Friday, February 2, 2007

Short and sweet

Here's your provocation for early February...

Take a look at your children's cubbies or lockers or any space in the classroom where they store their things. Probably you labelled the space, chose where it should be. This is a space that your children could take ownership over.

Let the children personalize their cubbies.
"How would you like to change your cubby so that you'll know it's yours?"

Then communicate with the kids using their cubbies.
Just like adults check the mailbox every day, perhaps the children could check in their cubbies for occasional messages from you.
They also could communicate with their friends via the cubbies.

Sort of like getting ready for Valentine's Day!


I would love to hear if any of you try this and what the kids' reactions were. In fact, we all would love to hear it!


6 comments:

Peggy Rick said...

I think it is a cute idea to leave a little valentine note on or in each child's locker and to have the children personalize their locker. A bit difficult in CP as up to 4 children share a locker. We can still make the most of it when the children are here.

Room 1A said...

We use photographs of the children to help our little ones take ownership and to find their cubbies and lockers. We use velcro and magnetic tape for privacy, and to make it easy to share with our many "roommates" during the week. Our goal is to help the children have a sense of accomplishment and to take pride in the "art" work that they put in their cubbies - displaying it in the room first, showing it to friends, taking it home to show to siblings, dad, grandma, etc..

KarenBrasel said...

We also use photos on our preschoolers cubbies along with their name tags. Our kiddos love to deliver 'mail' to their friends... complete with envelopes! We have name cards with photos at the writing center to help them address their art work creations to their friends. It's all about literacy! We haven't decorated the outside of their cubbies to personalize them, but I like the idea!

fl room 223 said...

We currently use symbols along with the children's names on their cubbies, lockers, sit-a-pons, ect. The symbol stays the same will attending FL. Its something I learned while visiting a Regio inspired school. The children have a symbol, because they tend to be able to recognize it first and then their name. I do like the idea to have the children design their own things but I would continue to use the symbols. I love the idea of leaving personal messages to the children, we have already done it!

Mary O' said...

WOW! These are wonderful ideas. Thank you for sharing what you're doing in your classrooms with each other. Mary O'

YBK Yellow Room said...

You know, I never thought about letting the kids decorate their own cubbies! We use them year after year and just put a Lakeshore cubby tag on them. I'm going to take them off and give the kids a blank tag and let them go at it! Why didn't we think of this before??? We always make a big deal about telling the kids the cubbies are their space to keep their things so why not let it have their art on it! Thanks for making us think about what we do and why we do it!