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https://teachingstrategies.com/blog/why-i-dont-prioritize-cute-anymore/

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It's a common refrain when you work with children: "That's so cute!" In fact, for many years, it was a benchmark to which I aspired. I wanted my classroom to look cute. I wanted my colleagues to note how cute everything always seemed to be down at my end of the hallway. I wanted families to love how cute the children's work was. I wanted the activities I planned to look cute and sound cute and feel cute and be cute.

The more I worked with children, the more I came to realize that, in and of itself, "cute" is a pretty low bar. Choosing "cute" as your primary goal within an instructional setting sets you up for a journey with little else to recommend it. And "cute," when reliant more on a child's ability to copy than to invent, can interfere with their development of creativity and problem-solving abilities.

I realized that when my colleagues who taught older children said that something was "super cute," it wasn't much of a compliment. I came to understand that they were comparing what the children in my classroom were doing to what was going on in their own classrooms, which they saw as the hard work of real learning. Although my classroom cuteness may not have inflicted harm, I have come to regret the time and energy spent on trying to create something that provided surface appeal but ultimately lacked depth.

So, if "cute" isn't a noble end goal in an early childhood classroom, then what is? Here are six descriptors I've learned to aim for in my own work and admire in the work of others.

Six Descriptors Worthy of Children's Time

1. Rigorous: Rigorous learning happens when children are offered experiences that are challenging but not frustrating. The Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate craft I created-and all the students made copies of-was darling. Everybody said so. But what about that project challenged children to think, explore, invent, or explain? The most rigorous thing about it was the math I did to know how many bright orange paper pumpkins I would need to crank out of the die-cut machine (five per child!). Rigor in early childhood is found when the children are working at least as hard and long to figure things out as the teacher is. Our craft-stick fences may have been cute, but a far more rigorous experience would have been asking children to think about what we could create from the boxes our classroom supplies arrived in.

2. Relevant: In February 1998, the portraits of then-president Bill Clinton that my students created for President's Day were downright adorable. But nothing about that activity was relevant to the skills that a five-year-old child needs to manage the social demands of his life, at home or at school. A far more relevant social studies experience at that time of year would have been to explore, discuss, create, chart, tally, draw, or write about some of the ways their lives were affected by the harshest part of our Pennsylvania winter.

3. Meaningful: When planning learning experiences for young children, ask yourself "What is the 'big' skill this will help them practice that can transfer to other contexts?" Meaningful learning today sets children up for even more meaningful learning tomorrow. The 6 ft. cardboard spaceship we created was supremely cute, but how did it prepare children to understand anything about navigating their own very real, very immediate world? A far more meaningful experience would have been painting murals after studying the "space" around our school and discussing how we could work together to take care of it.

4. Interesting: Perhaps the greatest compliment you can bestow upon a learning environment is not "How cute!" but "Wow! The children are really interested in this." Are the children pursuing answers to interesting, intriguing, and compelling questions? The most complex question they asked during the Five Little Pumpkins activity was "Where does this part go?," to which my answer was always the same: "It goes there," as I pointed exactly where so that the product could most resemble the model I had displayed prominently in our Art area. Instead of gluing together replicas of my cute autumn craft, a much more compelling experience would have been for me to work with the children and their families to add some seasonal natural elements to our Art and Discovery areas (Bumpy-skinned and differently colored gourds are so interesting!) to inspire authentic creation, exploration, and shared writing and mathematics activities.

5. Deep: Do you know that feeling you get when you realize several hours have passed by without your once checking the clock, simply because you are so deeply engrossed in what you're working on? That type of experience is called "deep" work, and it is quite different from work that is boring or burdensome. "Deep" work isn't about gloomy endeavors: we adults often do "deep" work when engaged in our favorite hobbies! In fact, deep work and deep learning-where time flies and we are self-motivated-are often intensely fun. Children can indeed display long-term interest in what adults think of as cute activities, but the processes and products of deep work differ from the merely cute in that they engage children's problem-solving abilities and ingenuity. Playing dress-up, for example, transforms from the merely cute to deep work when children use sociodramatic play to figure out solutions to social problems, take on unfamiliar roles, or explore imaginary places.
When you offer children extended periods for play using interesting, hands-on materials, you are setting the stage for their engagement in deep work.

6. Beautiful: To quote my colleagues Sandra Faria and Michelle Salcedo during their webinar on creating a powerful learning environment for children, "Cute is expensive, but beauty is in your backyard." Yes, nature is beautiful. Childhood is beautiful. Learning is beautiful. Involvement is beautiful. Caring is beautiful. Consider what it says to children when you supply the classroom with colorful, bumpy gourds and a variety of open-ended art materials, as opposed to giving them each a stack of five die-cut paper pumpkins and a few craft sticks. The beautiful classroom transcends artificial cuteness and, instead, embraces and showcases what children are capable of doing, pondering, creating, and becoming.

So, Some Cuteness Is Okay

While I would never say we adults need to completely avoid the "cute" things that children may enjoy doing, I can no longer recommend it as a goal in an early childhood environment. Instead, look for experiences that are rigorous, relevant, meaningful, interesting, deep, and beautiful, and you'll never again worry about "looking cute."

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Why I Don't Prioritize "Cute" Anymore - Teaching Strategies

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It's a common refrain when you work with children: "That's so cute!" In fact, for many years, it was a benchmark to which I aspired. I wanted my classroom to look cute. I wanted my colleagues to note how cute everything always seemed to be down at my end of the hallway.

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Nonviolent Communication Expressive

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Nonviolent communication receptive

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Power of Kindness

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Positive communication

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Does your site have a teacher training skill checklist?

1. The new teacher should be by your side all day long as you are talking through your whole schedule - do not let them just sit on the side and watch.
"This is how we wash hands for breakfast."
"Then you have a child pass out the plates; you spoon the food."
"We sing this song to transition to playing outside."
"When we go outside to play, we walk out this way."
"When you change the kids diapers, make sure to do this."
"It is important to know..."

2. Next choose a skill that the new teacher could practice doing with you there.
"I've walked you through how we wash hands; how do you feel about doing it tomorrow?"
Watch them and ask them how they felt about it.  Tell them what they did right and any corrections needed.
Add one skill at a time allowing them to take over more and more each day.  After you are done training them, they should be able to run the daily schedule even if you are not there.

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ITERS
TSG fidelity

PD: others

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Exploration Play

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The only way you are going to be prepared, feel calm and successful is to use your limited time to its best potential. Here are some tools...

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Know What's Important: Important and Urgent and Important and Not Urgent!

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Know What's Important: Important and Urgent and Important and Not Urgent!

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1. How staff should behave when a licensing or SUTQ observer visits.  Continue to do your daily routine - follow all health and safety protocols!

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Have bags or baskets for the kids to help clean up.

Let the children choose a song to clean up to or play a song to cue them.

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Sometimes children have a difficult time transitioning from outside playing to back inside.  Here are some tips:
• How much time is the child spending outside?  Are they getting their full outside time?  Is there a way they can get extra time?
• Give time warnings. Not just one, but several.  The child may need warnings for  5, 3,2,1 minutes and then being near him when calling time to line up and giving two choices. "Okay, it's time to go in now would you like to hold my hand or help me carry..."
• Is it possible to allow one teacher to stay on the playground with the one child?  Ignoring the unwanted behavior and praising the other children for lining up with positive attention and comments.  So that would look like: teacher warning message to go in to class. "Time to line up;" the children in line would get the positive messages. "Wow look at this line, look at Sarah standing so tall, look how calm Max is standing." This would need to be continued for each child in the line. Use descriptive language noticing vs. good job to all for lining up. If the child followed this, they would need his descriptive, positive comment quick and reinforced often. In walking down the hall way making sure you really are continuing to focus on all the positives. If the child didn't come in, you would still give all that positive talk to the children that did line up. Then the other teacher would engage the child - paying attention to eye contact and emotions and being on his level and then explain " It's time to go in, I have to help Miss Molly keep the classroom safe; you can walk in or I will have to carry you."
• Make it a race. "Oh I bet you can't beat me..."
• Making a sandwich. Each child in the line can pick a piece of the sandwich that either could be something visual like a necklace around their necks (laminated picture of bread, veggie toppings, lunch meats, condiments). You could also just use it as a conversation piece "oh what part of the sandwich are you going to be? It's funny to listen to the responses and then react. "So the sandwich was a pickle cupcake hotdog sandwich. Oh I've never had a sandwich like that before; I think I would like blue bread." Just being silly and fun with it.
• Get or create a social story to read to the class to teach them about the expected transitions
• Use a walking rope to hold on to

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1. Start with a structure.  Have a transition song or a cue to let children know it is time to gather on the carpet.  Just practice this 5 times in a row.  For the whole week just practice going to the carpet at the transition.  If the children are having trouble with where to sit, help them.  Assign them a spot with their picture or squares or little mats to sit on.

2. Prereading  Show all the children the cover and have the children describe what they see.  Can you guess what this book is about?

3. Read the book upside down.  Yes, you can do it.  Show the children the pictures as you read.  Have each of the children point to something on the page.  Let the children take turns turning the pages.

4. Ask questions - what is going to happen next?

5. Start small.  If your children are not used to sitting for circle time - try to have them sit for one book. Sing a song and then be done. Eventually add a finger play or another book. This will help them build on their skill of attending.

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Children and babies are particularly at risk for harm from excessive noise exposure. Their ear canals are not fully developed, and a baby’s auditory faculty is more sensitive than an adult’s. That’s why it’s vital to prevent noise exposures and create safe environments for them. As a rule of thumb, babies should not be exposed to noise levels over 60 decibels. The noise level recommended for hospital nurseries is actually lower, at 50 dB. For reference, a quiet conversation is between 50 and 55 dB and an alarm clock is 80 dB. However, with sound, things are not as simple as they seem. Sound is measured in decibels, which is not a linear scale. It is a logarithmic scale. This means that a 100-decibel sound is actually twice as loud as a 90-decibel sound.

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Schemas in children’s play was first identified by educational psychologist Jean Piaget

A schema is a repeating pattern or behavior which is part of a child’s learning process.

Transporting: picking things up, moving them and putting them down or dumping them.