Come join the fun at Chippewa Park on Sunday June 25 from 10-5PM with your friends and family for the 2nd Annual Children’s Festival in support of Our Kids Count! If you are interested in participating in the children’s festival with your organization, please reach out to emey@ourkidscount.ca.
In this video, Carol Anne Wien teaches us about pedagogical documentation and how to go from observing children to interpreting their learning. Tell us what you learned through watching this video in the comments below!
On behalf of the Child Care and Early Years team at TBDSSAB we want to say Chi Miigwetch to the incredible team at Abiinojiishiik-amino-yawook EarlyON Child and Family Centre. On Tuesday March 29th Sarah, Jennifer, Sabrina and Erica took us on a journey through their program during our first ever virtual tour gathering! They offered insight into who they are, their journey with embracing and implementing Indigenous culture into their programs and the special ways that make their team unique in our community! Through their insightful video, and the wholesome discussion period, we were able to learn alongside educators within our community and embrace the perspectives they bring to our Early Years field!
We are looking forward to our upcoming tours which will be happening throughout the Spring and Fall, stay tuned for updates! If you are interested in showcasing your program through a virtual tour, please let us know by emailing early.years@tbdssab.ca!
You can find the RECORDING LINK HERE! Please share your thoughts, reflections and questions in the comment section!😊
Miigwetch and Baamaapii!
Trivia Night was a HOOT, led by your very own…
MACARONI MEGAN
ALEX LASAGNE
annnd JODI FETTUCINI!!
Thank you so much to all who came out to have some fun with us. Participants went head-to-head for 3 main Kahoots – Child Care and Early Years Trivia, Local Landmarks, and Community Partner Logos. It quickly became clear that Jocelyne is the Kahoot Trivia extraordinaire!! …but everyone was a winner because of the fun and laughs we had together! And nobody will forget all of our pasta-tively amazing jokes…
Where did the spaghetti go to dance?
The meatball!
The winners took home the following prizes:
Let us know what types of prizes you would like to win at our next FUN EVENT in the comments below.
Don’t be upsetti-spaghetti if you missed out on this incredible experience, there will be more fun to come… including, BINGO NIGHT! Join us on Thursday, April 21 for BINGO! We will have more awesome prizes, and maybe even some NEW JOKES!
Please let us know in the comments below what other type of events you would like to see. Our participants shared some awesome pasta-bilities with us last night – draw-a-saurus, scattergories, karaoke, and more! Help us decide what to plan next.
We have some exciting events coming up in March!!
Head on over to the Calendar for details, and REGISTER NOW so you won’t miss a thing!
We are excited to be collaborating with some of our local service providers to offer Virtual Tours of your early learning spaces. This will be an opportunity for programs to share their strengths and the incredible work that they do for the children and families in our District. What brings you joy in your program? We are looking for volunteers who would be interested in giving a tour of their environments, services, or share how you practice Early Childhood Education in your settings.
These tours will be less than an hour with some time at the end for questions and conversation. The format of the tour is up to you. For example, we can go live, pre-record videos, create a PowerPoint, present pedagogical documentation, or any other format you can imagine!
Do you need a better understanding before diving in?! Join us for our first tour with Abiinojiishiik-amino-yawook EarlyON Centre on Tuesday, March 29 from 10-11am!
Our hope is to share all of your beautiful spaces. Let us know if you are interested by e-mailing us at early.years@tbdssab.ca!
Don’t forget to register for our upcoming events, including… TRIVIA NIGHT! Be sure to check out the Calendar for details and to warm up your trivia skills!
…and did we mention, there will be PRIZES!
We had a wonderful conversation last week about pedagogical documentation. Three educators joined us who each play a different role in our community – one educator in child care, one supervisor of a before and after school program, and one EarlyON coordinator. This diversity of experience made for a unique dialogue and the opportunity to share different perspectives. We all read the article, Curiosity, Curriculum, and Collaboration Entwined: Reflections on Pedagogical Documentationby Pat Tarr.
As we discussed the article, an interesting dialogue came up around interrupting children’s play. Traditionally, we have been taught to ask children open-ended questions – “what are you building?” “what do you think will happen when you stack another block on top?” We felt that this can sometimes interrupt and change the direction of children’s play, and we agreed that we should be thoughtful in deciding when is a good time to enter children’s play and ask questions. It was said that we need to give ourselves permission to take a step back and observe more.
As the conversation continued, we began thinking about how educators pick and choose what they feel is worth documenting. Tarr (2010) states in the article that “what we choose to document reveals and reflects back to us what we consider important, as well as help us to see ourselves as educators within the educational relationship” (p. 12). This conversation reminded some of us about another article by Pat Tarr that talked about ethics and biases in pedagogical documentation. We shared mixed feelings about this article, and some of us plan to dig a little deeper to decide if or how the information fits with our practice. You can access the article here: Reflections and Shadows: Ethical Issues in Pedagogical Documentation,.
Finally, one of the educators bravely shared her documentation with us. She wondered, “is this documentation?” There isn’t one right way to document children’s learning; taking time to practice documenting and experimenting with different techniques can help educators to feel more confident. We discussed our questions and curiosities about this documentation, and a new idea was shared about “stories from home” (Hedges, 2010). Essentially, “stories from home” is a form that goes home for families to fill out and share a story that took place with their child outside of the early learning setting – it’s getting the families to document!! We discussed that this would be a great way of getting to know children and families better, and building stronger connections between, for example, child care and home.
Let us know what you think about these ideas or about the articles provided in the chat below.
References
Hedges, H. (2010). Blurring the boundaries: Connecting research, practice and professional learning. Cambridge Journal of Education, 40(3), 299-314. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2010.502884
Tarr, P. (2010). Curiosity, curriculum, and collaboration entwined: Reflections on pedagogical documentation. Canadian Children, 35(2), 10-14.
Tarr, P. (2011). Reflections and shadows: Ethical issues in pedagogical documentation. Canadian Children, 36(2), 11-16.
