable plates and drinking glasses. Then everyone sits down and opens his snack box to layout his food and drink.

Half an hour before departure, each child grooms himself using a wet face cloth with a touch of cologne, then powders and combs himself. Each one changes his clothes after.

Developing the virtue of respect for others

Given several materials for activities it happens that the material being used by one child is also wanted by another child, the latter will “WAIT FOR HIS TURN.” Meantime, he may choose something else. Important social qualities are derived from this. The child comes to see that he must respect the work of others. The idea of respecting others, and of waiting for one’s turn, becomes a habitual part of life which always grows more mature.

Virtue of patience

From these experiences the virtue of PATIENCE, (DENIAL OF IMPULSES BY MEANS OF INHIBITION.) Character traits that we call virtues spring up spontaneously. We cannot teach this kind of morality to children of three or four, but experience can, given a prepared environment of work.

The ability to solve problems

Whenever the class does rhythmic exercises in the Music Room or play “Ring Around A Rosie” the children form a circle. Usually, some go to opposite direction by themselves. The tendency for adults to readily interfere when the preschoolers can re-organize themselves in a minute when the class gets unruly, all the teacher has to do when in a field trip is to make them line up along a wall or fence. Given walls or sidewalks or a line on the floor a whole class of children can readily assemble in order and form lines. For story time they may sit around an elliptical line on the classroom floor.

A true brotherhood among children

The five-year-old feels himself a protector of the younger one. It is hard to believe how deep this atmosphere of protection and admiration becomes in practice. The class gets to be a group cemented by affection. Not only are these children free from envy, but anything well done arouses their enthusiastic praise.

People sometimes fear that if a child of five gives lessons, this will hold him back in his own progress. But in the first place, he does not teach all the time and his freedom is respected. Secondly, teaching helps him to understand what he knows even better than before. He has to analyze and rearrange his little store of knowledge before he can pass it on. So his sacrifice does not go unrewarded. (Next Week: Quality Preschool Teacher Training) –Preciosa S. Soliven (The Philippine Star)