Classroom Practices: What Are They?
The Great Expectations (GE) teaching/training model is guided by six basic
tenets and seventeen classroom practices. The tenets and practices provide
guidelines for program training and implementation and serve as standards
for evaluating GE schools/districts. The tenets are as follows:
High Expectations
Teacher Attitude and Responsibility
Building Self-Esteem
All Children Can Learn
Climate of Mutual Respect
Teacher Knowledge and Skill
The tenets are further defined by seventeen classroom practices that occur
in GE classrooms. The daily use of these practices within the classroom
setting assists students in becoming self-directed learners, productive
citizens, effective communicators, critical thinkers, and cooperative
contributors to the classroom as well as society. The classroom practices
are as follows:
1. The teacher models desired behaviors and attitudes such as those set
forth in the Life Principles and the Eight Expectations for Living.
2. Students and teachers speak in complete sentences and address one
another by name, demonstrating mutual respect and common courtesy.
3. Students are taught as a whole group, thoroughly and to mastery, with
intensive and specific modifications insuring success for all.
4. Lessons are integrated, related to the real world, reviewed
consistently, and connected to subsequent curricula.
5. Critical thinking skills are taught.
6. A non-threatening environment, conducive to risk-taking, is evident.
Mistakes are okay. Students are taught to learn from their mistakes and to
correct them.
7. Memory work, recitations, and/or writing occur daily. These enhance
character development and effective communication skills while extending
curricula. Recitations are exuberant and full of expression.
8. Enriched vocabulary is evident and is drawn directly from challenging
writings and/or wisdom literature. Sources should include classic
literature, myths, fables, poetry, proverbs, quotes, and other genres.
9. The Magic Triad, a positive and caring environment, and discipline with
dignity and logic are evident.
10. Every student's work is displayed in some form. Teachers provide
positive commentary through oral and/or written feedback.
11. Word identification skills are used as a foundation for expanding the
use of the English language.
12. Students assume responsibility for their own behavior. Their choices
determine consequences.
13. A school, class, or personal creed is recited or reflected upon daily
to reaffirm commitment to excellence.
14. All students experience success. The teacher guarantees it by comparing
students to their own past performance, not the performance of others.
Students are showcased, and past failures are disregarded.
15. The teacher teaches on his/her feet, engages students personally, holds
high expectations of students, and does not limit them to grade level or
perceived ability.
16. Each classroom has a student who greets visitors and makes them feel
welcome and comfortable.
17. Teachers and students celebrate the successes of others.
INFORMATION COPIED FROM GE WEBSITE www.greatexpectationsok.org
PK CURRICULUM GUIDELINES AS SET FORTH BY THE OK STATE DEPT OF EDUCATION
A Message from State Superintendent Sandy Garrett
Pre-Kindergarten
As Oklahoma’s elected education leader, and advocate for children, I am
committed to ensuring that all boys and girls of our state have the
essential skills needed for a high quality life.
Oklahoma’s Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) serve as a set of
specific curricular frameworks which call for developmentally appropriate
instructions in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and the
arts. In Pre-Kindergarten, students learn these skills through exposure to
instruction that is both teacher-directed and child initiated. It is
imperative that we empower teachers to focus on these essential skills in a
child’s early education and development period. This is why we
created “Pocket PASS” for Pre-Kindergarten teachers.
Teachers are on the front line and are the most valuable assets any school
has. It is important that Oklahoma teachers build on what students already
know and can do as they continue to expand student knowledge and skill
mastery in all curricular areas.
What an awesome responsibility you have as educators! We hope this tool will
assist you as you prepare your students for their future.
Overview
Early childhood programs should be appropriate for the age, developmental
level, and special needs of each child. The environment should be modified
and adapted to promote the participation, engagement, and learning of all
children. Young children are integrally connected to their families and it
is important to establish positive relationships with them as a whole that
is based on mutual trust and respect. Teaching is based on the knowledge of
content and how young children develop and learn. The learning environment
fosters all areas of development: intellectual, language, physical and
social/emotional; and provides the challenge for children to learn according
to their individual growth patterns.
Early childhood programs should:
�� Provide curriculum that builds upon what children already know and are
able to do to enable them to connect new concepts and skills.
�� Provide units or themes of interest that integrate and teach across all
areas of the core curriculum (e.g., foreign languages, language arts
including reading, mathematics, science, social studies, the arts).
�� Provide a literacy-rich environment arranged in all learning centers or
learning areas (e.g., art center, science center, reading center, dramatic
play center, block center). Each center will have a variety of activities
for the children. This arrangement allows for a wide range of developmental
interests and abilities within the same classroom.
• Provide exposure to a wide variety of information and literacy experiences
and the use of technology through daily activities in the classroom and/or
media center.
• Provide a safe environment designed for the developmental needs of the age
group served and implemented with attention to the requirements and
differences of the individual children.
• Provide a climate that is active; one in which children interact with each
other and materials while engaging in cooperative hands-on learning with day-
to-day life experiences.
• Provide a balance of classroom activities that are teacher-directed and
child-initiated. These activities may be active or quiet, performed
individually or in large and small groups.
• Provide an environment that is sensitive to cultural, language, and
learning differences among all children served.
• Provide an on-going process of collecting information from multiple
sources about a child’s needs, which may include observation, portfolios,
screenings, etc., to determine an individual’s strengths and weaknesses in
order to plan his/her educational services.
These curriculum guidelines are intended to be a recommended curriculum for
children attending early childhood programs in Oklahoma. Teachers trained in
early childhood curriculum theories will provide an enriched curriculum
including the following skills and many others.
APPROACHES TO LEARNING
There are basic principles or approaches to learning present for all
children. Each child has his/her own unique approach to learning that should
be fostered and encouraged as they grow and develop.
Standard 1: The child demonstrates positive attitudes, habits, and learning
styles.
1. Demonstrates an eagerness and interest in learning.
2. Develops and expands listening skills.
3. Demonstrates self-direction and independence.
4. Demonstrates increasing ability to set goals and develop and follow
through on plans.
5. Manages transition between activities effectively.
6. Understands, accepts, and follows rules and routines.
7. Develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question,
task or problem.
8. Recognizes and solves problems through active exploration, including
trial and error, and interactions and discussions with peers and adults.
CREATIVE SKILLS
Creative skills are developed by engaging children in activities with play
dough, sand, water, dramatic play, blocks, creative stories, art, music,
movement, and a variety of other materials.
Standard 1: The child participates in activities that foster individual
creativity.
1. Demonstrates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of
creative activities, including listening, singing, finger play, games and
performances.
2. Thinks of new uses for familiar materials.
3. Engages in spontaneous and imaginative play using a variety of materials
to dramatize stories and experiences.
4. Works creatively using a variety of self-expressive materials and tools
to creatively express ideas.
5. Moves freely in response to music and change of tempo.
6. Expresses thoughts and feelings through creative movement.
7. Experiments with a variety of musical instruments.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Young children begin to develop language arts skills through the context of
shared reading with quality children’s literature, shared writing, language
experience, reading and writing centers.
For English Language Learners (ELL), educators should gather information and
appropriate procedures should be followed to determine which language should
be used to understand the impact of second language acquisition on the
child’s development and performance in the early childhood setting. Teachers
need to assist ELL by building upon what children may already know in their
native language. Emphasis should be placed on commonalities that exist
between English and the native language. Extra time should be allowed for
ELL to process information and formulate thoughts. It is important to use
concrete objects and pictures to teach ELL children.
Oral Language
Standard 1: Listening - The child will listen for information and for
pleasure.
1. Listens with interest to stories read aloud.
2. Understands and follows oral direction.
Standard 2: Speaking - The child will express ideas or opinions in group or
individual settings.
1. Uses language for a variety of purposes (e.g., expressing needs and
interests).
2. Recalls and repeats simple poems, rhymes, and songs.
3. Uses sentences of increasing length (three or more words) and grammatical
complexity in everyday speech.
4. Shares simple personal narrative.
5. Participates actively in conversations.
Literacy
Standard 3: Print Awareness - The child will understand the characteristics
of written language.
1. Demonstrates increasing awareness of concepts of print.
2. Identifies the front cover and back cover of a book.
3. Follows book from left to right and from top to bottom on the printed
page.
4. Shows increasing awareness of print in classroom, home and community
settings.
5. Begins to recognize the relationship or connection between spoken and
written words by following the print as it is read aloud.
6. Understands that print carries a message by recognizing labels, signs,
and other print forms in the environment..
7. Develops growing understanding of the different functions of forms of
print (e.g., signs, letters, newspapers, lists, messages, and menus).
8. Begins to understand some basic print conventions (e.g., the concept that
letters are grouped to form words and that words are separated by spaces).
9. Role plays reading.
Standard 4: Phonological Awareness - The child will demonstrate the ability
to work with rhymes, words, syllables, and onsets and rimes.
1. Begins to hear, identify, and make oral rhymes (e.g., “The pig has a
wig”).
2. Shows increasing ability to hear, identify, and work with syllables in
spoken words (e.g., “I can clap the parts in my name: An-drew”).
Standard 5: Phonemic Awareness - The child will demonstrate the ability to
hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words.
1. Shows increasing ability to discriminate, identify and work with
individual phonemes in spoken words (e.g., “The first sound in sun is /s/”).
2. Recognizes which words in a set of words begin with the same sound
(e.g., “Bell, bike, and boy all have /b/ at the beginning”).
Standard 6: Phonics (Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition) - The
child will demonstrate the ability to apply sound- symbol relationships.
1. Recognizes own name in print.
2. Demonstrates awareness or knowledge of letters of the English language,
especially letters from own name.
3. Begins to recognize the sound association for some letters.
4. Knows that letters of the alphabet are a special category of visual
graphics that can be individually named.
Standard 7: Vocabulary - The child will develop and expand knowledge of
words and word meanings to increase vocabulary.
1. Shows a steady increase in listening and speaking vocabulary.
2. Understands and follows oral directions (e.g., use of position words:
under, above, through).
3. Links new learning experiences and vocabulary to what is already known
about a topic.
Standard 8: Comprehension - The child will associate meaning and
understanding with reading.
1. Begin to use prereading skills and strategies (e.g., connecting prior
knowledge to text, making predictions about text and using picture clues).
2. Demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from
books and experiences.
3. Remembers and articulates some sequences of events.
4. Connects information and events to real-life experiences when being read
a story.
5. Demonstrates understanding of literal meaning of story being told through
questions and comments.
6. Tells what is happening in a picture.
Writing
Standard 9: Writing Process - The child will use the “writing process” to
express thoughts and feelings.
1. Develops understanding that writing is a way of communicating for a
variety of purposes.
2. Progresses from using scribbles, shapes, or pictures to represent ideas
to using letter-like symbols, or writing familiar words such as their own
name.
3. Participates in writing opportunities.
4. Begins to remember and repeat stories and experiences through drawing and
dictation.
MATHEMATICS
Young children begin to develop mathematical understanding through
experiences with a wide variety of real objects provided in learning centers
and practical situations (e.g., blocks, pegs, buttons, cooking).
Standard 1: Patterns - The child will sort and classify objects and analyze
simple patterns.
1. Sorts and groups objects into a set and explains verbally what the
objects have in common (e.g., color, size, shape).
2. Recognizes patterns, can repeat them, and explain them verbally
(red/black, red/black, red/black).
Standard 2: Number Sense – The child will understand the relationship
between numbers and quantities.
1. ` Begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and
written numerals in meaningful ways.
2. Begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and
matching groups of objects.
3. Develops increasing ability to count in sequence to ten.
4. Counts objects in a set one-by-one from one through five.
5. Identifies and creates sets of objects one through five.
6. Identifies numerals one through five.
7. Recognizes the numerical value of sets of objects through five.
Standard 3: Geometry and Spatial Sense – The child will identify common
geometric shapes and explore the relationship of objects in the environment.
1. Begins to recognize, describe, compare, and name common shapes (e.g.,
circle, square, rectangle).
2. Builds an increasing understanding of directionality, order and position
of objects, and words (e.g., on, under, above).
Standard 4: Measurement – The child will explore the concepts of nonstandard
and standard measurement.
1. Measures objects using nonstandard units of measurement (e.g., pencil,
paper clip, block).
2. Compares objects according to observable attributes (e.g., long, longer,
longest; short, shorter, shortest; big, bigger, biggest; small, smaller,
smallest; small, medium, large).
3. Compares and orders objects in graduated order (e.g., shortest to
tallest, thinnest to thickest).
4. Develops an awareness of simple time concepts within his/her daily life
(e.g., yesterday, today, tomorrow; morning, afternoon, night).
Standard 5: Data Analysis – The child will collect and analyze data in a
group setting.
1. Begins to use numbers and counting as a means for solving problems and
measuring quantity.
2. Develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information
through a variety of means, including discussion, drawings, maps, charts,
and graphs.
3. Describes similarities and differences between objects.
HEALTH, SAFETY, AND PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Young children need the opportunity to develop large and small motor skills
through indoor and outdoor activities and games for the benefit of personal
fitness and well being.
Large Motor Skill Development
Standard 1: The child will participate in activities that involve large
motor skills.
1. Demonstrates basic locomotor movements (e.g., galloping, hopping,
jumping, running, sliding, riding tricycles, pulling wagons, pushing
wheelbarrows).
2. Demonstrates body and space awareness to move and stop with control over
speed and direction.
3. Demonstrates nonlocomotor movements (e.g., bending, pulling, pushing,
stretching, swaying, swinging, turning, twisting).
4. Demonstrates increasing abilities to coordinate movements in throwing,
catching, kicking, bouncing balls, and using the slide and swing.
5. Coordinates large arm movements (e.g., easel painting, woodworking,
climbing, throwing, playing rhythm band instruments, writing on chalkboard,
playing with blocks, catching, and tossing).
6. Develops coordination and balance through a variety of activities.
Small Motor Skill Development
Standard 2: The child will participate in activities that involve small
motor skills.
1. Demonstrates increased control of hand and eye coordination (e.g., using
pegs, beads, pattern blocks, crayons, pencils, paint brushes, finger- paint,
scissors, glue, and a variety of puzzles).
2. Demonstrates increasing control of small muscles in hands (e.g., using
tongs or eyedropper, stringing beads).
Health Enhancing Activity Development
Standard 3: The child will participate in health- enhancing activities for
the development of lifetime health and fitness.
1. Progresses in physical growth, strength, stamina, and flexibility.
2. Understands that healthy bodies require rest, exercise, and good
nutrition.
3. Shows growing independence in following routine healthy behaviors (e.g.,
hygiene, nutrition and personal care when eating, dressing, washing hands,
brushing teeth, and toileting).
4. Builds awareness and ability to follow basic health and safety rules.
SCIENCE
Science knowledge is developed through experiences with real animals, plants
and objects in the classroom and the environment.
Science Processes and Inquiry
Standard 1: The child will investigate and experiment with objects to
discover information.
1. Develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects,
events and experiences.
2. Selects and becomes familiar with simple scientific tools (e.g.,
magnifying glass, magnet).
3. Participates in simple experiments to discover information (e.g., bottles
of water or homemade telephone to learn about vibration and sound, simple
scale to determine heavy and light).
4. Asks questions, makes predictions, and communicates observations orally
and/or in drawings. 5. Explores cause and effect.
Physical
Standard 2: The child will investigate and describe objects that can be
sorted in terms of physical properties.
1. Develops an awareness of the sensory attributes of objects according to
taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight.
2. Develops an awareness of the properties of some objects (e.g., float-
sink, heavy-light, rough- smooth, hard-soft, magnetic-nonmagnetic, solid-
liquid, wet-dry).
3. Observes and describes how objects move (e.g., slide, turn, twirl, roll).
Life
Standard 3: The child will observe and investigate plants and animals.
1. Develops an awareness of what various plants and animals need for growth.
2. Demonstrates a beginning awareness of the changes that plants and animals
go through during their life (e.g., seed/plant, egg/chicken).
3. Demonstrates an interest and respect for the plant and animal life around
them.
Earth/Space
Standard 4: The child will investigate and observe the basic concepts of the
Earth.
1. Develops an awareness of the properties of common earth materials (e.g.,
soil, rocks, water).
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2. Develops an awareness of daily weather (e.g., sunny, cloudy, rainy,
snowy, windy, hot, warm, cold).
3. Develops an awareness of the four seasons (e.g., temperature, weather,
appropriate clothing, changing leaves).
4. Observes and participates in a variety of activities related to
preserving the environment.
SOCIAL AND PERSONAL SKILLS
Social skills include interacting with others, work habits and self-help
skills. To develop these skills, children need daily opportunities to
develop the ability to negotiate issues that occur, to take turns, to lead
and follow, and to be a friend. They also need to learn how to deal with
their feelings in a socially acceptable manner.
Standard 1: The child will participate in activities to develop the skills
necessary for working and interacting with others.
1. Plays, works and interacts easily with one or more children and/or adults.
2. Begins to develop relationships with others.
3. Recognizes the feelings of others and responds appropriately.
4. Develops confidence and stands up for own rights.
5. Shows respect for others and their property.
6. Recognizes and expresses own feelings and respond appropriately.
7. Develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take
turns in games or using materials; and to interact without being overly
submissive or directive.
8. Works independently and/or cooperatively to solve problems or resolve
conflicts.
9. Seeks assistance from adult when appropriate.
10. Demonstrates emerging awareness and respect for culture, ethnicity,
abilities and disabilities.
Standard 2: The child will develop the skills necessary for participating in
a variety of settings.
1. States his/her full name, age, and name of parent or guardian.
2. Shows ability to adjust to new situations.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Social studies provide an opportunity to develop an integrated curriculum
using civics, geography, history and economics. Learning experiences may be
provided through learning centers, resource people, projects, and field
trips.
Civics
Standard 1: The child will exhibit traits of good citizenship.
1. Works and plays cooperatively in a variety of settings (e.g., in large
and small groups, learning centers).
2. Recognizes the importance of his/her role as a member of the family, the
class, and the community.
3. Listens to others while in large and small groups.
4. Shows respect for others and their property.
5. Develops an awareness of how people positively affect the environment.
6. Recognizes patriotic symbols and activities (e.g., American Flag).
Geography
Standard 2: The child will demonstrate knowledge of basic geographic
concepts.
1. Locates and describes familiar places (e.g., classroom, home, school,
fast food restaurant).
2. Begins to develop an understanding of his/her community (e.g., home,
school, city).
Standard 3: The child will discuss how children in various communities and
cultures are alike and different.
1. Explores how children have needs in common (e.g., food, clothing,
shelter).
2. Explores how children are unique as to languages, food, clothing,
transportation, and customs.
3. Explores how families and communities build “traditions.”
Economics
Standard 4: The child will explore various careers.
1. Develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.
2. Identifies various school and community personnel.
3. Develops an awareness of money being needed to purchase things.
Information copied from Oklahoma State Department of Education Website
