Kindergarten versus Primary.

The way of teaching in Kindergarten reflect Gestalt Psychology. The fundamental formula of Gestalt theory might be expressed in the word ‘globalization’. Max Wertheimer is one of the most importants Gestalt's psychologists. He thought that human thinking is based in comprehensives meaningful perceptions, not in collections of combined pictures. In consequence, we only could break a comprehensive perception through an artificial analysis. In other words: when the subject memorizes by studying the whole selection, the details are organized into a total configuration, each element in its proper relationship; the subject who uses the part method learns a jumble of details which have no organization.

In Wertheimer words: “There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes” (1924). Then, some important pedagogues adapted Wertheimer studies to the teaching. Decroly, for example, observed that children learn by means of all the senses.

In kindergarten we put a lot of real experiences within reach of the children without separate in subjects. For example, we can teach astronomy planning a party in where the children have to make cookies done to solar system scale. When they are reading the recipe, they are learning language. When they are counting how many planets have to make, they are learning maths. When they are talking about the colour of every planet/cookie, they are learning natural sciences. When they are talking about the flavour of the cookies, they are learning about their selves,…

Generally, in primary school the timetable is divided in subjects. You can make cookies too, but it is not as easy as in kindergarten, because you have to adapt your teaching to a strict timetable, already in primary stage pupils are taught by more teachers. Language class, for example, can be at early morning, after it, children have to learn spanish with a different teacher, later, maths with the tutor again, but maybe the timetable doesn't contain natural sciences this day, for example… The way to draw up a programme is so different, and the activities are not so making with their hands.

The majority of schools use a different method to teach in kindergarten and in primary school. But sometimes kindergarten adopts primary methods, even it is unusual that primary uses kindergarten methodology. Those schools are the most interesting, though. In general, when a school adopts globalization methodology, teachers have to make their own didactic material, because books publishing only make more common textbooks, and it is the books that use the great majority of schools, that is to say, one book for every different subject. When the majority of teachers in a school makes a decision that entails so work, you can be sure that they are hard workers and, in consequence, we can say that one primary stage that doesn’t follow kindergarten methodology can teach with responsibility, but one primary school that follows kindergarten methodology is sure that teach well.

It is very important for the kids that teachers make a bridge between kindergarten and primary methodology. In this way I think that it is a very good option to have a staff with more teachers with kindergarten degree than just the necessaries. It allows that teachers accompany pupils getting in the primary stage. Don’t doubt that it is warmer for the children.

Every child is a neon sign that says "PRECAUTION!"

Kinder Garden or Primary School?




Both stages are very interesting from my point of view. Today I will speak about Kinder Garden learning, and I will do through Robert Fulghum.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten


by Robert Fulghum- an excerpt from the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten





All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:



Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

Be aware of wonder.

Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggestword of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government oryour world and it holds true and clear and firm.

Think what a better world it would be if all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down withour blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had a basic policy to always put thing back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old youare - when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

© Robert Fulghum, 1990. Found in Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7.

What would you like to speak about?

Dear bloggers, I’m pleased to share with you this little window to our kinder garden. I would love to give you a real vision of the reality in the little kinder school. Then, I invite you to draw back the curtains to see whatever you fancy.

Once a week, teachers of the same course program together, and when we design the different activities and we allocate them in the timetable we bear in mind a lot of factors. We work coordinates with all the kinder garden teachers as well with the all the school teacher.

To work as a team is not easy. We have to explain our opinions, sometimes we have to convince others teachers than our idea is best and the most common it is to have to negotiate some agreement. But this hard and ordinary work is an enriching experience that became us better professionals.

I can explain you some decisions that we have made in relation to psychology in the kinder garden, and more exactly, about getting from kinder garden though primary stage. But I have to decide which decision will be more interesting for your knowledge, and I don’t know too much about you.

My greatest wish is to make an interactive blog. In my first post I just introduced some ideas about psychology in the kinder garden. In my second post I talked about getting through primary stage. And from now on I would like to do a tailor-made blog. May be you don’t know exactly what do you want to know. To be easier, in this third post I’ll do some options to develop, if you are agree.

I propose you to talk about cooperatives groups, one method work that allows us to promote the group cohesion.





I suggest explain how we use the traveller folders to communicate to the families the progress of their daughters/sons systematically. It is a good way to improve the communication with our pupils’ parents at the same time that it promotes better learning or even higher test scores.







How long is in top shape the time to teach the same group? Is it optimum to be all the kinder garden stage with the same group of pupils? Is it possible gets though primary stage holding our pupils’ hands? Could the same teacher be a tutor of a group of pupils in P5 and then be again in first of Primary? Would be a good idea?

You can write a comment about your preferences if you want. It is not obligatory, of course, but it is an opportunity to know all the things that you can interest about kinder garden and primary school. If you aren't brave enough to give your opinion, don't worry, I'll go on with the subjects
that I think that may be could be more interesting for you.

We’ll read us!

Getting through Primary stage!

It's not easy to get through First of Primary. When the children have to leave Kinder Garden to ingress in the Primary School they feel fear, doubt, they are angry, they want to cry and they love all the well-known things, even their teacher.

But some times getting through Primary School is as hard for the family child as for the same kids.

Teachers are very important for the little pupils, and also for their families. That’s why we can help them to feel better. It’s important to give them some methods to control the anxiety.

First of all it’s important than the child know that it is normal to feel insecurity when we have to change the known situations. Nobody likes changes, but they are necessaries and a change it is not necessary worse.

It’s good that the pupils of the last course of Kinder Garden are especially well prepared. If they are good in all subjects, their adaptation to the new scholar stage will be easier. For a good pupil all the teachers are good, in spite of for a good teacher all the pupils are good.


It’s important to communicate to the families the most important progress of their son/daughter because we need that they don’t transmit their fear, doubt, angry, crying and their love all the well-known things to the kids. The family feelings are no so differences than the child feelings.













Is desirable a good relation between the different families, because they have a lot of commons interests and some methods that help one family have to be good for another ones. In consequence, a good teacher has to be a dynamic factor in the relation between the families. You can stimulate each family to invite others at their home sometimes, or going at the same park than other families for the children play together, or to go out one weekend at the mountain... Of course, the relation between the families is not obligatory, but it is good for the children, because it allow them to know better their class-mats and they can become close friends. And the contact between families is useful for parents’ mind. They can explain their common fears and together they can find faster the solution and the happiness. The parents calm is fundamental for the children well-being.





The adults have a lot of power over the kids.










In the last quarter of the course is important to visit the future class, to know the next teacher –if it is possible- and we have to offer possibilities to know some older children that could protect our pupils when they will be the youngest in the new playground – usually the Kinder Garden playground is separated than the Primary Garden-.

With this objective, in the third quarter of the course, in Marta Mata’s Primary and Kinder Garden School we have setting off The Reading Sponsors. Every 5 years old child have a 7 years old Reading Sponsor, who reads with him/her half hour a week. The young and the old kids are making a friendly and sponsoring relationship. The relation covers more than a person to person connection. In fact, the relationship affects all them. All 7 years pupils of 2nd A group have sponsored all 5 years pupils of P5 A. Like that, all children of 2nd B have sponsored all children of P5 B, and all kids of 2nd C have sponsored all pupils of P5 C. What's more, when they are going to read, always read the same 5 years-7 years pair, during the first two sessions half group of 2nd and their pairs went to another classroom, with the second Primary course's teacher. The most dependents 5 years kids stayed in the P5 class, with the P5 teacher. To start from the third session, all the P5 pupils will go to a Primary class. What’s more, they will be in an all-purpose classroom that is separated from the next by a sliding door. The objective of this is that little children become to feel secure even their teacher is not always in their field of vision.

To get your self-esteem back depends on you believe to be able to do, and on you believe to be beloved.



Another activity with a similar purpose, however it doesn’t systematized, it is a changing books for Sant Jordi between P5 classes and 1st of Primary groups. It pretends to nearer two groups that the course before were playing together in the playground. They only know each other by sight, but next year they will be well known, and to get one book and a bookmark from somebody heard of them will be the beginning of closer together.



Of course, one of the most important parts of get through Primary is the coordination between the actual teacher and the future teacher of the group. It’s prime to realize a transfer kid by kid, finding varied elements that allow welcome every child as good as be possible.



Some people think that it is difficult to find to oneself. In Kinder Garden we know that nobody find him/herself really, but oneself is something that one makes.

Are you thinking to become a kinder garden’s teacher?

Then, you probably have discovered that the future of the children depends on the present that they live.

First of all if you are living in Catalonia maybe you could find some interesting information in this web page.

http://www10.gencat.net/cur_wrcec/AppJava/visible/start.do?set-locale=ca_ES

In the second place, today I would like to speak about the importance of the child psychology.

While you are teaching you are improving, it is for this reason that you will be a better teacher some years after you became to teach. However is difficult that you be a genie. It’s not impossible, but it’s less usual. Nowadays is very easy to take information about main psychologes and pedagogs. If you know this information you will be a better teacher faster, and along your career you will be more professional. Then, you must know the most important theories and you have to put into practice with some modern variations. It’s important, for example, to know The Multiple Intelligences Theory. For Gardner, the Intelligence is the ability to solve a problem. It is more, for this philosopher, the aptitude to solve a problem depends of the context in which the child lives. Then, our most important objective is that our pupils keep happy and intelligent. As a result, we have to tried very hard they are relaxed and confident in their selves. In consequence, our communication with children’s families is very important. It’s essential we are friendly with them, because then they will be pleased with us, and it is good for the children.

“I’m very happy, because I know that you are writing e-mails to my mommy, and I love you for it”
Inés, 5 years old. 2009.

Sometimes we have to be a good psychologe. It’s more difficult to deal with our pupils’ parents than with themselves! It is very hard, overall, when you have to explain child’s problems to a family who is living a difficult moment. You can think that it is not very often, but I can say you that it is the most common, because when a child has a problem, normally he/she is not well at home. Sometimes you can predict a separate marriage because of their son/daughter. Then, you have to speak with the parents and you have to try to help them with the centre psychologes.

It’s fundamental to be a good observer and to be very tactful with your family questions, because you always have to respect the family, however, at the same time, you have to take cure of the child too. It’s not easy, but it is necessary, overall in dramatic cases like bad treatment.

But when you are a teacher you are not alone. You are backed in the other teachers, in the psychologes, in the social services team, in the children’s parents, and in the pupils. All us are a team which objective is learning, not teaching. Teacher only are one of the pieces of the puzzle. But if you are still reading this lines, you, like me, are sure too that in education, more important than to gain time it is just to spend it.