How to improve your preschool smartly?
Are you spending too much time on non-teaching activities, manual documentation, inefficient communication, etc.? Don't you have enough time to consider each child's needs?
Early childhood education should be the start of lifelong learning. But educators are tied up with old ways of working. They cannot be the champions they deserve to be. Parents feel locked out from their child's learning journey. Many childcare centers are also in a competitive market and want to provide the best education and care.
A major change is required to respond to the need for quality education.
You must take the lead and make it happen in your preschool!
So, what is the change about?
A successful ECEC center has 3 guiding principles:
- Support children's learning
- Engage families
- Secure success for your preschool
The change concerns all the daily activities between teachers, children, and parents. We should reimagine how the goals can be achieved by working smarter - not harder - and with the help of new technology.
It is actually straightforward
Whatever your starting point is, you should take these steps:
- Set the pedagogical objectives for children's learning.
- Plan the lessons to match the objectives, taking children's interests into account.
- Observe and document the learning moments and engage families.
- Assess and reflect on the learning and plan future learning.
Set the goals and plan the lessons
For quality education, teaching activities must be goal-oriented and organized purposefully.
The goals should be defined with the child’s learning process in focus. You can start from your national curriculum, and define your own goals, or Kindiedays can provide learning objectives derived from the Finnish curriculum. In the Finnish pedagogical approach, the children learn through play and a variety of playful activities planned by the teachers in advance.
Kindiedays Lesson Plan Packageis designed to guide and support educators to provide lessons based on experiential learning. Lesson Plans are divided into 3 Levels so that educators can select the right level for the children. Each Lesson Plan is carefully planned to match the objectives outlined in the Finnish National Curriculum for Early Childhood and Care. The Lesson Plans can also be connected to your local Curriculum.
Observe, assess, and develop the learning
The actual learning happens throughout the day and the teacher’s role is to support and observe the child in real-time.
These authentic observations are complemented with the child’s comments and collected into what is called portfolio-based learning or pedagogical documentation. The documentation is used for following the child’s learning path, further planning the learning, and sharing with the parents.
It goes without saying that this requires a well-thought-out work process and a digital solution utilizing the smartphones or tablets in the hand of the teacher. Learn more about portfolio learning and pedagogical documentation.
Everything must work in a smooth and user-friendly way. Not steal attention from the child’s learning.
Find the right solution to support learning
So what is Kindiedays Portfolio? When is that the right solution?
If you already have a full set of learning objectives and your own lesson plans, Kindiedays Pedagogical Management Solution is a highly flexible solution for implementing a complete high-class learning process. Inspired by best Finnish practices, portfolio learning, and formative assessment.
A full-fledged digital solution should provide this
As a starting point, you must store your curriculum digitally and have it available on the smartphone or tablet in all the learning moments. To run the daily learning process and the pedagogical documentation smartly and efficiently the requirements are:
- A quick way to document and share the children’s learning authentically and in real-time.
- Automatically collected Child Portfolios for smooth engagement of the parents in the child’s learning.
- Automatically collected Learning Progress Reports for assessment.
Watch for example our video showing how we suggest the children’s learning process and pedagogical documentation is supported with the Kindiedays Pedagogical Management Solution.
What other features should be part of the solution?
The digital solution should also support the daily routines between educators, children, and families such as:
- Run communication between educators and families in a secure channel.
- Record attendance and utilize versatile attendance statistics.
- Daily reports of meals, naps, toileting, and more.
All information should be stored digitally behind a secure log-in and made available in real-time on PCs, smartphones, and tablets.
A complete program to prepare for next term
Kindiedays Pro is an affordable and interactive program tailored for preschools with the ambition to grow and be successful.
This comprehensive program establishes a new Finnish-style learning environment based on 3 cornerstones:
- Interactive online workshop program for teachers
- Full set of Kindiedays Themes-based lesson plans
- Kindiedays Digital Tools to support children's learning
A final piece of advice
Technology should be the tool supporting the goals and processes of your center. The digital solution has a strong role as the backbone of the children’s learning process. It is a strategic choice and will in many ways form the foundation for all the work between teachers, children, and parents in your center.
Kindiedays is designed by Finnish Early Childhood Education professionals in line with best Finnish practices. Our objective is that Kindiedays is the center’s long-term solution and platform where other suppliers also come in and strengthen the overall solution. To enhance Kindiedays we work together with consulting and training companies as well as with companies providing exciting new learning activities in science, languages, arts, etc.
Take the next steps together with Kindiedays
Think of the most crucial steps your center should take toward its renewal. Write them down and plan the most important ones and start your journey.
Below you can find a step-by-step proposal for going forward: learn, plan, develop, and be successful! Feel free to use our online resources to learn more about Finnish Early Childhood Education and Kindiedays and how you can renew your childcare center. Make your choice of how to go forward from the suggestions below:
1. Start by watching Kindiedays introduction video
Depending on your role in the center, you can learn more here
You can also read more about Kindiedays solutions
