Creating Learning Environments: A Preschool Classroom Schedule

A Preschool Classroom Schedule
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A Preschool Classroom Schedule
Pre-school-aged children engage in multiple activities in school, including free-choice, child-directed, teacher-directed, and group activities. The children can engage in motor, language, and literacy activities and fantasy play. Good structuring of school schedules provides a valuable way of offering learning experiences and appropriate development for young children. This paper discusses a classroom schedule that begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. while including activities and routines for children aged three to four years in a private preschool.
Daily schedules enhance consistency and provide a guideline for expectations and psychological stability for the children since they regulate the usual school activities. The school schedule should include different activities and settings to enable children to acquire diverse skills and fulfill their needs (Virtual Lab School, 2012). Basing the preschool schedules on early childhood philosophy enhances active exploration for the children due to the allocated time for planning and implementing activities (Bullard, 2009). The children also learn using play and experiments, make decisions regarding different activities, and participate in in-depth learning. Teachers should consider children's needs, including developmental, nutrition, and play, as they create the learning environment. They should also balance activities to incorporate individual, child- and adult-initiated, large- and small-group, indoors and outdoors, and active and quiet activities. Furthermore, teachers must consider parents' needs, transition time, routines, and in-depth curriculum. The following is an example of a school schedule for three to four years pre-scholars.
8: 00 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.: Parents should drop their children at school during this period. This arrival time will enhance a warm welcome to the classroom environment and enable the parents to engage with the teacher regarding their children's needs or concerns or share other relevant information.
8:30 a.m.-9:45 a.m.: The teacher can encourage the children to gather in large groups to share the day's planned events, stories, ideas, or thoughts regarding a specific topic, such as colors or shapes, during morning circle time. Bullard (2009) explained that younger children like individual activities since they are less engaged or attentive in larger groups. Furthermore, Fuligni et al. (2012) highlighted that children are more active when the teacher provides verbal affirmations and monitoring and while engaging with small peer groups, unlike when the teacher gives direct verbal instructions or when the children are in a whole group setting. Nevertheless, dividing children into two large groups of twenty children each would enhance their participation in group activities. Children should actively participate in group activities to foster learning experiences for the chosen topic. As a result, the children would develop their creativity skills.
9:45 a.m. -10:00 a.m.: The children can transition to the gross motor activity of toileting and washing hands before having a snack.
10:00 a.m. -10:30 a.m.: The children can ...