1. Develop each child's ability to make choices and decisions about what to do and how to do it and how to use his or her own time and energy.
2. Develop each child's self-discipline and ability to identify, pursue, and complete self-chosen goals and tasks. 
3. Develop each child's ability to work with other children and adults in group planning, cooperative effort, and shared leadership.
4. Develop each child's knowledge of objects, skill in the arts, and comfort with physical movement.
5. Develop each child's ability to express thoughts, ideas, and feelings; to speak, dramatize, and graphically represent experiences in order to communicate them to others.
6. Develop each child's ability to comprehend others' spoken, written, dramatic, and graphic representations.
7. Develop each child's ability to apply his or her reasoning abilities to a wide range of situations using a variety of materials.
8. Develop each child's creativity, initiative, spirit of inquiry, and openness to knowledge and other people's viewpoints.

 

 

The High/Scope Curriculum

 

The starting point for the Curriculum Model is the classroom arrangement.  Each classroom is divided into four interest areas: House Area, Block Area, Quiet Area, and Art Area.  The interest areas contain specific items obvious to that area and available to that area and available for the children to use.

 

The second part of the model is the daily routine.  The component parts of the Daily Schedule in the High/Scope Curriculum enable children to pursue their own interests, and to work at their own pace and level.  At the same time it ensures that activities in the classroom are orderly and purposeful.  The daily routine also provides children with many different kinds of experiences: independent work, small and large group activities, and exposure to a variety of materials and equipment.

 

1. The High/Scope Daily Schedule includes:

 

Planning Time: The teachers let the children know what the activities of the day will be and the children plan what area they want to work in.  They can plan by verbally telling the teacher where they want to work, by writing down their plan, by having the teacher write down their plan, or some other method such as using a tape recorder and saying what area they want to work in.

 

Work Time: Children work in the area they have indicated in their plan.  They can change areas when they want.  The teachers have materials for each area put out.  The materials reflect the Unit Theme and the Key Experience for the week. 

 

Clean up Time: Children are encouraged to clean up after each activity and at the end of work time.  The shelves are labeled with a picture (and words for older children) so that children know exactly what goes where.  The children learn to be responsible for materials and equipment in the room and to independently clean up after themselves. 

 

Recall Time: Children are divided into their Planning Time Groups.  The teachers encourage the children to talk about the activities they have participated in during Work Time.  Children are encouraged to verbalize their experiences.  This time is also used to emphasize temporal relations, such as before, yesterday, tomorrow, later on, in a little while, etc.

 

Circle Time: Children are together in one group.  Activities planned for Circle Time may include singing or other music activities, stories, finger plays, circle games, etc. 

 

Small Group Time: Each teacher in the room is responsible for their group of children.  The teachers use this time for helping children with cognitive skills.  Small Group Time could also be used to do arts/crafts activities or some other specific planned activity.

 

Outside Time: Teachers provide planned activities for children to practice gross motor skills.  (During bad weather, this might be Gym Time or Gross Motor Activity Time, depending on available space for this type of activity.)

 

2. Key Experiences are goals teachers have in mind when planning activities for the children.  They help teachers to organize their planning so that children will have opportunities for both social and intellectual growth.

 

Some examples of Key Experiences are:

1. Key Experiences in Active Learning

·   Exploring actively with all the senses

·   Acquiring skills with tools and equipment

·   Using large and small muscles

2. Key Experiences in Speaking and Listening to Language

·   Talking with others about experiences

·   Having one's own spoken language written down by an adult and read back

·   Telling stories from pictures and books

3. Key Experiences in Representing Experiences and Ideas

·   Pantomiming actions

·   Relating pictures, photographs, and models to real places and things

·   Representing personal experiences through: role play, pretending, drawing, painting, etc.

4. Key Experiences in Writing

·   Expressing ideas and feelings by dictating stories, songs, poems, etc.

·   Writing simple information such as name, address, etc.

·   Dictating, tracing, or copying written words

5. Key Experiences in Reading

·   Matching letters and words that are alike

·   Hearing likenesses (rhyming sounds)

·   Identifying letters in own name and familiar words

6. Key Experiences in Developing Logical Reasoning

·   Classification—such as Sorting and Matching, Describing differences

·   Seriation—such as: Arranging several things in order, comparing attributes

·   Number Concepts—such as: Comparing the number of items in two sets, counting, one-to-one correspondence

7. Key Experiences in Understanding Time and Space

·   Spatial Relations such as: Fitting things together and taking them apart, filling and emptying

·   Time such as: Describing rates of movement, remembering sequence of events

8. Key Experiences in Science

·   Caring for animals

·   Planting seeds and caring for growing things

·   Cooking activities (transformations)

9. Key Experiences in Social Studies

·   Interaction with people of many ages and backgrounds

·   Taking field trips

·   Representing family, school, and community roles and events through dramatic play