Goals for Young Children in Preschool

Working with young children is both a challenge and a joy. Our goals for young children in preschool classrooms are to be socially adept and highly motivated, ready to learn about the ever evolving world. When children use materials inappropriately or do not interact well, we consider them as having a behavior problem. Research has shown that in dealing with challenging behaviors with young children, prevention should be goal. The focus on prevention changes our motivation of developing interventions from "fixing" the child to addressing changes to procedures in our classroom. There are four areas needing assessment in a preschool classroom in regards to prevention strategies: classroom environment, schedules and routines, type of instruction and materials, and support strategies for appropriate behavior. Each area will define effective instructional strategies using developmentally appropriate and recommended practices from articles or books from Division of Early Childhood (DEC) and supported by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT
Creating an environment that encourages child initiation, participation and appropriate social interaction should be the goal of every preschool teacher. The physical classroom environment plays a great part in either creating or preventing situations that cause challenging behavior. In this section, the focus will be on the assessment of the physical structure and layout of the preschool classroom.

The strategies used to assess the physical environment can be divided into three sections: arrangement of areas or centers, choice of materials, and the organization of materials.

Arrangement of areas
Consideration of certain variables within the arrangement of the classroom can contribute to the prevention of challenging behaviors. Look at your interest areas and consider these questions:

• Do the areas or centers have visual boundaries? (shelves, tables, carpets, or even lines on the floor)
• Do the areas have names that are understandable 9:39 AM 11/2/02to children?
• Is there adequate space for multiple children to play in the same area?
• Has traffic flow areas within and between areas been considered?
• Are the areas able to accommodate many types of play?
  - Dramatic/Role Play
  - Solitary Play
  - Parallel Play
  - Constructive Play
• Exploratory Play § Cooperative Play
• Are the areas or centers adjusted throughout the year based on child observations?

Each of these questions address a part of the classroom arrangement that could have implications on the behavior of young children. Often times we, as teachers, are frustrated because a specific activity or part of the daily routine does not flow well. Considering the arrangement of the classroom and the materials can frequently provide a format to addressing these frustrations.

Choice of materials
Observation is the key to choosing materials that reflect the interests of the children in a preschool classroom. By observing the types and content of children's play, teachers can choose items that support a variety of developmental levels. Children can become frustrated with materials or activities are either too difficult or not challenging enough. The focus should be in providing materials that can be used in a variety of ways. Providing many "closed ended" materials such as file folder games or puzzles does not accommodate children in a classroom of different ages and abilities. These types of materials quickly lose their allure, and children will find ways to become busy, sometimes to the dismay of the teacher. As children engage in play, they do so based on their level of thinking/reasoning, language and social skills. Therefore it is important to provide materials that support children on their individual developmental level. How do we do that? By providing materials that can be used in a variety of ways, often called "open-ended". Many of these types of items are 'collected' and 'real life' materials, such as boxes, egg cartons, paper tubes, cell phones (non functioning), telephone books, kitchen utensils, and pieces of fabric. Other typical items such as string, glue, tape, play dough, carpet scraps, blocks and paper are also materials that should be available to children everyday.
As children construct knowledge based on their experiences, their thinking, language and social skills grow. By choosing the appropriate materials, teachers can support this growth and help children feel successful regardless their level of development.

Organization of materials
Now that we have looked at the types of materials that should be present in a preschool classroom, the storage and organization of these materials are crucial in helping children take care of and use these items appropriately. Often times, a single frustration for preschool teachers is cleanup time. Teachers often feel as though they are the ones cleaning up the room after a busy time of play. This frustration sometimes leads to limiting materials available, where teachers only put out what children can play with during that time period. While this practice does give some availability of choice, children tend to use the materials in a less mature manner when materials are frequently rotated or set out on a sporadic basis. In addition, children will pay much less attention to returning the materials when finished because they are often unaware of the teacher-designated location. One simple way of avoiding these unwanted situations is to make sure materials are stored in a consistent, accessible location. In addition, labeling shelves and containers with "pictures" of the items will simplify clean up and allow children to practice many cognitive skills such as matching, classifying, and counting. Labels allow children to be successful at cleanup time. The labels can be from photos, catalogs, original containers or handmade. Providing matching labels on containers as well as shelves help cleanup for adults and children especially when materials are used across interest areas. By allowing materials to be accessible to children on a consistent basis, teachers will see an increase in the level of play in individual children. By providing a consistent location for all the materials, teachers can provide a way that all children can be involved in this part of the routine and avoid many of the struggles of cleanup time.