Woodland
Friday, September 10, 2010
The Community Church
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WECC General InformationClick on the links below for more information:
Classroom Schedule
Classroom Ratios and Enrollment Waiting List Tours Guided Reading WECC is a Brain Compliant Learning Center Five Brain-Friendly Principles That Guide Our Instruction at WECC 6:30 – 8:30 Early morning drop off – Free choice play
8:30 – 8:45 Morning Snack
8:45 – 9:00 Story Time
9:00 – 9:30 Everyday in Pre-K, Calendar Math
9:30 – 10:30 Center Time/Direct Instruction and Guided Reading
10:30 – 11:00 Outside Playground Time
11:00 – 11:30 Circle Time/Language Development
11:30 – 12:00 Music Class with Ms. Christina
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 3:00 Naptime
3:00 – 3:30 Afternoon Snack
3:30 – 4:00 Gym or Playground Time
4:00 – 4:30 Story Time or Craft
4:30 – 5:30 Center Time
5:30 – 6:00 Free Choice Play
Infant Room 3 Teachers Maximum of 12 Babies
One Year Old Room 2 Teachers Maximum of 12 Children
Two Year Old Room 2 Teachers Maximum of 12 Children
2 ½ - 3 Year Old Room 2 Teachers Maximum of 14 Children
3 – 3 ½ Year Old Room 2 Teachers Maximum of 14 Children
3 ½ - 4 Year Old Room 2 Teachers Maximum of 15 Children
4 Year Old Pre-K 2 Teachers Maximum of 17 Children
We have full time substitute teachers on staff that help maintain these ratios when classroom teachers are not present. The substitute teachers serve as extra help when our staff is all present. We also have three Administrator/Directors and an Administrative Assistant to help ensure quality education and safety.
Back to top Currently we are on an eight to twelve month waiting list for most classrooms. The waiting list is set up by a first come first serve basis. Your place on this list is strictly dictated by the date you signed up for the list. When your child becomes too old for the current classroom list, his or her name is moved to the next classroom list. However your child will go on the new classroom list based on the original wait list date. You must come in for a tour in order to be placed on the waiting list.
Back to top We do not schedule tours. We have an open door policy and want you to see things the way they truly are and not set up or rehearsed for a tour. If you would like a tour, please stop by anytime and we will set you up with a host. If you would like to see the classrooms and children interacting with the teachers, you will not want to visit during lunch and nap time, which is between the hours of 11:30 A.M. and 3:00 P.M.
We offer a Guided Reading Program to our four year old Pre-K classes. Guided Reading is one on one instruction where a child is decoding and comprehending stories in the context of a book. We start with the big picture, a story in a book and not the part, a letter in the alphabet. The child is guided by the teacher to use reading strategies such as, context, pictures, and phonemics to say the words and make meaning of the stories. Children meet with the teacher one time each week. The book is then sent home for review.
Back to top The first form of schooling was simple. It was the apprenticeship method. For most of human history, if you wanted to learn about something, you would find someone better at it than you and learn from them. This worked for centuries.
Then, the industrial revolution hatched a new model. It was the notion that you could bring everyone together in a single place and offer a standardized, conveyor-belt curriculum. This second model of paradigm of schooling was developed in the 1800s and popularized through most of the twentieth century. It is often called “The Factory Model.” Factory skills like obedience, orderliness, unity and respect for authority were emphasized.
As we entered the information age from 1950 to 1980, schools moved away from the factory model and became organized around two main objectives: controlling the flow of information and socialization. We will call this the “control model.” During this era, we were also influenced by educational doctrines from the social sciences. The behaviorist-linked theories that permeated this era (and still linger) go something like this: “We do not know what goes on inside the brain, so let us measure behaviors, and modify them with behavior-reinforcers. If we like it, reward it. If we do not, punish it.” Learners were expected to answer teacher questioning “on demand”; and the teacher was considered the “expert” whose job it was to impart “Knowledge”. A new paradigm was soon to emerge, however. For the first time in history, through the use of discoveries in medical technology, we could measure the brain while its owner was still alive. A whole different breed of “inner science” was developing called neuroscience; not single discipline, but and exciting interdisciplinary approach to understanding the brain. Based on this new understanding of the brain the third educational paradigm in two thousand years began to take shape. This exciting interdisciplinary approach to learning is known as brain-based or brain-compatible learning.
That Guide Our Instructions At WECC
Principle #1
Drive for Meaning
Meaning is more critical to the brain than information. The brain is generally poor at learning random data and isolated facts. It constantly seeks to make sense out of what is happening. Children do not really want information; they want meaning. The search to make meaning out of our lives seems to be innate. We gain meaning three ways: patterns, emotions, and relevance. We learn best with context, the big picture, real-life learning, and interdisciplinary relationships. When things are emotional, they are assigned more meaning, too.
The brain naturally seeks meaning. We provide learning activities as a part of a theme. Every week to two weeks we have a new theme and we embed the learning inside of that theme.
Principle #2
Patterns Drive Understanding
Intelligence is the ability to elicit and to construct useful patterns. In its seach for meaning, the brain seeks patterns, associations, and connections with the new data and data previously stored. Each pattern that is discovered can then be added to the learner’s “perceptual maps”, at which time the brain finds relief from the state of confusion, anxiety, or stress that accompanies raw data. We provide the structures in which the child can best learn. We help them find patterns and make connections in their world.
Principle #3
Non-conscious Learning
We process both parts and wholes simultaneously. We are affected by a great deal of peripheral influences. Surprisingly, a great deal of what we learn and what we know is not taught to us. It is simply “picked up.” The process of acquisition allows for vast amounts of material to influence us through our senses.
Since our brain is designed to pay attention to only one sense at a time, the other inputs exert a significant cumulative influence on our learning. We learn to speak our native language mostly by just picking it up. We learn how to do our job by trial and error, role-models, inferences, and countless conscious and non-conscious influences. Sometimes, as a teacher, you just have to get out of the way of learning. Don’t try to control, modulate, restrict, channel or manipulate it so much. Set it up and let it happen. The underlying principle here is to not force learning, but to orchestrate it.
Principle #4
The Social Brain
Intelligence is valued in the context of the society we live in. The brain develops better in concert with others. Our brain cannot be good at everything; therefore, it selects over time that which will ensure its survival. As a species, the human brain has evolved to use language as our primary means for communication. This may partly explain why groups, teams, and cooperative learning benefit our understanding and application of new concepts; group work requires us to communicate with each other. Through this process, learning seems to be enhanced. The natural tendency for both children and adults in a learning environment, free of threat, is to talk in class. A great deal of learning takes place by talking to each other, exchanging emotions and feelings, sharing, discussion, brainstorming and problem solving. Learning is a social event.
Principle #5
The Brain is Emotional
We know that the brain learns best when emotions are positive. We provide love, support and encouragement for our children.
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