Reading Report 4. Chapters 5 to 8

BYGLORIA MORENO AND ELENA GÓMEZ

Concluding the Project

“THERE COMES A TIME in the life of the project when children are ready to move onto other things.”Students are ready to go to the third phase that is to culminate the project. Authors propose to review on the previous planning and correction of questions and answers through the process, to confirm what effectively was learnt by the students.“In Phase III, it is just as important to involve the children in decision making as it is in the first two phases.”

Concluding the Project

One of the many benefits of project work comes from the carefully planned, purposeful, and definite culmination of the work.The verification can be made by planning a very meaningful event for closing the activities. This event might include teachers, students, parents and other classmates. Teachers have to be careful to make a good documentation of the process of the group as well as individually."

Concluding the ProjectIn this part of the book the authors want to share many examples of projects that were guided by them.

In the next two chapters, we can find two complete examples of project work. Chapter 6 is the experience of Laura Taylor and her Camera Project, and chapter 7 is the Fire Hydrant Project, that was told by Sallie Sawin.We add the presentation of each one of the projects in the book.

The Camera ProjectPreschoolers Engaged and Learning

This is a complete example of a project work called “The Camera Project” by Lora Taylor, the teacher in whose classroom it occurred. Ms. Taylor has been teaching for 14 years, 8 of those at Northminster Learning Center in Peoria, Illinois.

Northminster Learning Center is a Reggio-inspired, faith-based early childhood program that includes toddler, preschool, and kindergarten programs, as well as after-school care for approximately 250 children. The Center is funded by the Illinois State Board of Education to provide a Preschool for All program. Project work and documentation are core values at Northminster Learning Center. Ms. Taylor was assisted in the project by her associate teacher, Stephanie Martinek, and by a student teacher from Bradley University, Erika Goldstein. Ms. Taylor has two groups of children: morning and afternoon classes of mixed-age 3- and 4-year-olds. She usually works with the same topic for both morning and afternoon sessions and completes an average of two projects a year in her classroom.

The Camera Project started when a couple of children became really involved with a camera I had placed in the house corner area as a play prop to stimulate creative play. I thought the children might want to pretend to go places and take pictures. They took the camera outside of the play area and began running around the classroom saying, “Cheese.” I questioned them:

“What are you taking a picture of?”“What are you going to do with that camera?” “How are you going to get the film out of there?

“How do you know that there are really pictures being taken?”

The Camera Project

As this play persisted, we continued the questioning. Because the play was persistent, I decided to put some film in the camera one day. I told the boys and girls there was real film in the camera, and I just let them play around and snap pictures. Then the next day I brought in the developed pictures. It was fun for them to see how disorganized the pictures were. There were pictures of the ceiling, the floor, and their fingertips. So we discussed how one can really take pictures. I asked them if they knew how to take a picture of a person. They wondered how that worked. That was the beginning of the Camera Project. It blossomed from there. The topic came from the children’s play. Just adding a little play prop in our dramatic play area led to this engaging project.

Chapter 7. The Fire Hydrant Project

Adapting the Approach for Toddlers

OFTEN when a school or center becomes involved in the project approach, the teachers who care for the toddlers in that program will ask if the project approach can be used with their children. Since the first edition of this book came out, we have seen many toddlers actively involved in investigation. We have viewed documentation showing toddlers’ growth in thinking and understanding, and have heard teacher reports of the enthusiasm with which parents receive reports of the toddler “projects.” The activities occurring in these toddler classrooms have many of the characteristics of the project approach as defined by Katz and Chard (2000) and described in the flowchart and the examples in this book.

They are certainly in-depth investigations of topics worth learning more about. Toddlers are actively involved in learning. Toddlers are investigating, and toddlers are representing.

The Fire Hydrant Project took place in a classroom for toddlers, 15 months through 2 years old, at the Center for Early Education and Care (CEEC) at the University of Massachusetts. CEEC provides full-day, full-year early education and care services for undergraduate, graduate, staff, and faculty families of the University. Sallie Sawin is the supervising teacher in this classroom and tells the story of the project. Cathy Savage is a co-teacher in the program.

Chapter 8. CLOSING THOUGHTS

To conclude, in these final pages, authors presents the final definitions on work projects. They make a strong call to be careful with the experiences we offer to toddlers, kindergarten and children to 6, in order to teach them to get them to be successful in academicals issues .Students learn more when they know they are important to teacher, when their work is taking into account and when they are students but also teachers to others.Using this project approach we can experience the change of the way of teaching and the teacher himself.