Essential Agreement #2

All early childhood programs will use the ECIP form provided by the Coordinators as parent conference forms.

We revised this to read that all early childhood programs will
use the ECIP form provided by the Coordinators as an
assessment tool. Teachers are encouraged to share the
ECIP form with parents at conferences but do not need to use
the ECIP as a parent conference form.

Parents will understand what is being assessed through the ECIP and how they can support this work at home.

Please see the blog about the ECIP and parents.
This should be ongoing.
How have you already shared this information with parents?
What are you seeing that demonstrates parents are supporting their
children's work at home?

"The walls talk..." All Early Childhood Programs will document and display the documentation of the children's work at least once a week.

We revised this to indicate display of documentation changing
at least monthly rather than weekly.
And boy oh boy, are these walls talking!!!
Parents, staff, custodians--everyone is noticing what the children are doing.
I'm wondering how that work can be spread and shared
throughout the Central community.
Fabulous work everyone. Keep it up!!!
I'm wondering what you're learning from
each other's documentation in the halls.
I hope you're taking an opportunity to visit upstairs
if you live downstairs and vice versa.
Perhaps this wall talking and wall walking would be
a good topic for a lunch bunch or study circle.
Also, in the Innovations publication that is circulating among
teachers, there is an excellent article on documentation.
Finally, at Central, we have a brand spanking new
IMAC computer which is hooked up to a brand
spanking new laser printer. You can hook up your
not so brand spanking new cameras to the IMAC and
print out pictures on the laser printer--easy as pie!
What you need to do this is to have your SLP user name
and password. If you don't have one, check with Mary O'.

"How do you know what you know?" is a question that will be answered in the documentation.

Again, I'm seeing lots of this on the talking walls.
I'm wondering if the parents know what you know...

Powerschool!

As I write, Marilyn is entering all early childhood classes
into Powerschool. Your ECIP data will go in there
and you can enter it yourself, if you would like.
Marilyn is also pleased to train anyone interested.
If you have been trained on Powerschool, there is a
possibility I can obtain a laptop for you to use
in your classroom while you are entering ECIP data.

I want to read your comments on how you are honoring this essential agreement!

A reminder of Essential Agreement #1

This year, we will all adopt an Inquiry Stance.

Open

--Welcome ideas, even conflicting ones

--Prepare to change our positions and opinions

Wondering

--Be playful with ideas and words

Committed

--Actively involved with ideas, both verbally and nonverbally

Engaging of others

--Building on each other’s utterances

--Agreeing/disagreeing with others and our own ideas

Supportive of own and others’ ideas

--Offering evidence and opinions

--Encouraging risk taking

Please post a comment to tell us all how you are honoring this essential agreement in your work so far this year.

Travel Guide on Central Field Trips/Staff Exchanges/Visiting IB

The final piece from the early childhood workshop!

With all good intentions, I hope to have these ready to rock and roll no later than January 1, 2008. Just wanted to let you know that this hasn't fallen off the radar screen and next steps will be taken.

Thank you!

Study circles/lunch bunch on inquiry

Yet another topic that came up at the early childhood workshop was the idea of organizing a study circle and/or lunch bunch for staff to get together and talk about the use of inquiry in your classrooms.

Such conversations and discussions around the documentation of children's work is a critically important component of inquiry.

At this point I can offer you continuing education hours for any work you do together on this--no $$ (sorry :( )

To move this forward: please post a comment to this blog within the next week if you are interested in being part of a study circle and/or lunch bunch inquiry group. Once we see who is interested, we can move forward to make it happen!

Curriculum Night on Inquiry and the ECIP

Another topic that came up at the early childhood workshop was how to talk with parents about inquiry and the ECIP.

If I remember correctly, we sort of volunteered the ECFE parent educators to provide other program staff with a 'cheat sheet' on relevant points and conversation starters.

Are you still interested in having this resource? Please post your reply so I know how to move forward on this.

Second, if I remember correctly, you were discussing offering some sort of parent night where inquiry and the ECIP could be explained.

Lisa, Peggy and I chatted about the possibility of doing this as an all early childhood programs/classrooms event. We looked at the nature of the different programs, interactions with parents, parent involvement and decided that doing an all programs event really wouldn't meet the needs of parents in various programs.

So, your beloved program coordinator will be talking with you about ways to make sure that there is conversation with parents about inquiry and the ECIP. If you have some ideas or suggestions you want to share, please post a comment to this blog!