How to Start a New IC Class

Develop your classroom adult team

• Identify each adults' roles and work during the first days
• Role play and practice scenarios Welcoming children
• RoutinesBathroom
• Conflicts
• Running
• Bathroom
• Positive language of redirection

Organize the daily schedule

• Define the large time blocks - arrival, work time, circle time, outdoor time, lunch time, nap time, afternoon activities
• Practice with the adult team their roles and work during each time block

Define parent communications during the first day and first week

• Decide on the key messages
• Decide who, when, and how you will respond to parent messages

Prepare the classroom and outdoor environments

• Decide which materials are suitable for the first days of the class – consider the ages of the children and their previous school experiences

Begin with known and familiar objects

Decide what outdoor activities are suitable for the first days of the class

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Define each adult's role outside

• Safety
• Zones
• Close but not hovering
• Interactions with children
• Prepared outdoor classroom

Phase in models

• Home visits – establish trust
• Pre-first day environment visits
• Small group for day one
• Additional children come during successive days

Define goals for the children during the first day, first week

• Establish feeling safe and secure
• Help children connect
• Learn classroom routines

Get ready for the children’s first-day arrival

• Identify and tell parents what their children should and should NOT bring to school and not bring to school

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• Ready responses to children’s and parent's separation anxieties
• Comfort and reassurance

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• Practice greeting and welcoming new children
• Observe temperament
• Approach, smile, wait
• Soft welcoming voice - by name

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• • Practice how you will introduce children to their new environment

Establish grace and courtesy ground rules and routines during the first week

• How to arrive – what to do with belongings and where to go
• How to walk in the classroom
• How to use a quiet voice

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• Where to work – shelf, table, rug
• Adults model & broadcast returning work to the shelf
• Adults model activities - not formal lessons

Routines

• Washing hands before food, after bathroom
• Bathroom procedures
• Snack procedures
• Nap procedures
• How to transport from the classroom to outdoors and back to the classroom
• Dismissal procedures

Decide on first presentations to the new children

• Day one - give grace and courtesy individual lessons or small group lessons (depending on the children’s readiness)

Decide on first presentations to the new children

• Day two – give individual and small group lessons (modeling and broadcasting) as children show interest.

Model expectations as lessons

• How to sit together in the circle
• How to use a rug
• How to sit at a table
• How to ask teacher for help
• How to watch another’s work

Days 3 and 4

• Add more activities in response to observed needs
• Help children use rugs; help children with work cycle
• Review grace and courtesy lessons; give new grace and courtesy lessons

Avoid during the first days

• Giving long individual lessons
• Not planning, not practicing
• Not becoming kind and firm with the children
• Using too many words
• Holding long circle times & requiring children to attend and sit
• Not allowing exploration with lessons

Welcome new children into an already existing classroom

• Meet with parents: learn about their child (home care giving, interests, needs, learning styles, experiences with other children, experiences at another school)
• Invite parents to observe and then discuss their observations and questions
• Visit the new child in their home
• Ready the environment for this new child
• Describe first days’ communication between the classroom and home

Welcome new children from an IC to a Casa classroom

• Define ready to move up (selfcare, following directions, completes work cycle)
• Meet with parents; learn about their child
• Invite parents to observe and then discuss their observations and questions
• Identify for parents the differences between IC and Casa

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• Introduce the Casa to the child – the child visits the Casa room with an IC teacher
• Ready the Casa environment for the new child
• Inform Casa teachers what the child learned in IC; inform Casa teachers what work the child does in IC
• Ready the receiving class to welcome a new child
• Introduce an older friend to the transitioning child
• Give new child presentations; avoid presenting what the child can do
• Communicate with parents about their child’s first days

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