Every Child's Champion

Lots of teachers these days are asking "What the heck is going on with all of these insane behaviors kids are bringing in? Teachers are dealing with high levels of aggression, fighting, arguing, swearing and name calling -- on a DAILY BASIS! Whether it is because of trauma, electronic babysitters and parenting in the electronic age, lack of limits at home, or something we haven't identified yet--we are seeing a huge upswing in children who simply cannot handle the rules and interactions of the PreK setting. So what is a teacher to do if she or he has one or more children like this in their classroom? Well, regardless of the source of the problem, what we're dealing with here is a LEARNING PROBLEM. Children have LEARNED to use aggression to interact with others. Remember that these behaviors are not about YOU--unless you get into power struggles!! This episode covers the KEY strategies teachers must put into place in the classroom and follow through with consistency, in order to prevent the majority of bad behaviors from continuing. With positivity, time, and commitment to these practices, you can see major turn-arounds in a short amount of time!

Are you looking for a way to enjoy teaching more? Do you find kids disengaging from group time, acting bored, messing around when they should be listening? This podcast will challenge you to engage kids in "higher-order-thinking processes" as a way to get them more engaged, and deepening everyone's understandings much, much more! Asking "how" and "why" questions, comparing and classifying are a few of the "analysis and reasoning" practices we talk about in this podcast. When you challenge children to compare and contrast, classify, problem-solve, and use their powers of reasoning more, you engage their minds in ways you never thought possible. When they get used to being challenged, they will rise to the occasion and begin exercising parts of their brain like a muscle, they get better and better at with time. Deepen their learning by more fully developing the concepts that come from your curriculum. You can do this by focusing in on the "how" and "why" of things, rather than just the "what." Read stories numerous times, engage in creative projects, and keep those little minds very busy by engaging them in challenging discussions. Your teaching time will fly by as you observe and enjoy your students amazing thought processes. High levels of Concept Development are built on increasing the frequency of analysis and reasoning questions, brainstorming and creating, and engaging children in deep discussions to help them make new connections. Teaching becomes much more fun when you challenge both yourself and your students to THINK!

This episode looks at how to support language development in preschoolers, by intentionally modeling language, specifically through the use of Self and Parallel Talk. Language is how people communicate. Without a way to communicate, children have to 100% rely on behaviors to communicate their needs, wants, emotions, and everything else. In the hearing world, we use speech, or verbal language, to communicate. Researchers estimate that children learn between 2,000 and 3,600 words per year (and 10 new words per day) during each year they are in school. Children’s receptive and expressive language is predictive of their later reading achievement. The more words children know by kindergarten, the better they are at learning to read; and their expressive language is even more powerfully connected to later reading achievement! To learn language, children need to HEAR language, starting from day one. This is one developmental area we need to do all we can to support. And there are so many things we can do every single hour of every single day to promote and facilitate new language development in our kiddos. SELF and PARALLEL TALK are two such strategies. 

The emotional climate of the classroom is established by the teachers, and not the students! YOU get to decide what values are most important in your classroom. Things like kindness, patience, helpfulness, acceptance, and friendship are values you have to intentionally teach, promote, and reinforce on a daily basis, if you want them to be exemplified in your classroom. Establishing a positive climate begins with your Relationships with the children - which have to be thoughtfully cultivated!  But it also includes child-to-child relationships. Relationship skills such as "how to be kind," "how to give a compliment," "how to make be a friend," and "how to be respectful of each other" --these things have to be explicitly taught, and intentionally promoted every single day by the teachers. If you want kids to care about each other, you have to talk about that! Talk about how they feel if one of them hurts the another - and how they need to treat each other in order to be liked and to be friends. Teachers can be very intentional about building into daily routines, a variety of positive, community-building features that help children learn to take care of each other and develop the social skills they need to succeed in life. For helpful handouts and other resources, go to the Resource page on our website, at:  https://synapseearlylearning.com/resources-2/

Research studies have shown that schedules and routines definitely impact children’s  social, emotional, and intellectual development. For example, predictable and consistent schedules in preschool classrooms help children feel secure and comfortable. Also, we know that when you explicitly teach children about the daily schedule and the steps to the everyday routines, this reduces the frequency of behavior problems, such as tantrums and acts of aggression. In this episode, Sara will give you 5 key components of all successful routines, and help you do a detailed breakdown of the steps involved in your daily routines - and even help you to establish routines within routines, within routines! Find show notes with lots of fantastic tools, videos, and resources at https://synapseearlylearning.com/resources-2/   

One of the most common issues for PreK teachers is figuring out Classroom Management. Classroom Management encompasses a wide array of practices, from managing the daily schedule, to routines, rules, and behavior. Such a huge topic that we are taking more than week to discuss it all! Children adjust to PreK and go along with our routines when they are clearly spelled out, explicitly taught, and consistently followed. Lots of visuals helps children to know what's coming next. Remembering that children are dealing with alot of stress (and often anxiety!) that they carry with them depending on their homes and life circumstances, providing a safe and consistent classroom is key! Tips for teachers in handling the tough issue of transitions, with real classroom examples and the feedback that teachers need in order to not have your hot buttons pushed, and establishing reasonable and appropriate expectations for your kiddos. 

We all know that teachers these days are super stressed. Every day in classrooms, teachers are dealing with thousands of needs, challenging behaviors like never before, inadequate staffing levels, high demands for keeping up with quality measures, paperwork  and the latest initiatives, and not to mention inequitable salaries. So in the face of all of that stress, how is it possible that some early childhood teachers still actually enjoy their jobs? This podcast looks into that question and presents some of the latest research about what factors can influence your job satisfaction. You may be struggling, but there is still time to turn this year around! Sara will give you some ideas to ponder and some tips to try, for changing the way you feel, even in the face of some undeniably negative circumstances.  Hang on, kids -- there is hope and things CAN get better! 

Introductory episode tells us what the Every Child's Champion Podcast is all about: who it's for, and what we'll be doing here each week. We'll tell you about the first 10 episodes and giving you a preview of our guests and topics. Start here!