Blocks to Boats: How a Building Curriculum Evolved and Merged into All Classroom Areas
Presenter
Debbie Biegelson, Beginnings Nursery School
Session / Time
- Breakout Session III
- Thursday, April 26, 2:45 - 3:45 p.m.
- Bedford Room
Description
Blocks are a wonderfully open-ended material from which children can learn a great deal. As Lucy Sprague Mitchell in, "The Block Book:" wrote, "the wonder of blocks is the many sided constructive experiences they yield to the many-sided constructivist child."
This workshop will help participants see the validity of this statement. To show educators how interest in blocks and building evolved into a year-long curriculum and overflowed into several other classroom areas. The curriculum was driven by the children’s interest and each part of the curriculum built on the knowledge and understanding the children acquired during the course of the year. The children were active learners in the explorations and gained understanding through their interactions with the materials.
Goals / Content / Intentionality
The structure of the session will include a power point presentation of the curriculum, specifically highlighting how through the different parts of the study, the children developed knowledge, understanding and skills which built on their previous experience The intention is that educators will feel more comfortable using blocks in their classrooms and better understand how they can build on what they are seeing the children do with blocks.
Debbie Biegelson, Beginnings Nursery School
Presenter Bio
Debbie Biegelson, Beginnings Nursery School
Debbie Biegelson has been a teacher at Beginnings Nursery School (a Reggio-inspired school) since 2010 for the 3/4s and 4/5s groups. She has presented her work to educators visiting Beginnings, as well as at the Association for Constructivist Teaching (ACT) annual conferences in 2015 and 2017. She has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Master’s in Education from Bank Street College of Education. She has professional certification from NY State in both early childhood and childhood general education.
