by J. Marissa Woerner

Created on: September 09, 2007

When assessing the developmental appropriateness of a classroom, there are five basic principles you want to be sure are being followed. Each principle is listed as a statement and then appled to an observed classroom. It's important to understand the developmental differences between children of different ages and stages so the appropriateness of classroom practices can be accurately determined.

1. Both classrooms have a wide, but not overwhelming, variety of age-appropriate activities that occur during the course of the day.

Examples for the preschool classroom-
Play doh activities involving food coloring work fine motor skills while teaching the children about color. The dramatic play area, regularly restocked with new themes and supplies for play, help children's cognitive abilities advance through magical thinking and imitation. The obstacle course helps children work their gross motor skills. Involving dictation in the writing center is also a good technique for working with children's literacy skills.

Examples for the third grade classroom-
Journal/ letter editing, the word search and reading comprehension cards work with the children's literacy skills. Holey cards are a great tool for working with multiplication, and the math safari sounds like an interesting way to work further within this skill set. The science area also sounds like fun, with children hypothesizing and then testing their theories.

2. Both classrooms schedule activities so they occur at different times of the day.

Examples for the preschool classroom-
There were indications of "Story Time," during which children retold stories they had been read, "Science & Math Time" during which children made a graph of data they collect, and "PE Time," when children worked through an obstacle course designed in the large-group area.

Examples for the third grade classroom-
This was not explicitly stated in the book, so I deduce that the following activities are done during different times of the day: Composing sentences, spelling, science and fraction cards.

3. Both teachers emphasize concrete activities that actively involve children.

Examples for the preschool classroom-
The colored transparencies are an excellent way to actively involve the children with the class' exploration of color. Giving them a color to match gives the activity direction, rather than simple experimentation as could be found in a science area. The science area in this classroom, however, is another excellent example of how to actively

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