Curriculum Philosophy

We view children as researchers of their world who construct knowledge through social interaction. We strive to provide experiences through which children pose and test their ideas. We support children in acquiring a set of fundamental concepts and skills as well as the habits of mind and heart that enable them to understand and operate in their world as effective problem-solvers and responsible community members.

Our curriculum recognizes the importance of relationships for the well-being and development of young children.  Within the context of supportive relationships, the curriculum emphasizes child-initiated problem-solving; long-term investigations; and, social-emotional, cognitive, and physical development. Teachers continually seek to understand and consider what the children know about their word and help them to articulate and test their hypotheses through ongoing exploration. We help children develop a love of learning as they come to appreciate themselves as learners. The materials in the classrooms reflect our interest in open-ended, natural, and recycled materials.

In addition to the classrooms, we offer children opportunities to engage in experiences in two studios dedicated to the visual arts and music. Each studio is taught be a supervising teacher with experience and education in the art form and is open every morning for children to participate independently and by their own choice. The classrooms and studios work collaboratively, with classroom experiences extended and deepened in the studio and new experiences in the studios extended in the classrooms.

Note to MCL: Check on 21st Century skills and determine where to add Reggio/RIE, etc.

Guided Play – balance of child autonomy and exploration with adult guidance in terms of preparing environment and materials and scaffolding with observations, questions, and extensions of learning. Balance imaginative play with rule-based play such as board games.

What does joy look like – not always smiles, laughter, flow, Cziemihaly, surprise, insight, collaboration, solving problem, creating. Learning through play that is meaningful, actively engaging, iterative, joyful, and socially interactive.

Influences and Inspirations

The supervising teachers, in collaboration with the teachers, develop and document curriculum based on the influences of the Reggio Emilia Approach, the Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) Approach to infant and toddler care, current research on early learning and development, and the standards and frameworks established in the field for best practice.

Word Cloud created by Fort Hill teachers to describe the curriculum.

The RIE Approach

The following quote was adapted from the Resources for Educarers website. The Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) approach informs our work with young children. Please click here to learn more about the RIE approach.

“Respect is the basis of the RIE philosophy.

We not only respect [children], we demonstrate our respect every time we interact with them. Respecting a child means treating even the youngest infant as a unique human being, not as an object.”

The Reggio Emilia Approach

“Children, from birth, are eager to learn and relate. They seek to examine, experience, and connect with the people and phenomena surrounding them. In education and in life, children and adults thrive when there are interesting resources, complex environments and experiences, time for the pleasure of learning and being, reciprocity, sharing, traces of interpreted experiences in process, a strong sense of belonging, and optimism for the future.”

Quoted from the Northeast Reggio Emilia Alliance website.

Please click here and visit the Fort Hill Moodle site to learn more about the Reggio Emilia Approach.

Frameworks and Research

Developmentally Appropriate Practice

“Developmentally appropriate practice, often shortened to DAP, is an approach to teaching grounded in the research on how young children develop and learn and in what is known about effective early education. Its framework is designed to promote young children’s optimal learning and development.

DAP involves teachers meeting young children where they are (by stage of development), both as individuals and as part of a group; and helping each child meet challenging and achievable learning goals.”

Quoted from the National Association of Young Children website.

Please click here to learn more about developmentally appropriate practice.

Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC)

The Center for Early Childhood Education meets the licensing regulations of the Massachusetts EEC and follows the standards, guidelines and frameworks established by the state of Massachusetts.

Please click here to learn more about the Massachusetts learning standards, guidelines, and frameworks.

Research in Early Education and Child Development

The staff at Fort Hill engage in continuous and high level professional development and maintain current knowledge of research and evidence-based practice in early childhood education and development.

“The science of early brain development can inform investments in early childhood. These basic concepts, established over decades of neuroscience and behavioral research, help illustrate why child development—particularly from birth to five years—is a foundation for a prosperous and sustainable society.”

The above quote is from the Center on the Developing Child website. Additional resources are available on the Moodle site.

Classrooms and Studios

Social-Emotional Curriculum

Brene Brown Empathy Video

Brene Brown animated section

Infant/Toddler Curriculum

Relationships are the foundation of the curriculum in the infant-toddler classrooms.  Teachers build trusting, secure relationships with children as the base to support all other learning, and work closely with parents to build reciprocal relationships to cooperatively support the children in the infant/toddler classrooms.  Teachers actively support children in developing self-awareness and in learning the self-regulatory and pro-social behaviors that help them to work and play cooperatively and collaboratively.

The importance of giving young children ample time to explore materials and ideas in an ongoing, long term, in depth manner is at the core of the philosophy in the infant/toddler program. Children build relationships with materials throughout these years, from their first introductions to new textures, sounds, or visual art media to ongoing, open-ended exploration with these materials through increasingly complex investigations that center around big concepts and learning goals.   Teachers emphasize natural, wooden, and open-ended materials that engage children’s imagination and challenge them to think creatively and plan the curriculum in a cyclical manner, which involves observing and documenting children’s play and exploration, analyzing this documentation, and providing new provocations or “next steps.”  This cycle helps children to extend their thinking and to continue their work with certain “big ideas,” or ideas central to their work.  The goal of the curriculum is for children to experience the wonder and excitement that comes from exploring the world around them and to develop the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical skills necessary to engage with ever more complex investigation, learning, and development.

Preschool Curriculum

Music Studio Curriculum

The music program at Fort Hill is a multi-faceted, daily program that incorporates all ages from infancy through preschool. The curriculum is designed to blend the philosophies of the Reggio Emilia and RIE approaches with the skill-based focus of the First Steps in Music curriculum developed by Dr. John Feierabend of the Hartt School of Music at The University of Hartford.

The First Steps curriculum posits that a successful music program encourages children to be:

• Tuneful
  • to have tunes in their heads and to coordinate their voices to sing those tunes.
•  Beatful
  • to feel the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in either 2s or 3s.
•  Artful
  • to be moved by music in the many ways music can elicit a feeling-ful response.

With these three goals as guiding principles, the music program at Fort Hill encourages these types of musical behaviors in a variety of different ways.

The Music Studio is outfitted with a variety of percussion, string, and wind instruments. Children are encouraged play and explore the different instruments in both structured and unstructured activities. Percussion is utilized often to encourage strong beat sense, and pitched instruments like bells, xylophones, and tone bars are used to encourage pitch sense. With a large open area for creative movement, the Big Common space where music sessions are most often held is the perfect location to move expressively to different styles and genres of music.

Singing unaccompanied by instruments is an essential part of building pitch sense, and helps children develop their singing voice as well as their ear for melody. Vocal warm ups that encourage using the full vocal range, call and response or echo songs, as well as familiar sing-along melodies promote the development of proper singing techniques.

Community building and social development are central to the mission of Fort Hill. The Music Studio supports this mission through a variety of group songs, games, and dances. The multi-age environment of both the preschool and infant/toddler music sessions allow children of different developmental levels to observe, interact, and learn from each other.

Projects are another fundamental element that guide the curriculum at Fort Hill. This approach to long-term, collaborative projects can be seen in the Music Studio in a variety of ways. Using technology to record and develop vocal or instrumental music is an essential element for long-term project work in the Music Studio. Collaborations with classroom curriculum, and with the Art Studio are other ways that the Music Studio supports the implementation of long-term project work.

Above all else, the goal of the Music Studio is to create joy and enthusiasm through the making of music. We support children in taking the songs and ideas from the Music Studio and incorporating them into their daily routines. Hearing children sing, create beats, and move with expression as they play, work, and interact independently reflects the impact that the Music Studio makes.

The entire school gathers in the large Common every Friday morning for an All-School Sing. Parents are welcome and encouraged to join us for the weekly event. The music studio supervising teacher leads the Sing and all teachers and administrators participate and support children to joining in the music and movement.

Visual Arts Studio Curriculum

The visual arts studio at Fort Hill is a centrally located space within the school available for all preschool children to visit on a daily basis. For an extended period of time each day, children from each preschool classroom are given the agency to choose when they would like to visit the arts studio. While in the space, visitors are free to explore as they wish, and leave when they are ready. At Fort Hill we believe that this system helps to create an environment within the school where children from each classroom can work collaboratively and creatively at their own pace.

Role of the Teacher

The art studio teacher creates and sets up thoughtful and beautifully presented provocations inspired by children’s observed interests. These may stem from observed repetitive explorations of materials, conversations, and behaviors of the children. The studio teacher often collaborates with classroom teachers to ensure both a varied offering of materials as well as possible connections to classroom curriculum. The teacher, using all of this combined knowledge then creates provocations for the studio space. The goal of a provocation is to further extend children’s learning by providing an outlet for experimentation, questioning, and collaboration.

The studio teacher brings experience and knowledge of both the arts as well as child development and uses this knowledge to excite and engage children through the visual arts.

Unique Materials

The Fort Hill art studio is unique, in part because of the materials that are available to children in the studio. The studio teacher does offer traditional and high quality materials such as watercolors, paint, pencils, etc. However, it is not uncommon to find recycled materials, natural objects, and other items conducive to visual expression or language, yet not usually seen in a preschool art space. It is our philosophy that access to and experience with open-ended materials provide the space for multi-modal expression and discovery. The unique presentation and offering of a wide variety of materials allow children to freely explore innovative ideas.

The visual arts and music studio teachers actively seek to connect curriculum and interaction among all members of the Fort Hill community. They publish weekly email messages to the teachers to share information about what is happening in the studio. They create weekly message boards outside the studios to share information. Each of the studio teachers is responsible for developing school-wide curriculum and communications.

Interdisciplinary

The studio teacher inspires interdisciplinary work to take place in the studio through the provocations and questions set forth to children. Interdisciplinary learning is always encouraged as it allows for more connections to take place- connections to their learning in the classroom, to other children’s work, to their prior knowledge, and to their experiences both in and outside of school. As they make these connections, their understanding of their experiences and their world, grow.

Inclusive Play Philosophy: “If Two Can Play, All Can Play”

An important aspect of the Fort Hill philosophy and curriculum is our inclusive play policy. This policy was developed by the staff after a collaborative process of shared reading and discussion. The sections below describe the theory, research, and practice of this philosophy.

Theory

The teachers and administrators at Fort Hill value collaborative play as central to learning and recognize the relationship between positive peer interactions and children’s development, leading to children’s future academic and personal success. Fort Hill teachers provide an environment that meets the needs of children with a wide range of social skills as they recognize the social nature of learning and intentionally teach social problem-solving skills.

The Fort Hill program is inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach to early education and is similarly based on a theory of social constructivism. This perspective emphasizes the social nature of learning and posits that cognitive development, including attention, memory, and conceptual development, originates in social relationships, i.e., knowledge is a collaborative process – it is co-constructed. Children learn and reach higher levels of understanding and problem-solving when they work collaboratively with adults and peers (Vygotsky, 1978).

Teachers plan the environment, interactions, and curriculum to intentionally promote relationships and co-construction of knowledge. This intentionality reflects one of the important principles of the Reggio Emilia Approach, which is evident in the following quote:

“In Reggio, the idea of overriding importance in design is relationships: How will this arrangement, that experience, those materials encourage children to form relationships – with the space, the materials, with another child or a small group of children, with a teacher, with parents, with ideas between what they already know and something that is new?” (Lewin-Benham, p.70)

Research and Practice

Based on this theoretical framework, teachers strive to build an inclusive classroom and community. They support children in developing the social skills and social problem-solving skills necessary for entering and sustaining play and convey the expectation that children support one another in engaging in cooperative play. Teachers also respect children’s desire to play alone at times and recognize the importance of providing children with opportunities to learn social skills and build resiliency by navigating through difficult experiences and rejections.

This approach to inclusive play and active teaching of social problem-solving skills stems from compelling research, which suggests that the perceptions others hold of a child’s social standing remains stable through many years of schooling (Ladd & Price, 1987) and that when children lag in social skills in early childhood, it is difficult to catch up with peers in first grade (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). Recent research also suggests that social problem solving skills help children make the academic transition into kindergarten and first grade (Walker & Henderson, 2012). Fortunately, teachers can positively influence children’s social interactions and through careful policies, can promote inclusion and social problem-solving skills (Audley-Piotrowski, Singer, & Patterson, 2015).

Our philosophy of social play is described with the phrase, “If two can play, all can play.” The adults at Fort Hill actively create a culture in which all children recognize the accepted practice of social problem-solving and collaboration to include anyone who wants to play with a group of two or more.

The teachers support social problem-solving for both the child trying to enter the play and the children excluding the child so that all children who want to play can be included. The teacher’s actions reflect her knowledge of the children involved and of the ongoing play. If a child is rejected or excluded as he attempts to enter ongoing play, a teacher may respond to those who are excluding him, saying, “You are already playing with ____, so that means all friends can play.” She may ask the children who are excluding the child to explain the play scheme to the excluded child and offer ways to participate. She may coach the excluded child in specific behaviors to enter rather than asking the question, “Can I play?” Similarly, when a child expresses an interest in playing alone, the teacher guides him in communicating his preference and also supports the child requesting to play in managing the perceived rejection when the other child wants to play alone. The teacher continues to monitor and support the play for an extended period of time to ensure that all the children successfully manage the process of entering and sustaining play.

Conflict Resolution and Saying “I’m Sorry”

What to Say to Little Kids Instead of “Say Sorry” 

Planning Curriculum

Supervising teachers lead the planning, development, implementation, and documentation of a comprehensive curriculum based on the philosophy of the school. Supervising teachers hold weekly team meetings with the classroom teaching team and engage teachers, as well as studio supervising teachers, in a collaborative process. All teachers participate in planning curriculum during the weekly team meetings.

The agenda for the supervising teacher meetings includes a scheduled time for each supervising teacher to share a current long-term investigation or project.

Documenting Curriculum

Making Learning Visible – classroom displays, all school displays

Curriculum Plans

Supervising teachers maintain a binder documenting the curriculum plans and process on an ongoing basis. Templates for planning curriculum are available in Google Drive.

Blogs

We publish two forms of electronic documentation on a regular basis: Friday Documentation and Blogs. Each is intended to serve a different goal. Each blog and documentation includes images a few children; teachers maintain records to be sure that every child is represented at some time during the year, and to maintain equitable representation. The goals of these documentations are broad: to share the community experience and to engage families in dialogue about curriculum. Children’s individual portfolios and reports are intended to document and share individual experiences.

Please click to see a sample documentation and blog.

Documentation

As our vision statement says: “It is our vision that each child who comes through our door join a community of children, families, and teachers engaged in the joy, work, and wonder of childhood” and we strive to create a strong, connected community at Fort Hill. We publish a multi-page “Friday documentation,” which is designed to offer all families and educators a “glimpse” into the life of the community. The Friday documentation includes a page from each of the classrooms, the visual arts and music studios, and the director. Teachers design the Friday documentation so that it is simple and easy to read, with few words and engaging photographs so that it can be read quickly while conveying a clear message about your child’s community. We hope that all members of the community will read each of the pages of the documentation – children are often featured in the documentation of classrooms other than their own, and we hope that the documentation will help everyone know all members of the community and gain a sense of the philosophy and spirit of the school.

The assistant director sends a link to all families and staff. The webpage is secure and can be accessed with the same username and password as the blogs.

Children and educators have many opportunities to interact with people throughout the school. For example, the building was designed to encourage interaction with full-light doors, classrooms that connect to one another, common spaces and shared playgrounds. Children often visit other classrooms or common spaces, for example, a group of preschoolers may visit a child’s sibling in the infant/toddler wing, some young preschoolers may visit an older preschool group, children in different classrooms may work on an extended project together, or a group of toddlers and a group of preschoolers may be together on the playground, the studios, or in the commons. We hope that by presenting a weekly “snapshot” of all the classrooms, families and educators will be able to see the community as a whole.

Blogs
The blogs are intended to show curriculum development in the classroom and to encourage, and provide a format for, parents to participate in curriculum development. Our goal is to make the children’s learning visible and to engage parents, and the teachers at Fort Hill, in discussion that leads to extending and deepening the curriculum.

Teachers publish a blog post at a minimum of two per month. The blogs have a “Comment” feature and we hope that everyone in the community comments on blog posts. The link to the blog webpage is on the right side of the Families and Educators page of the Fort Hill website for parents to revisit the pages whenever they like.

The blogs are intended to show curriculum development in the classroom and to encourage, and provide a format for, parents to participate in curriculum development. Our goal is to make the children’s learning visible and to engage parents, and the teachers at Fort Hill, in discussion that leads to extending and deepening the curriculum.

Each supervising teacher is responsible for publishing a bi-weekly Word Press blog. Support for maintaining a Word Press blog is available through the Smith ITS department, the Lynda.com (online learning) site at the Smith portal, and online at Word Press.

In addition to the classroom and studio blogs, the director and assistant director maintain blogs. The Director’s blog includes a link to access all other blogs.

Intent, Substance, Style, Process, read all, photos on separate page – intellectual process for teachers, parent education and communication, set password protection

Keep separate photo page

Observation and Documentation of children’s development and experiences –

Please see Documenting Curriculum: Blogs and Documentation in the Curriculum section Blogs and Documentation are sent to all staff.

o Confidentiality in blogs and documentations
Confidentiality in blogs and documentations
• Children who do not have any permission restrictions may be photographed and their images published electronically and their dialogue recorded; references to individual children in dialogue includes only a first name; no child is identified by name in an image.
• No images of children whose parents have restricted permission to photograph/record will be used in blogs and documentation. If the dialogue of a child with permission restrictions is recorded, the teacher will publish only the child’s first initial when detailing the dialogue in the blog or documentation.
 Teachers limit the images in a blog to those that support the blog posting. Additional photos be be uploaded to a separate “photo” page on the blog, or may be shared through Google photos.
 Current information on permission restrictions should be posted at the computer and in the classroom.
 Supervising teachers post a documentation of the classroom on the last day of work week and post a blog the first week of school.
Support for blogs – Sophia.smith.edu/blog/howto

Supervising teachers may use Google Analytics to track the traffic on their blog.

• • Blogs
    • The goal of blogs is to communicate the thinking of teachers to families and colleagues and to serve as professional development for the writer – similar to a professional journal. The writing will include evidence of best practice, based in research and an established knowledge base, revealing “the intelligence of the teacher,” “teacher as learner,” and the professional nature of early childhood education and early childhood educators.
    • The blog will be sent to parents and teachers at a minimum of once each month.
    • We will use the blogs as a starting point to engage in collaborative analysis and discussion at supervising meetings.
      • We will develop a format for providing meaningful feedback when we dialogue at either supervising or level meetings.
    • The purpose of maintaining a blog is fulfilled in the act of writing the blog; parents may or may not read it and engage with it
    • Posts include research/theory and examples from the classroom
    • Martha will develop an electronic system to use as a database for teachers to collect quotes, research articles, etc. to facilitate blog writing.
    • All blogs will focus on a common topic 3x each year
      • Martha will write about the topic and include links to all the blogs in her post
      • We will try to align professional development activities in the preceding month with the topic
  • Weekly Updates
    • The goal of weekly updates is to share children’s experiences with families.
    • Teachers will email a link to a Google Photo album 1x weekly, aiming for Thursdays.
    • Teachers will choose whether to include a narrative in the body of the email or within the photo album
    • All children will be represented every week
    • Teachers will communicate with families if they are on vacation and if possible if they are ill to let them know there will be no update that week
    • We will begin the week of March 19, 2018
    • Could photo albums be shown on screen in big common?
• Discussion to be continued:
  • What months do we want to designate as shared topics?
    • September, December, March

Documentation

Documentation takes many forms as we strive to “make learning visible” at Fort Hill.

Friday Documentation

At the end of the day on Fridays supervising teachers and the director prepare a Google slide capturing a moment or conveying a simple message from the week. The assistant director creates ad multi-page pdf “Friday documentation” from these slides and sends an email with the pdf to all families and staff. The assistant director also includes a link on the Documentation section of the Director’s blog.

One of our goals is to create a strong, connected community at Fort Hill. Children and educators have many opportunities to interact with people throughout the school. For example, the building was designed to encourage interaction with full-light doors, classrooms that connect to one another, common spaces and shared playgrounds. Children often visit other classrooms or common spaces, for example, a group of preschoolers may visit a child’s sibling in the infant/toddler wing, some young preschoolers may visit an older preschool group, children in different classrooms may work on an extended project together, or a group of toddlers and a group of preschoolers may be together on the playground, the studios, or in the commons.

The purpose of the multi-page Friday documentation is to give families and educators a glimpse into each of the classrooms and studios. We hope that by presenting a weekly “snapshot” of all the classrooms, families and educators will be able to see the community as a whole.

We hope that everyone will read each of the pages of the documentation – children are often featured in the documentation of classrooms other than their own, and we hope that the documentation will help everyone know all members of the community and gain a sense of the philosophy and spirit of the school. Teachers design the Friday documentation so that it is simple and easy to read, with few words and engaging photographs so that it can be read quickly while conveying a clear message about the community.

Curriculum Resources

Moodle – books, articles, websites, Powerpoints, collaboration

Miscellaneous to Edit

Fort Hill educators strive to create a positive, welcoming community and a stimulating, engaging curriculum. Teachers emphasize interactions and an environment to support this community and curriculum. Teachers prepare and maintain organized, clean, and welcoming classrooms, which offer stimulating and engaging materials. Classrooms are open and ready to welcome families and engage them in interactions with others and materials upon entering the classroom. Please see the Communication section for more information on welcoming and communicating with families. Teachers are responsible for maintaining a positive attitude, solving problems in proactive and constructive ways, and communicating clearly.

“The foundation of a good community is a daily life that is joyful and happy.”  Thich Nat Hanh

“Nothing without Joy” Loris Malaguzzi

“Organization is Beauty”

“There is no marginal space.”

“…before experiments, measurements, mathematics and rigorous deductions, science is about all about visions.  Science begins with a vision.  Scientific thought is fed by the capacity to “see” things differently than they have previously been seen.” Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.

Curriculum planning and development are the bases of supporting positive learning, growth and development of children. Curriculum comprises all aspects of a child’s experience – the environment, materials, interactions, expectations of the classroom and school, etc. Curriculum at Fort Hill is intentional, planned, meaningful, engaging – classrooms “hum, ” children are challenged, experience struggle and mastery, –

“When children meet a challenge that interests them and that is within their grasp (but not beneath their capacity), they will settle down and concentrate….It is imperative that we pay attention to whether classroom items are challenging enough…If there are not enough complex items, if children have met everything before, if there is little that is novel, children will not settle into the long, unscheduled, concentrated work time of an Open Flow day.” Ann Lewin Benham (2011), p. 54