Planning in FDK: An Ongoing Reflection

With this year coming to a close, it's hard to believe that it'll mark my fourth year teaching Full Day Kindergarten! As much as the ending of a school year is busy, I often find myself setting time aside to reflect on the year under the lens of what worked really well in our program, what are some things I want to rethink for next year and what are elements of our program that I'd like to completely remove. This 3R's framework is one that is often used in the York Region District School Board and I find it to be a perfect anchor for reflective dialogue and conversation as an educator team. 

As part of my final assignment for my York University Kindergarten AQ course, I chose to reflect on my own kindergarten journey from the perspective of how I plan and program. Each new year brings a wave of excitement, possibilities and new challenges and I have to say how wonderful it was to see for myself just how far my practice has evolved and changed as I've grown as a teacher and life-long learner. 

Here is a brief breakdown explaining how my planning has changed in response to my own needs as a professional, our collective needs as a teaching team, and allowing for that flexibility that is crucial for an effective and engaging Full Day Kindergarten program:

 

To compliment these reflections, I found it so interesting looking back at what my "planning" actually looked like as a tool for making visible what my program was all about. Here are samples of what my plans looked like throughout the past 4 years. My hope is that by making them visible for you, my followers, you can see that there is no one "right way" to plan and program for FDK, but rather you need to honour the process and reflection that goes into preparing, modifying, rethinking and planning a successful program for yourself, your teaching parter and most importantly, your students. Every year my "plans" look different since I'm constantly learning new ways of sharing my learning and planning purposefully for my students. 

YEAR 1:

YEAR 2:

YEAR 3:

YEAR 4:

The following Inquiry Planning Outline was originally developed by my wonderful friend Joanne Babalis. Upon our reflections as a teaching team, Heidi and I and my new partner Ashley, have modified parts of it to suite our needs as a teaching team. 

Below are some key learning moments that I've come to understand more deeply and truly appreciate when planning and programming for my students. The following points are ones that I feel one should always keep at the forefront when planning and programming and I hope this blog post gives you lots to think about as we head into the summer: