4.3: Contexts for Written Plans

Early childhood teachers write plans sometimes for an individual child, sometimes for a small group of children, and sometimes for the entire group of children.^[1]

Individual Plans

One-on-one moments of teaching and learning play a major role in early childhood settings. Early childhood teaching requires that teachers be present to guide individual children when needed, adapting their teaching to support each child’s individual learning. For example, some children may be somewhat cautious in joining others in play, but may become excited about the possibility if the teacher accompanies them into the area where a group of children are playing together. An early childhood teacher will note this cautious aspect of a child’s temperament. The teacher may make a plan to include watching for opportunities to be a “social bridge” of support for the child who tends to be cautious, helping that child with joining the other children’s ongoing play. The following vignette taken from volume 1 of the California Preschool Curriculum Framework (CDE 2010a, 76) illustrates the teacher’s role.

In this vignette, the teacher is aware of Lucas’ caution in entering the play, yet his strong awareness and most likely his desire to enter the social play become part of his individualized curriculum plan. Because such individualized curriculum is a component of early childhood teaching, the teacher–children ratio must be kept sufficiently low to allow the teacher to know in depth how each child is developing and learning. In infant/toddler programs, assigning a primary care teacher who stays with three or four children throughout infancy, makes it possible for teachers to know each child well and tailor individualized plans to support each child’s learning and development.

Many programs use a child portfolio system to record ongoing individualized curriculum plans. A portfolio tells the story of a child’s developmental progress. It may include periodic psychometric assessments of the child as well as planning notes specific to the child. It may also include notes of what the child did in response to the plans, photos, or work samples that give insight into the child’s progress. A child’s portfolio allows a teacher to track a child’s individual needs, keep a record of what is planned to support those needs, and document progress in learning. Such individualized planning is not posted, like the plans designed for groups of children, but the plans in each child’s portfolio are regularly reviewed and shared with families. Here is an example of an individualized curriculum plan:

Observation Notes

In this example, the teacher knows about temperamental differences and knows how to assume the role of “social bridge” to assist the child to join other children’s ongoing play. Planning to be a “social bridge” for a child with a cautious temperament is part of a larger individual plan. Lucas’ teacher recognizes that Lucas will have opportunities to learn various skills in an integrated way when he joins the social play. The teacher watches for ways in which this social context prompts the child to express and manage emotions, to understand and use language, to collaborate with others, and to solve problems. Individualized planning applies to all areas of learning and tends to highlight those concepts and skills that children would otherwise miss the opportunity to build if teachers developed plans only for the large group of children.

Another of the over-arching principles from the California Preschool Curriculum Framework states that individualization of learning includes all children. Of course, some children have individual plans developed by specialists to address the children’s developmental needs. For children under age three, those plans are called Individual Family Service Plans (IFSPs), and for children over age three they are called Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). For children who have one of these, it is helpful for the teacher to know how to support the identified goals, outcomes, or objectives in the early childhood setting. With parental permission, the teacher can either be a part of the planning process or communicate with the team that developed the plan. More information on this process can be found in chapters 1 and 5 of Inclusion Works! (CDE 2009b).^[2]

Group Plans

Teachers also regularly prepare written plans to organize experiences for the full group of children in a classroom or program. These plans are posted in a predictable place and referenced throughout the day or the week by the teachers and the families. These group plans may be daily or weekly plans. Group plans describe possibilities for experiences that relate to either a small group or a large group of children. A small group is typically a teacher-guided experience with four to eight children. The following vignette from volume 1 of the California Preschool Curriculum Framework (CDE 2010a, 17) illustrates how teachers plan for a small-group context:

Posting the daily or weekly group plan is important. What teachers record on the posted daily or weekly curriculum plan organizes the possibilities for that day or that week and makes the plan for learning visible to anyone who reads it. The posted plan should serve as an organizing tool for teachers to know easily what comes next. In an early childhood setting, unless the program is a small family child care home, there are typically two or more staff members who care for the children. A written plan posted in a central location serves as a useful reference throughout the day for all those involved in supporting the children’s learning.

Some parts of the day that support children’s learning remain the same each day. For example, in preschool washing hands before meals, inviting the children to notice or to count who is present and who is absent, or setting up the outdoor painting

To build upon the children’s interest in snails, the teachers announced to the children during large- group circle time that the snail trays would be available for exploration. The teachers also used the large-group circle to read books and tell stories about snails. One teacher invented a simple clapping chant to play with easels, which usually occurs each day. These routine experiences do not need to be written into each daily plan. Rather, a record of these regularly occurring opportunities for learning can be included in a description of the program schedule, along with a description of the distinct interest areas set up inside and outside. For example, the California Preschool Curriculum Framework (CDE 2011b, 16–19) provides a guide for the design of specific interest areas that support children’s learning as they enjoy self-initiated play. Written descriptions of how teachers plan for each interest area should be included in the program handbook and shared with families when they enroll in the program.

Teachers write on the posted daily or weekly plan what they expect to do to supplement the ongoing learning experiences built into the well-supplied interest areas, the thoughtfully designed daily routines, and the interactions and conversations that lead to “teachable moments” that occur spontaneously during the day. The posted curriculum plan for preschool typically includes the following items:

• Topics to discuss or books to read at group time
• A focus of small-group activities planned for the day
• Materials to add new challenges and experiences to the interest areas both inside and outside

Similarly, the curriculum plan for infants and toddlers includes the following items:

• Books to look at or read with children
• Songs, finger plays, and rhyming games that will occur during the day
• Materials to add new challenges and experiences to the environment both inside and outside^[3]

Family Focus

Children’s experiences with their families also inform the curriculum. Teachers look for ways to connect the children’s learning in the early childhood program to their experiences at home. The following moments in the investigation of fresh foods that come from the garden illustrate how teachers make connections to the children’s lives at home (CDE 2011b, 33):

From the perspective of developmental scientists who study how the mind of the child develops, early childhood curriculum is most effective when teachers provide generous opportunities for children to engage in meaningful play, well supported by materials and experiences that fascinate them and engage their natural ways of making meaning (Gopnik 2009; Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2009; Rinaldi 2001; Singer, Golinkoff, and Hirsh-Pasek 2006; Zigler, Singer, and Bishop-Josef 2004). When early childhood teachers are asked or attempt to follow a prewritten scope and sequence of instructional activities, the essential features of an integrated curriculum—co-constructed, responsive, and dynamic—are often lost.

However, even when using a prewritten scope and sequence of activities, early childhood teachers can find ways to modify the planned activities to respond to the unique cultural and family context of their program and their unique group of children. For example, the investigation of fresh foods that come from the garden could be implemented within a curriculum that includes a theme about plants or spring.^[6]

Connecting Families to Curriculum Planning

Documentation is an invitation to families. Family and community partnerships create meaningful connections. Documentation not only guides curriculum planning and provides evidence of children’s learning, it also offers an easy and effective way to engage families in participating in planning for children’s learning. A note, a photo, or a work sample serves as an invitation to families to participate in interpreting the observed play and exploration made visible by the documentation. The following example illustrates how teachers use documentation to invite families to join them in the work:^[7]