The HighScope Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers

1. The HighScope Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers Daily Schedules and Caregiving Routines Shannon Lockhart Senior Early Childhood Specialist High/Scope Foundation slockhart@highscope.org

2. Objectives • Identify the elements of active learning daily schedules and caregiving routines • Discuss ways to make the infant and toddler day predictable yet flexible • Distinguish similarities/differences from preschool and infant-toddler routines • Assess the elements, predictability and flexibility in your infant-toddler schedules

3. Let’s Take a look at the HighScope “Wheel of learning” for infants and toddlers Key Developmental Indicators

4. A Sensory-Motor Experience of Events • Turn to page 8. • With a partner read about the situations that the infants and toddlers are experiencing. • Describe what they will typically do and communicate. • Discuss as a whole group.

5. Summary In general, infants and toddlers experience events: • With their whole bodies • All of their senses • In the here and now (limited sense of time) • Don’t see the big picture • Don’t self regulate • Don’t understand consequences

6. Summary (cont.) • How is their experience of events different from an adult’s experience of the same events? • Adults think about events • Have a sense of time • Can plan for the future • Know what to do in particular places • Know consequences

7. Current Infant and Toddler Day • Get into 2 Groups (ITs and Preschool) • On chart paper, list a typical schedule for your age group that you currently work with or know. • Both groups get together. • Choose a recorder and discuss the similarities and differences in preschool and infant and toddler routines • Discuss as a whole group.

8. What do infants and toddlers do all day? Let’s create a list of all the things infants and toddlers naturally do all day. Children’s normal actions and behaviors are the building blocks we use to create a daily schedule!

9. The Emerging Daily Schedule Let’s look at our list and circle the actions that are associated with the following times of day: - Arrival time - Nap time - Feeding/Meal times - Bodily Care - Choice Time - Outside Time - Group Times - Departure

10. The Infant and Toddler daily routine is organized around the needs, strengths, and interests of sensory-motor learners.

11. The Infant-Toddler daily schedule is organized to fit the children. children are not expected to fit into a pre-set schedule that does not take into account their particular eating and sleeping patterns.

12. Plan-Do-Review with ITs? • Why do we ask preschoolers to plan and recall? • What is the purpose? • What reasons apply to ITs or sensory-motor learners?

13. Experiencing a Schedule • Choose 1 person from each group to follow Shannon. • Follow your leader and participate in the activities. • Discuss: • How did you feel? • How might this experience be similar to the experiences ITs have as adults typically move them through the events of the day? • How might you change this experience you just had to make it more flexible/comfortable and responsive to ITs?

14. Guideline #1: Accommodate children’s natural rhythms and temperaments. SLOW DOWN to their pace! Summary • Attend to children’s pace and manner of doing things. • Think about ITs as sensory-motor learners. To learn, they need to experience and process materials and situations through all of their senses. • They need choices!

15. Experiencing Routines #1… • Tell your partner about the grocery store where you like to shop. • Take out a piece of paper and draw a map of how you are going to get back to your hotel room or home. • Tell your partner where you were born, date of birth and what you did on your last birthday.

16. Experiencing Routines #2… • Find two other people to form a group of three and greet each other. • Share stories about when you were an infant or toddler (Ex. what you looked like, where you lived, what you liked to do). • End your discussion by singing a favorite children’s song together. • Turn to page 13 in PG and record your responses to these two experiences.

17. What are your feelings about each of these 2 routines you experienced? What can we do to make daily schedules known and predictable to infants and toddlers? How do the kinds of schedules we create for children influence their feelings of power and control?

18. Consistency • Through repetition of the same daily sequence of events, even very young children learn to predict and anticipate what comes next. • Photo/picture sequences of daily events for older toddlers which are concrete representations and help them see and talk about themselves involved in their day.

19. Benefits of a Predictable Schedule • Children learn to trust their teachers who: listen, acknowledge needs, pace and way of doing things. • Children trust themselves and their own abilities to predict, anticipate and influence what will happen next. • Children gain a sense of ease and comfort when the schedule is suited to their learning abilities. • Teachers enjoy the day more because children are happier and less irritable.

20. Elements of the HighScope Infant-Toddler Day Daily Events • Arrival and departure • Choice Time • Outside Time • Group Time Caregiving Routines • Feeding and mealtime • Bodily care routines • Nap time

21. Getting to know the HighScope Elements of the day • Divide into groups. • Turn to page 17 in PG. • As a group, using the instructions create a report to present to the whole group based on your assigned part of the day. • Use pages 18-23 to assist you. • Use the footage for examples.

22. Guideline 1 Create an overall daily schedule that is predictable yet flexible. • Organize the day around regular daily events and caregiving routines. • Follow the overall daily schedule consistently. • Accommodate children’s natural rhythms and temperaments. Slow down to their pace! • Provide a smooth flow from one interesting experience to the next.

23. How to Create an Overall Daily Schedule • Gather information about each child’s day ---when each child typically eats, naps, is awake, arrives at the center, likes to play, departs. • Enter information about each child on a grid. • Look across the completed grid for activities among children that typically occur around the same time of day. Decide when might be a good time for: ✓Choice time ✓Outside time ✓Group time ✓Lunch • Based on the information gathered in steps 1-3, create a sequence of events---an overall daily schedule.

26. Discuss: • Let’s look at 6 children’s biological routines. • Ask yourselves the following questions as you look at these infants and toddlers: • What patterns do you see emerging across all four schedules? • How might you work out feeding and mealtimes when children end up eating at the same time? • When might it make sense to plan a group time for older toddlers? • When might it make sense to have outside time?

28. Summary • Infants and toddlers come to us with their own personal schedules. • The overall schedule for any small group, emerges from individual schedules in the group. • Times will vary from day to day, but sequence of events remains consistent and predictable. • More than one overall schedule. It takes several tries to discover which one works best for these particular children and caregivers.

29. Helpful Hints • Look for common patterns among the children. • You will need ongoing information from parents about each child’s typical schedule and changes it undergoes. • You will need to reassess your schedules periodically. • The children will let you know what is working and what is not working.

30. Applying this Method • Jot down your current daily schedule or use page 10. • Using Guideline #1 on pg 14, critique your current schedule. • List your strengths • List what you need to change • Think about group times and outside time. How will these parts of the day fit with how you will develop a new schedule based on your children’s natural rhythms. • Discuss as a whole group.

31. Reflecting on the Day • Look back over the agenda. • Jot one thing down on a sticky note that you want to remember about our discussion today. • Jot down one thing that you still have questions about.