Welcome to the Forgotten ECE, the show where before and after school educators, summer
camp and PD staff and CYWs have a place where they are seen, heard and valued.
I'm your host, Jamie Wagler, and I'm so excited you're here.
Hello everybody and welcome to the Forgotten ECE.
I'm your host, Jamie, and I'm super happy that you chose to listen in to me today.
Also, if you can tell by my voice and you listened to last episode, I'm feeling better.
Thank you for asking.
Also, what a nightmare the last little bit has been because of sicknesses.
I am so tired, literally sick and tired.
See what I did there?
Anyways, I'm so tired of being sick.
I'm so tired of being surrounded by sick people.
I'm so tired of everyone being sick.
And that's not a stab at the kids and that's not a stab at their families and that's not
a stab at my family and that's not really a stab at me, if that makes sense.
Because you know what?
Sickness happens, we all get sick.
It happens, it happens, it happens.
But it seems like it's so bad this year.
And maybe it's been because I've been on a pretty good streak with not getting sick,
but then the last four weeks it's been nonstop.
And I can't believe it's been four weeks, but it has to be because it's been two weeks
since I last recorded.
Also, maybe three weeks.
It doesn't matter.
It's been a long time.
So funny story about that.
Storytime.
Also, side note, don't worry.
This is not the meat of the episode.
So if you want to skip ahead, your loss by all means, but I guess you could feel free
to do that.
Also, maybe you just like listening to my voice.
I know I like listening to my voice.
So thanks.
But anyways, so storytime.
I had to go to the on-call doctor because I was feeling sick.
So I was sick when I recorded the last episode and then I felt better and then I was sick
again and now I'm feeling better.
But this last sickness, spout, sprout time period, I finally felt so sick that I was
going to go to the doctors.
But of course we work and the doctors close at four and I don't get off work at four.
Very, very unusual for me to leave work around then or have free time.
Okay, sorry.
I'm seeing, okay.
How do you listen to me?
I couldn't listen to myself.
Okay.
Starting over.
I was the on-call doctor on the Saturday and I am such a space case and you can laugh at
me and you can judge it be, but apparently I have this really bad habit of taking cards
out of my wallet and putting them into my pocket.
Like I don't know my health card and I guess I also forgot to destroy my old health card.
So when I got to the doctor's office, because why does anyone look for these things before?
I don't know.
That would be smart.
I pulled out my health card and gave it to the on-call doctor, which then told me that
it was super expired.
2021.
And I'd have to pay for my appointment.
What?
Well, I had already drove from where I live to where my doctor's is, which is like 30
minutes.
So I was like, well, I guess I'll pay.
But they were really nice and I can go get that money back if I get my new health card
or you know, buy my other new health card that I apparently have, which I should have.
Anyways, long story short, while I'm at this doctor's office that I now had to pay for,
the doctor had the audacity to say to me, oh, you work with children.
I guess that's why you're sick.
Thanks.
Yep.
Know that also, um, you're going to need an inhaler and these pills.
So are you, do you have coverage?
No I work with children.
What part, where have you been?
Is your head been under a rock?
Are you a ostrich?
Do you put your head in the ground and just ignore the things that are going on around
you?
ECs don't have benefits.
Okay.
Some do, some very lucky ECs and if you're one, hats off to you.
It's like, no, I don't have benefits.
And she's like, oh, those people should be giving you benefits.
Um, what those people are you talking about?
Are you talking about the little center I work for that should be giving me benefits?
I mean, I love my center and yeah, I want benefits, but also is it feasible?
Not really right now.
The government provides teachers with benefits and doctors with benefits and other social
service community providers.
I don't even know what you want to call them.
They don't cover us with benefits.
We don't get anything good from there.
Oh, I'm sorry.
We get the college of ECs that we pay into that doesn't give us benefits.
Anyways, I just had a chuckle, not at the time because I was super sick, but I had a
chuckle because I was like, how, how are you a doctor?
And you don't understand that we don't have benefits, but it's fine.
And maybe that's ignorant of me.
Maybe I just assume that everyone knows about ECs, which is why I'm here because some people
don't, but if you're listening, doctor, I'm not trying to make fun of you publicly, but
also I'm glad you're here so you can learn about ECs.
Anyways, let's get into the brunt of this episode.
You're welcome for that fabulous storytime.
Let's talk about March madness.
What happens in March?
I realized this episode's like a week late.
It's not late as in my schedule late, but it's late because March break just ended and
I love it.
I don't think I can describe to you how much I love it because I do.
I love it so wholeheartedly.
My whole being, my whole fiber loves March break almost as much as summer.
Not quite, and I'll get into why, but March break is my jam.
The school age students are there every day, all day, and they just fill the center with
so much joy and curiosity and wonder and magic and attitude and language and spunk, I guess
what I would say.
I just love it.
And I love seeing interactions between the educators and the school agers.
And I love seeing the interactions between the younger kids and the school agers because
God, school agers are so wonderful, especially when you give them the chances to show their
responsibility and their independence and their amazingness.
They're just incredible.
So I wanted to jump in and talk a little bit about why A, I love March break and B, what
benefits there are to March break, what your March break could look like, and maybe just
jump on how you can kind of deal with some challenging behaviors that might come up over
March break.
So first and foremost, I love March break, like I said, because of those reasons.
I'm not going to dive into it all over again because I would just be boring for you.
But there's so many benefits to March break.
Like the children get to stay and socialize for the whole week instead of, I don't know,
going to a babysitter.
They might get to go to their grandparents.
What I'm not saying is a bad thing because who doesn't like to visit their grandparents?
Okay, I know some people don't like to, but that's, I don't have grandparents anymore.
So I would love to go visit my grandparents.
And I did love to go visit my grandparents when I had grandparents.
But anyways, but this socialization they have with kids of their own age, but from different
schools, from different areas of the city that all confined into one makes this amazing,
oh, I don't even know the word, this amazing, I wish you could see my face right now and
my hands.
Cause I, I'm doing a really good job of showing it with my hands and not such a good job showing
it with my mouth, which is poor because this is a podcast, but it just makes this recipe
for amazingness.
Like the kids working together with kids that they might not interact with at their schools
or, oh my gosh, even better.
The children who might be from the same school that don't interact or from two clicks or
different clicks or whatever, interacting wholeheartedly in a program together that
they talk and laugh and play and join in games together.
It's honestly my favorite.
Then you incorporate physical activity every day.
They have physical activity.
And if you don't have physical activity at your program every day, I'm sorry, you're
doing it wrong and you can come at me for that, but you are.
I am a huge believer in physical activity being important and getting outside and getting
in nature.
And I honestly can't stand when people say, uh, the weather's bad.
I can't go outside.
I understand when it's too cold and we actually can't go outside, but you can go outside in
quote unquote bad weather.
Okay.
And schoolagers still need outside time.
These programs promote a healthy lifestyle and help children stay active during the break.
Can you imagine if they're just staying at home, sitting on their iPads or watching TV?
Or do people still watch like actual TV or just all schoolagers in the entire world or
at least in Ontario, wherever you're listening to me, just watch YouTube.
That seems like a global phenomenon, which is not the greatest.
Other people playing games or talking or doing these silly skits or whatever.
But then I think, uh, we watched Amanda Biden show and which was people doing silly skits.
So maybe I'm wrong.
Okay.
So I'm going to digress going back.
The creative exploration that these, these, um, campers get to do is incredible.
Like music, dance, art, freeze dance, the crafts that they come up with, the, the free range
that they have.
It's not just coloring sheets or it's not just worksheets.
It's actual free range process art.
It's the process, which we all know to be the most important part.
Anyways, it's also a break for parents, which if you are a parent, you know that that's
necessary and then skill development, looking at skill development, children can learn new
skills and hobbies through these March break programs.
So I am curious to know, sorry.
I'm curious to know if your program bases the week on a theme and then if you run the
week based on that theme.
So I have mixed feelings about this.
And like I said, I would love to hear other people's interpretations of this or their
opinions, but I so strongly believe in emerging curriculum.
It's hard for me to wrap my head around putting a theme out there for weeks, but I also know
that themes sell.
So when you're looking to, I don't know, like market your March break program that parents
look for specific themes to sign up for or something looks good.
It's like summer camp, but we'll get into that in another episode.
So we did around the world, which was awesome.
But then I highlight to all my families that sign up that just because the theme is around
the world doesn't mean that for all five days, that's all they're going to be talking about.
There will be an activity or something related to the theme offered each day or a section
in the room.
Cause we, we set up our place in sections.
So there'll be a section in the room that's dedicated to the theme, but the rest of the
room is based on emergent curriculum.
Building, if building has an example of like the Great Wall of China and then there's blocks
to see if the kids are interested in building their own Great Wall of China or whatever
else they're interested in building.
There's, there's, but that would be the aspect of the theme that day.
But then there'd be so many other things offered in the room or other invitations and provocations
to get children interested in other things that it might not necessarily stay on around
the world, on around the world for March break that it could turn into something else.
Could it turn into outer space or whatever they're interested in.
St. Patrick's Day is always a huge one because it's coming up in some kids, especially in
school now build leprechaun traps and such.
So we had kids that were interested in that when they came into the March break week,
especially near the end of the week.
So I think it's important that even if you're one of those centers like myself, my center
that has a theme for the grand scheme of things on the week, that that theme is just loosely
used to hold options for the children that week.
But you have other things and other ideas and are flexible to follow the children's
lead in this area.
All right.
So I just wanted to touch a little bit on like challenging behaviors because we know
that challenging behaviors happen in school age all the time or quote unquote challenging
behaviors.
But March break seems to be, and I'm just talking from experience, not as intense on
the behaviors as summer camp because it's one week.
So it's fresh and new and exciting for that one week and the children, they're not going
to be there for long periods of time.
They're going to be there for five days and that's it.
Whereas other like other programs like summer camp, some of those kids unfortunately are
signed up for the whole summer, which is amazing because I mean, I love having the kids there,
but also we need, they need a break.
That's exhausting.
They have to be on all the time.
It's like if you worked 24 seven without a break five days a week, not 24 seven, 24
five without a break nonstop.
And then you finally get out of school and yes, childcare is so much better than school
and these programs are so much better than school, but it's still, you have to mentally
be on.
But I find that if you use the first day to introduce clear expectations, so like setting
clear and age appropriate expectations for the program and communicate these expectations
with both the children and the families, or that could be putting up a big sign in your
area that you're hosting your March break in, or it could be writing a quick message on
whatever communication device you use, whether that be like bright wheel or hi mama or email
or Insta message or Instagram or whatever.
And just letting them know like, Hey, these are the rules we came up with together as
a group.
It's super important.
I find that these rules are coming up together as a group that you're not just implementing
rules.
It is easy for us to sit there and be like, no running in the gym, but if children come
up with these rules, there's their own or these guidelines, these boundaries, then they're
more likely to follow them.
Also I'm huge on positive reinforcement and redirection.
So obviously there's no scolding or negative reinforcement, but make sure that when kids
are doing something good that you are saying, when I, when I mean something good, I mean
like they take the initiative to push all the chairs in or wash the tables or wipe down
the tables after lunch or, or use, or you see a kid that they might not have been playing
with those toys, but they clean them up.
Make sure you tell them like, Hey, I'm super impressed that you clean those toys up even
though I didn't ask you because Hey, that helps someone else out.
I also think consistency is huge.
So in March break programs, depending on how big your program is, sometimes you have 26
children in a room with two educators.
And then if you have, if you're lucky enough to have a resource educator or a program assistant
in there, that's three staff that all have to be on the same page when it comes to these
guidelines or rules that you've set.
There has to be consistency throughout them.
And then when you have the other educator come in to cover March break, sorry, the breaks
for the staff, that they are consistent and they know the rules.
Cause you know what these students are going to do.
They're going to be like, teacher a told me I could do this.
So I'm just making sure that you say it's okay.
Or I didn't ask them.
I'm just asking you.
Once you find out who might have a more flexible boundaries, but staying consistent will help
ensure that children know that these are the expectations and this is what has to follow
understanding where your conflict resolution skills are and how you can guide the children
in that way is also a huge help because you want to allow children to come up with these
conflict resolution skills or ideas and see how they're acting them out positively, hopefully
and hopefully effectively.
Yet you also want to be close by to understand if you have to step in.
So knowing when you think is a good time to step in or when that you can tell that the
children are getting to their, their limit is super important.
Providing individual support if you can.
I know two educators with 26 children is outrageously outrageous, but if you have that time to,
while other kids are engaging in play, as long as you're back as to the wall, you have
that time to build that one-on-one rapport with children, that's huge.
And then obviously collaborating with the parents.
It's hard when you have new children in your program and they're only there for a week
to get to know all of the families and the parents, but make sure that they know they're
welcome to come into your program.
They're welcome to look around, check out the room, check out the, the experiences that
the children did each day.
It doesn't change between when children get to preschool and then go to school age.
We still follow those four core values of how does learning happen, expression, belonging,
engagement and wellbeing.
So you shouldn't stop trying to have or incorporate those values into your program.
There's no reason for it.
This is, this is what we live by here in Ontario, the how does learning happen document.
So you should not stop trying to engage as parents.
You should not stop trying to make the children and the families feel welcome.
You should not stop allowing children to feel like they belong in your programs.
And a huge way to do that is to have that rapport with the families, to have that engagement
set up.
I also really want to stress, this is probably the last thing I'll say about this.
I also want to stress how important it is for children to be children.
And I want to stress how important it is that these programs should a hundred percent be
play-based programs.
There should not be the same structure that there is at school because we know as early
childhood educators and childcare staff that children learn best through play.
They do, wholeheartedly.
And there's so much research out there to back this up that it blows my mind that people
don't all know that.
So please, please, please in these programs, just remember, regardless of behaviors, regardless
of your week long, regardless, sorry, regardless that it's a week long program, regardless
of the fact that you do a theme or you don't do a theme, please remember that it should
be play-based.
That children should be allowed to explore and should have opportunities to build their
curiosity and ask questions and not be afraid to make mistakes or get messy.
Ms. Frizzle taught us that.
So please, please, please, please, if you don't take anything else away from today, please
take away this.
Enjoy the children on March break and remember that they're children.
Amazing.
Thank you.
That's not all though.
I am super excited for our question time.
I gotta get someone to like incorporate my voice into fun, like song and dance for these
sections.
Anyways, okay.
I have a super special guest here that I'm going to introduce.
I would like everyone to say hi to my special guest who's also going to say hi now.
Hi.
Say hello.
Hello.
And my special guest has a question today that will...
Actually, my special guest asked me a question a few weeks ago when she was listening to
my podcast and she wanted to come on in and ask her question.
Okay.
What's your question?
Why do you have more fun at your own school?
Than you do at school?
That is an excellent question.
Do you want to know the answer?
Yes.
I have more fun at my job because my job believes that children learn best through play.
So instead of sitting at your desk and doing math on a worksheet, do you do that?
Yes.
It's boring.
It's boring?
I believe that children learn best by building and manipulating material.
So that's like moving materials around and exploring things.
Wouldn't it be better if you learned math through baking?
Do you like to bake?
Yes.
So wouldn't it be better if you learned math through measuring and adding the ingredients?
Wouldn't it be better if you learned number patterns by putting materials out and counting
them?
Yeah.
What else do you like to play with?
My bird.
Your bird?
Wouldn't it be amazing if you learned science by interacting with real animals?
Yeah.
I would love that.
See?
This is why my work is more fun than school.
Do you have any more questions?
Yes.
Okay.
What's your question?
Do you have more toys than mine?
More playing, like playing with toys at my school.
Because, as early childhood educators, that's what I do, right?
You see?
Yeah.
Because we believe-
I work with kids too.
Pardon?
I work with kids too.
Would you come help me?
Because we believe that children learn best through these materials.
Would you rather go to a school that you play to learn all day or sit in a desk?
Play to learn all day.
High five.
With animals.
Me too.
You take after me.
All right.
Thank you so much, Miss Anonymous.
Do they want to say anonymous?
Goodbye.
All right, everyone.
Thank you so much for listening.
I am so... immaculately?
That's not your word.
I am so thankful for you tuning in.
I hope you have an amazing, beautiful, hopefully by the time you listen to this, spring day
ahead.
Bye.
Bye, everyone.
Thank you.
Bye.