u/arleesaur

hey yall- florida teacher here, and it’s my first year in VPK and i’m getting ready for my upcoming CLASS observation. does anyone have any tips or know exactly what they look for? i have a coach from my ELC helping but shes been telling me some things that are simply not feasible with my specific class (ie. suggesting kids have more choices during rotation learning groups, when i have structured my groups to be in a specific way because there are certain kids who cannot be with each other or they intentionally provoke and hurt others)

anyways looking for any advice cause i have an extremely rough group of kids who don’t like structure or routine or being told what to do and it’s genuinely stressing me out thinking about how they’re going to act on observation day.

this might be oddly specific to my center cause i have beef with the way the owners are running it, but omfg i hate the wonder of learning curriculum so much. sometimes it’s great. but sometimes it’s literally fucking stupid. and my center director/owners don’t give any supplies at all. like i’m supposed to create and come up with all the supplies and materials to go along with THEIR lesson plan that i DONT agree with and i DONT believe its developmentally appropriate and all i get is a book or two from thrift books that kind of fit the theme. that’s it. next week their inquiry question is “what is in outer space” and i have not one but two stupid “small groups” about freaking sheep. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT SPACE. and my center is doing summer camp which gets their own special themes but only for 3s and up. Bridge and under have to be “on unit”. anyways i’m pissed off and i’m probably gonna leave because this isn’t “child led” like they’re claiming it is and as a reggio inspired child led educator i’m not having it.

got an offer from them but i know they’re a franchise and my current franchise experience is leaving a sour taste in my mouth lol. like whats their curriculum like, what system if any keeps owners in check, like just what general vibe is it like working there? im genuinely curious cause it looks shiny and nice on the outside but like i said, i fear franchises after my current experience.

i’ll go first-
children over the age of two should wear clothes they can put on themselves. im talking specifically about putting kids in jeans with tiny buttons that they can’t yet fasten themselves.

and also all rompers/overalls for 3 and under should have button access on the bottom for diaper changes

title pretty much explains it all lmao, but i have two kiddos (age 2.5) that have started full on WWE wrestling in the past two weeks and im pretty much at a loss on how to redirect this. im talking pushing each other to the ground, sitting on each other, running tackles out of no where, and it’s mostly been with just the two of them for the past two and a half ish weeks. however the past it has escalated and when another kid tried to play with them he ended up with a full on black eye. with all this roughhousing stuff has also come with some food related stuff (think smashing food into the ground and throwing it everywhere), which is out of the blue for one of the two at least. this all has pretty much come out of nowhere. it’s very out of character for one of the kids and the other has just had minor one off instances in the past. both kiddos wrestle with siblings and parents at home, and im totally fine with some rougher play as long as no one is getting hurt, but with the injuries that have happened in the last couple days i’m having trouble trying to figure out how we’re going to continue to redirect and make sure cause the past week has been ROUGH.

what we are doing right now is making sure we talk to the kids about wrestling only at home and when mom and dad are watching, and constantly talking about gentle hands and using physical touch to demonstrate. with the injuries lately i’ve also tried to make sure i’m talking and showing them “hey when you do ____ it makes your friends sad, do you see their face? they are sad/upset/angry”, but other than that i genuinely don’t know how i can get through to them and parents are also at a loss. any advice would be appreciated rn im stumped lol

soooo this is an ongoing situation, but yesterday the owners and admin of my center sent out an announcement message to staff and parents that said
“we now have a new open door policy! you can come and go whenever. but please communicate minimally with classroom teachers during pick up and drop off and tell any important things to admin/owners and they will be properly communicated to teachers in their own time”.

i understand on one hand that they want us to be hands on with kids and our full attention should be on them. but here’s my issue: we don’t have any other way to communicate with parents. we don’t have platform messaging abilities, which makes our only daily communication at pick up and drop off. that’s it. everything else is through the director. the owners don’t communicate shit. how am i supposed to 1, get to know parents and form trust, and 2. communicate needs or issues in the classroom, if i can’t actually talk to parents?

other thing to note is my coteacher and i already have a system for when one of us needs to talk to parents so kids are being supervised. if i need to talk, she is full on with kids. if she needs to talk, im full on with kids.

somebody tell me this is insane- i’m out of work sick with hfmd, and my work just posted a pic on instagram of my class playing with a sensory bin i created AND PUT AWAY. while hfmd is going around. like- just asking for it to be spread. i’m literally gonna throw a minor fit when i get back cause i literally put it away to prevent spread and they took it out??? to take pics and post it??? like bruh.

hey yall- would really like some professional advice on how i should bring up OT for a 2 year old in my care. this child has very obvious fine motor deficits and can barely feed himself even just with finger foods. there are also some sensory processing and social skill concerns i have for this child, and he may also benefit from speech honestly but i feel like the good first step is getting an OT referral. how would you go about the is if this was a child in your class? any thoughts would be greatly appreciated ☺️