It’s teacher feature Thursday and this week we are featuring a lesson from one of our toddler rooms. The class visited the United States Navy Memorial to learn about sailors, which was part of their unit exploring heroes. The class began with a circle in the classroom where the teachers, Maya Alston, Erica Collins, and Elizabeth Kubba, introduced vocabulary and ideas about sailors. The class then walked to the United States Navy Memorial where they further explored these ideas while looking at The Lone Sailor statue, 26 high-relief panels that show elements of Navy life, and the signals flags. Below you will find images from the lesson as well as a reflection from Maya, Erica, and Elizabeth.

Here are some images from the lesson:

The lesson began with a classroom circle where Elizabeth read US Navy Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta (Author), Sammie Garnett (Author), and Rob Bolster (Illustrator). This toddler class’ interaction with the book was unique in that the children were encouraged to touch the pages. After Elizabeth read a page, she would pause and go around the circle giving each child the opportunity to reach out and touch images in the book. Sometimes she would guide them by asking “Can you find the boat?” and at other times she would narrate what they were drawn to, “Oh, you found the sailor’s hat!” This technique helped the class connect to the book, stay engaged, and ultimately built pre-literacy skills.

In addition to the book, the class had the opportunity to explore objects during the classroom circle, such as a Navy uniform. The class not only looked at, but also touched the uniform. This helped them build a deeper understanding of the uniform so they could relate it back to the book they had just read and later to The Lone Sailor statue at the United States Navy Memorial.

Each child was given a white child-sized Navy hat, which they could play with during the lesson. Elizabeth passed out the hats when she got to the page on Navy uniforms and then allowed the children to interact with the hats for the rest of the lesson. Passing out the hats in the middle of the story helped to re-engage the class with the circle and refocused their attention.

After circle, the class was given the opportunity to play more freely with the hats. They explored flipping them upside down and pulling the brims over their eyes. As the class was getting ready to leave, Maya, Erica, and Elizabeth gave each child a choice, they could either wear their normal sunhat outside or they could wear the Navy hat. Some children chose their normal hats and some chose the Navy hats. Giving toddlers a choice between two things can help ease anxiety around a transition, can help build their own autonomy, and can also help develop their communication skills.

Once the class arrived at the United States Navy Memorial, they gathered around The Lone Sailor Statue. In order to orient the class, Elizabeth showed images from the US Navy Alphabet Book. This helped to build connections between activities they had done in the classroom and being at the Navy Memorial. The teachers then asked the class a series of both open-ended and guiding questions including “What do you see?”, “What could his job be?”, “What can you find?”, “Can you find his hat?”

While class was talking about the things that they saw, one child pointed out the flags. The teachers commented that the flags on the mast looked similar to the some of the flags in the book. Since there was clearly an interest in the flags, Maya, Elizabeth, and Erica made a point of bringing the class closer so they could get a better look.

While looking at The Lone Sailor, Maya, Erica, and Elizabeth pointed out the uniform and explained that it is one way to identify him as a sailor.  They noted the hat and compared the sailor hat to the ones on the children’s heads. They then encouraged the class to take a closer look. Some of the children chose to interact with The Lone Sailor statue. One even gave him a hug around the leg.

The class then walked around the rest of the memorial, which included 26 bronze sculptures. Each sculpture offered many opportunities for discussion. The teachers followed the children’s lead. If a child pointed to something, the teacher would make a remark. Sometimes the teachers simply narrated what the child was doing. Other times the teachers asked questions like “How would you feel on a boat?” or “What do you think she is doing?”

While the whole class explored the bronze sculptures at the same time, each child was allowed to move and explore at his or her own pace. It was clear that some children found certain elements of the bronze statues more captivating than others. When a child found something that drew her or his attention (like the chain above), that child was permitted to take the time he or she needed to explore before moving on to the next statue. Splitting the children into three groups, one group for each teacher, helped to make this possible.

A reflection from Maya, Erica, and Elizabeth:

Our toddlers seem to love superheroes. They often have Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Captain America, and Wonder Woman logos on the hats atop their heads, the shirts covering their bellies, and the shoes on their feet. In addition to these fantasy superheroes, our toddlers also spend a lot of time playing with firetrucks, marveling at sirens of ambulances and police cars, and giving a cheerful high five to the security officers who work in our museums.  We noticed these interests and decided to build a unit around the real-life superheroes in our community. Our goal was to help our class to grasp the idea of what being a superhero really is (someone who helps and protects others), to be able to recognize key characteristics of these community superheroes (uniforms, modes of transportation, etc.) and some of the ways these superheroes help and protect us (what do they actually do). During this unit we studied firefighters, military service members, doctors, nurses, park rangers, and the United States Park Police. Here, we will dive more deeply into one specific lesson, our lesson on sailors in the United States Navy.

For this lesson, we chose to visit the United States Navy Memorial. At the memorial, there is a large bronze statue called The Lone Sailor and multiple smaller scene sculptures depicting the history of the Navy. We knew these would be great for our toddlers to visit because the sculptures are easy to see and, even better, can be touched! We wanted the children to be able to recognize key features of a sailor’s uniform, the sailor’s hat, and their modes of transportation including ships, boats, submarines, and airplanes. We did a little research prior to the lesson by exploring the Navy Memorial website, reading the US Navy Alphabet Book, and speaking with a fellow teacher whose husband was in the Navy. Based on this research, we decided what characteristics of Navy sailors we wanted to focus on with the children during our classroom circle time and our community visit.

During the classroom circle time, we first read through parts of the US Navy Alphabet Book that we felt were developmentally appropriate for our age group, and highlighted the features we knew the children would see on the visit. We also allowed them to touch the images in the book. We often allow the children to touch objects in the books we read as it helps to focus their toddler wiggles. It also gives us the chance to assess if we are making the literacy connections between the word the toddlers hear and the object itself. We then showed the children two genuine Navy uniforms. We asked them to tell us what colors and other features they noticed. Answers we heard included “blue”, “white”, and “bird”.  After that, we brought out a sailor hat that they could take turns passing around the circle, which allowed them to gain a more concrete connection to the object and give them the opportunity to work on developing the social-emotional skill of taking turns. After taking turns passing the sailor’s hat, the children were ecstatic to find out that they were all getting their own sailor hats to wear on our visit!

While walking to the memorial, we modeled our thinking and wondered out loud about where we might find a sailor, how a sailor might look, and how to know if we found one. Once there, the toddlers quickly pointed out that the sailor hat on The Lone Sailor statue matched the hats their heads. We sat down in front of the statue and pulled out the US Navy Alphabet Book once more. We pointed to the objects we were seeing at the memorial that were also in the book. We asked open-ended questions including “What do you see?”, “What do you think his job is?”, and “What can you find?” Asking these questions prompted the children to look carefully at all the features of the large memorial space. One child proudly proclaimed that he had found flags that matched the flags in our book. When we could tell our toddlers were ready to move their bodies and explore more of the space, we walked them around to the smaller sculptures that were right at their eye level. This was one of the best parts of the lesson because it combined movement, careful looking, and touching. Because of this, the children spent quite a bit of time at each sculpture. They would point to features they recognized and often would name them as well. An added bonus was that it had rained earlier that day, so the boats and other features of the sculptures were wet. This really helped to make the connection that sailors are often on or near water. The children were able to put their fingers in small puddles of water that had collected on the statues and see droplets falling from the sailors’ bodies. If we redid this lesson on a sunny day, I would plan to bring water with us and use a spray bottle to talk about how water can sprays onto the boat as the sailors travel.

Overall, this lesson seemed to be a great success. We put the sailor hats out as choices in the classroom and noted that the children kept revisiting them over the next couple of weeks. We also put out My First Counting Book: Navy by Cindy Entin, which was a board book that the children could explore independently. These two things showed us that the children enjoyed learning about the sailors and helped to reinforce the connections over a long period of time. When doing this lesson in the future, we would like to add a water table with boats and submarines as an extension. We believe this extension would be especially effective because it would help the class connect the idea of water and sailors and connect well to the visit to the Navy Memorial.

Today’s Teacher Feature highlights the Dragonflies, a toddler class. The teachers, Lauren Bundy, Katherine Custer, and Emily Romig choose to explore karaoke. The class visited David Hockney’s Snail Space at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and later that afternoon had a karaoke party in their classroom. See below for pictures highlighting the lesson and for a reflection from the teachers.

The teachers knew that they wanted to teach their class about karaoke but were initially unable to think of an object that would help support their lesson. They thought about seeing a microphone as an object but decided that simply seeing a microphone might not provide the type of experience that they were hoping for their class. After brainstorming, the teachers decided to bring their toddler class to see David Hockney’s Snail Space at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The teachers believed that they could use the light, colors, intimacy of space, and stage like atmosphere to draw connections to karaoke.

The teachers did not ignore the importance of a microphone for karaoke. Lauren Bundy choose to bring a microphone as an object to explore while the class was experiencing Snail Space. Lauren gave each child in her class the opportunity to speak into the microphone and hear how their voice changed.

Light was another topic that the teachers were hoping to explore with their class since karaoke performances often involve a light show. As part of the instillation of Snail Space color changing lights are projected onto the two canvas’ and floor space design. In addition to experiencing the light that is part of the performance of Snail Space, the teachers brought battery powered tea lights to allow the children to explore and manipulate their own light.

While experiencing Snail Space, the toddler teachers sang some of their class’s favorite songs and used the stage like atmosphere of the installation to discuss the experience of performing karaoke.

Back in their classroom, the toddlers were able to put on their own karaoke show. The teachers transformed their classroom by setting up an overhead projector as a spotlight and used a color changing light. They used speakers to play their class’s favorite tunes and gave the children a chance to perform with a microphone.

While experiencing karaoke, the toddlers also participated in social-emotional learning. There was only one microphone which meant that the toddlers had to practice taking turns. In order to help facilitate taking turns, the Dragonfly teachers gave the children verbal and nonverbal warnings to help the children be more fully aware of when their turn was over.

The Dragonflies karaoke party was tons of fun! Each child was able to experience the joy of choosing their favorite song and performing it in front of their friends.

Reflections from Lauren:

How did this topic emerge?

After a week of lessons that involved visiting Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors at the Hirshhorn Museum and picnicking under the blossoming cherry trees by the Tidal Basin, a theme started to emerge that would become our next unit of study: Japan! We were excited about the topic because learning about another country can offer our toddlers a great variety of experiences to explore. So far, we have ventured into topics such as sushi, tea, koinobori (carp streamers), ink wash art, and now karaoke! We had a hunch that the Dragonflies would be interested in karaoke because they dance and sing all the time in the class – with or without music.

What topics were explored?

Our learning objectives were to talk about how karaoke originated from Japan and how it can not only be an exciting activity but a way to unwind as well. The week before, we had taught the Dragonflies about rock gardens, raking sand, and plants. We talked about how these activities could be “relaxing” and that idea really stuck with the Dragonflies. They would start to talk about how they “relaxed” at home by looking at a “book” or sitting in a “rocking chair.” Since this idea of finding a way to emotionally wind down had already permeated the class, we were able to connect it to the topic of karaoke.

To connect this topic to Japanese karaoke, we talked about how there are people in Japan who work very hard at their jobs and after a long week, they might perform karaoke with their close friends. We talked about how karaoke is one way to relax after working really hard. When we had our karaoke party with the Dragonflies, we did it at the end of our school day. Since then we have returned to it again and again in the afternoons. The Dragonflies loved karaoke!

How is this a developmentally appropriate practice?

Singing and dancing play an important role in toddler development. It helps the Dragonflies to learn social emotional skills like turn taking and listening to each other. They are learning cognitive skills by noticing the patterns and sequences of songs. They are developing their language skills as they sing new words. And they are also developing their physical skills as they dance to the new music.

What was our museum visit and object?

As for the visit, we decided to see David Hockney’s Snail Space at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. We choose this work of art because it gives a sense of space that is meant for a performance. We could have gone the route of visiting an exhibit that featured a microphone, but we decided that the object of a microphone on view might be too small of a feature to warrant enough attention from the toddlers. So why not visit a more immersive space, which is set up almost like a stage, and bring our own microphone?

In addition, David Hockney’s Snail Space is an intimate and secluded area compared to the large galleries that we often find ourselves in. We were able to connect the physical space of Snail Space to the tradition of Japanese karaoke. In Japan, it is customary to preform karaoke in a small private room often called a karaoke box in front of your close friends. The intimacy of the actual space in Snail Space draws parallels to what one might experience if they go to a karaoke box in Japan. Since our class were the only people in the space, the Dragonflies had the added bonus of experiencing it with some of their closest friends.

How did the lesson reach the objectives and expand the topic?

We actually had two separate lessons on karaoke that day. One being the museum visit in the morning, the other being the actual karaoke party in the afternoon. At the museum visit we talked about how the art space was like a stage and we asked the Dragonflies about the different colors they saw in the lights. We then gave each Dragonfly a tea light that they could turn on and off and watch it change colors just like in the art piece. We also brought the microphone so the Dragonflies could hear their voices amplified in the space.

There were a few hiccups in the museum visit. The first was that a fire alarm went off in the museum and so we had to exit. (Just to clarify, we were there before the museum actually opened, so the alarm was most likely a test.) Another oops was when one of the Dragonflies dropped their tea light and it rolled onto the art on the other side of the barrier.

At the karaoke party in the afternoon, the Dragonflies had a blast. We turned off the lights, used an overhead projector as a spot light, and then turned on the disco lights. We had compiled a list of the Dragonflies favorite songs with the help of parents. The Dragonflies then took turns singing their favorite song, while the others got to dance to the music.

At a very young age, a child begins to form their sense of self, even infants can recognize subtle differences between themselves and others. Early childhood educators can play a key role in helping a child form a positive self-image. Similarly, educators can also instill in their young students a respect and appreciation for diversity. It seems like a tall order, but by thoughtfully choosing content and activities and, by creating an inclusive environment, educators can begin to help shape a child who values both themselves, and others.

SEEC has partnered with the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) to publish a series of blogs that we hope will begin to help teachers and parents reconsider some of the traditional lessons and activities that are often circulated, especially on social media channels, during the Thanksgiving season.  While they may appear fun and cute, many of the suggestions actually perpetuate stereotypes and historical inaccuracies. There has been a long history of misinformation about Indigenous Americans in our school systems and we want to work together to alter some of those misconceptions.

To tell us more, Adrienne Smith of the National Museum of the American Indian, shares her own story:

During my early childhood years, I was fortunate enough to attend a preschool that was directed by my tribal nation. When I would walk into the classroom, there were items from my culture and words familiar to me in my tribal language, posted on the bulletin boards and, in our play areas.  It made me feel comfortable to be here and see things with which I was familiar. That changed when I entered the public-school system for elementary school. I can recall making paper headdresses and paper roll totem poles. I went along with it because, “Hey, I knew it wasn’t my culture.” It wasn’t until my adulthood that I looked back and wondered “Why didn’t my elementary or high school teachers use the resources that were readily available?” We had a tribal museum with educators from my tribe who could have come out and spoken to them. Maybe the teachers just didn’t know or were uncomfortable changing the way they taught. Either way, I missed out on being able to connect to my culture while at school.

Working at the National Museum of the American Indian has given me the opportunity to observe what our visitors know about American Indians and sadly, much of it is stereotypical. Below is a list of ways that you, as a teacher, can break through some of those stereotypes and begin to paint a more realistic picture of American Indians.

Teacher Tips

Never assume that there are no Native or indigenous
students in your class.

I have had visitors tell me that I am not Native or that I am only a little bit Native because of my green eyes and fair skin. Not all Native people look like what you see in the movies or in books.

Allow students to explore their own cultures and other cultures by including culturally diverse objects, contemporary photos, and toys in your classroom.

Be mindful not to choose stereotypical or culturally insensitive materials.  For example, Native people prefer that their clothing not be used as dress up because traditional clothing or regalia is sacred and there are many cultural meanings behind the items that we wear.

Discuss similarities and differences of American Indian tribes, even those that live in the same area.

There was not one Native language or culture. Though Native people adapted to other languages and cultures, each Nation still has their own identity.

Should you teach about regions, for example, “plains” tribes, be mindful to note their differences, as well.

Consider using maps, talking about the environment, and comparing housing to illustrate these differences. They are great examples of the unique attributes of different tribes.

 Teach that Native people are still here today.

Share with your students that American Indian nations are vibrant communities that exist today living in the modern world and still honoring their traditions.

Utilize the internet and explore Native American owned businesses. They can provide access to goods for your classroom. I recommend Native Northwest Select or museum gift shops. Do be thoughtful when choosing which site from which to purchase. 

There’s More

In a future blog, we will feature actual classroom lessons that will be centered initially on homes, a concept with which most children easily identify. We will then branch out to explore a typical home of the Wampanoag Nation, a wetu. Our goal is to illustrate how preschools can easily incorporate engaging, playful, and interactive lessons that can breakdown stereotypes and build appreciation for the diverse and rich cultures of the American Indian.

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