Meaningful Documentation in the Early Childhood Classroom
Providing meaningful documentation has many benefits in the early childhood classroom. Today I want to share some examples of meaningful documentation from Rosa Parks ECEC here in Tulsa, OK.
What is Documentation?
To put it simply, documentation is a way to track students’ learning and thinking. When done correctly, documentation should take it’s viewer on a journey through the way the children are thinking about what they are learning.
Cozy Covers. Warm Wolf.
Why is this important?
For the Students: When children visually see that what they are thinking about is valued so much that it is documented and displayed proudly, it allows them to take pride and ownership over that thinking. Visible documentation may also serve to spark new ideas.
For Visitors: It is also important for visitors to the classroom to be able to see what the children are interested in and learning about without having to ask anyone.
For the Teachers: Finally, documentation is important for the teachers to be able to track students’ learning and thinking in order to plan where to go next and how to scaffold children’s thinking.
Investigating the Bear Hunt song in multiple ways.
Documentation Panels
There are numerous types of documentation, but for today’s post I want to share examples of Documentation Panels with you.
Musical Melodies. Dancing Wolf.
As you can see from the examples, documenting students’ learning and thinking provides a much richer way of looking at the world as children see it. It also allows others to see the immense learning taking place in the classroom on a daily basis.
I hope you gained some inspiration from these documentation panels from Rosa Parks ECEC.
What is your favorite way to document students’ learning and thinking?
Have a documentation panel you would like to share? Place a pic in the comments!
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