Earlier this week
Ms. Alvarez logs into the Teaching Strategies platform and accesses her curriculum and planning tools to complete her daily plans. She adds her chosen study, and the system auto-populates her calendar with content for the next 4 weeks.
First day of investigation
On the first day of the preschool investigation from her planned study, the Teaching Strategies platform automatically sends a curated, multimedia playlist to families via the free mobile app. The playlist includes a variety of activities, such as videos and digital children’s books, that directly support classroom instruction for families at home.
7:45 AM Adjusting Daily Plan
She logs back in to review her day and make adjustments to her daily plan based on her interactions with children yesterday—including an additional Intentional Teaching Experience to support social-emotional development and learning.
Digital access and auto-population of content give Ms. Alvarez more time to focus on her small-group planning. Today she’ll be focusing on Objective 20a, “Counts,” and individualizing her activity to meet each child’s needs.
9:20 AM Large Group and Choice Times
For large group and choice time, Ms. Alvarez uses embedded guidance from her daily plans, in the Teach area of the platform, to facilitate an activity in the classroom – making a Venn diagram that helps the children recall details of two different stories and classifying similarities and differences.
11:00 AM Small Group Time
Ms. Alvarez engages children in a small-group Intentional Teaching Experience focused on counting. While online, she can simultaneously teach and gather documentation of children’s learning and upload it to GOLD. She can also send families the suggested LearningGames digitally or printed out—in English or in Spanish—to strengthen this skill at home.
Children’s names are auto-populated along the Teaching Sequence of an Intentional Teaching Experience based on their most recent GOLD assessment data. This seamless link between curriculum and assessment provides Ms. Alvarez with the information she needs to individualize each child’s instruction and provide family members with photo and video evidence of their child’s progress.
1:00 PM Making the Most of Rest Time
The Teaching Strategies Family app automatically send families interactive multimedia playlists, in English and Spanish, which include activities, videos, and children’s books that tie directly to classroom instruction to reinforce the learning that took place during small group and throughout the day.
During rest time, Ms. Alvarez shares an additional ReadyRosie Modeled Moment video featuring a family counting together (in English or Spanish) with families of children who need extra support with this skill. Family members also receive additional activities to explore with their children at home.
2:00 PM Large Group Time
After rest time, Ms. Alvarez facilitates the Al’s Pals ‘Calm Down’ lesson which guides her through an interactive large-group discussion that supports children’s understanding of an important strategy for calming down. The resiliency principles taught in this lesson are reinforced when she plays the Al’s Pals original song ‘Calm Down’ song which reviews the Calm Down Steps with children, helping them remember key concepts, while listening to the tranquil music of Al’s Pals Songs for Stars.
3:00 PM End of Day
Without any additional work from Ms. Alvarez, Tadpoles automatically shares each child’s daily report with families, including photos and videos she’s captured throughout the day.
The Tadpoles app enables Ms. Alvarez to share a custom daily report that summarizes each child’s day. Ms. Alvarez is also able to seamlessly maintain actionable attendance and tracking data required by program administration and bookkeeping.
3:30 PM Anywhere, Any Time Professional Development
Ms. Alvarez accesses her on-demand elearning courses and completes a 10-minute fidelity tutorial to support her goal of incorporating more math learning into all interest areas.
With a subscription that provides unlimited access to all of Teaching Strategies’s online professional development courses, Ms. Alvarez and her coach can work together to build an individualized plan that continually elevates her teaching practice and helps her earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs).