Learning to develop a program

[megs_95]

My room leader will be going on maternity leave in a couple of months, so herself and the educational leader have started teaching me about programming for the room (2-3 year olds). At the moment it's seeming a little overwhelming but I'm excited to learn it and they've helped me by setting up programming info on the back of our cupboard doors, including a huge mind map of what should be included in the program, how to deliver it, and ideas for experiences/follow ups.

I'm not so much concerned about actually learning to develop a program, I feel like with practice that will come to me quite easily. I'm more concerned with managing the planning and preparation. Before this I only had 8 portfolios to work on, and I get so little time off the floor to do them that even that is running behind. How do you manage developing a program without time to do so? I feel like all this work will be done in my own time unfortunately, and between studying and a personal life it's going to be hectic

[Lorina]

Are you doing a weekly program? Do you have a daily diary?

The reason why I'm asking because you can already "add experiences" onto the following weeks program starting from this week itself. From Monday itself I start filling out next week's program with experiences I want to extend upon, ideas etc, that I can't do then and there or for this week. I always have next week's program available and add to it throughout the week so by the end of the week, the following week's program is done.

With the daily diary since you are evaluating the day and coming up with experiences to extend upon, these experiences can go into the next weeks program as well according to the specific day. It doesn't take long even adding 1 or 2 experiences a day which will take no more than 5 minutes is enough...

With portfolios, you can try and complete it according to the child you are observing on the day. So on Friday, if you are observing Tom and Harry, go through their portfolio to make sure it's up to date and add what you need to. You should be sharing this with the other educators within the room (even asking to add work sample etc) so make sure you share the responsibility of the portfolios. Yes, you're responsible for overseeing them and making sure they are complete but share the workload you can't do everything on your own....

Manage your time - when children are resting spend a few minutes doing some documentation. If there is an extra staff member in the room (which rarely happens - do some paperwork).... You just need to find a few minutes within your day to get the work done... Its hard to manage especially when you're not given any time... It's alright you will be able to work it out...

Hope this gives you some idea,

,
L.A