standards

FunShine Tells: Why Use Curriculum?

| Chalimar Rios

Nursery children playing with teacher in the classroom

Running a preschool or childcare center can bring excitement, gratification, and joy as well as uncertainty and challenges. Starting from the moment that first idea sparks until you finally see it come true, one of the best tools to have on hand is the support of an educational curriculum. The strategies, structure, and interactions between adults and peers provided by the use of an educational curriculum in a child’s first years of learning is proven to form a student who not only will enjoy the learning process in the preschool years, but also in school years to come. Continue reading →

Welcoming Kindergarteners in Your Setting: Tips and Resources

| FunShine Express

gateMany providers welcome kindergarteners and other school-age children during summer and as needed when school is closed. While our Fireflies curriculum tackles and reinforces many skills and concepts essential to kindergarten, we felt it important to offer you resources that will support you in extending our curriculum to meet the needs of and challenge the older children in your care.

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Scaffolding: One Way to Individualize Instruction

| FunShine Express

by Debbie Keiser

What happens when a child is not ready for a skill he experiences in the classroom? In most situations, the teacher provides assistance, perhaps by modeling, giving hints, or directly teaching the skill. This is called scaffolding. Many states are revising their standards for birth to five with increasingly difficult indicators to be mastered. Providers using state standards as a basis for creating lesson plans are challenged to find ways to scaffold these skills so children are adequately prepared for kindergarten. More and more pressure is falling on teachers to make sure children are meeting these stringent guidelines.

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