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[quote=Anonymous]Room Grand Parent here.(Don't rip into me - I'm a Senior Citizen!)

Tools of the Mind is NOT a great curriculum. It is barely fair at best. Most teachers/prinicipals DO NOT like it. Most schools generally use it for Pre School and Pre K. The school I volunteer at  for PreK has seen a drop in Kindergarten Dibels scores (not quite sure what that is but the teachers are always reminded of it). It could work frankly it truly depends on the creativity of the teacher, co teacher and the level of children you are teaching. DCPS does not provide teachers with any props or materials to create Tools themes. The time and energy teachers must take to change a theme every 6 weeks drains them without support. Teachers must create the home, restaurant, grocery store, hospital, pet vet and other themes with NO resources. I try to help my grandson's teacher to create and think of stuff but I get frustrated too. Then, they must teach the children how to "act" in the various centers using the props and acting out scenarios. The idea could be good but the children are supposed to play in their centers 45 minutes daily. That is too much time. Perhaps 15 to 20 should be the max. Anymore time than that equals chaos, destruction of props and bad behavior. It is the role of the teacher, co-teacher to prompt play with setting up scenarios, encouraging food orders, shopping for groceries, saying please, thank you and have a nice day. Frankly, it does not take 45 minutes to do any of those tasks in play. I appreciate my grandson's teacher with trying to teach them how to play and act but sometimes her approach to creativity, classroom manners and treating others is questionable at best. This meaning that she becomes upset with the fact that most of her students haven't been exposed to that type of play and working together.

As far as learning to write, the students practice writing in the afternoon some days if they get to it. As far as learning sentence writing, the "I am going to" and "We are going to" stem is memorized not truly learned. There is no alphabet instruction and rarely any counting/numbers instruction. There is no reading instruction, I assume they learn the writing stems through memory or osmosis?

The Freeze dance activity is insane! The songs drives the students wild. The teacher is supposed to play this song every morning and it's supposed to teach body control. The body position cards change and get most difficult but the same song everyday is insane. This curriculum definitely grows old of more mature PreKs. They often get tired of playing in the same centers daily, in the same roles. The younger or less mature students play in the centers but not how they are supposed to. They are generally just happy to be playing.  It doesn't seem to meet the needs any student.

My grandson's teacher now lets me work with the higher students who have grown bored until we change to the next theme. She has me working with them on letters and numbers 3 times a week because she and other teacher don't want to be singled out as bad teachers next year. I frankly feel bad for my grandson's teacher because she is trying to teach them to play but at our school, the Kindergarteners don't use Tools so they won't even be playing as much next year. Seems like a wasted year and don't see much growth or unsure how you measure playing better. What I do know is that half the class doesn't know all their letters or how to write their last name. With this curriculum, you can truly tell what support and exposure these kids have at home. And I'm still really unsure how you grade their play???  The teacher seems frustrated. There is only 1 book for this curriculum, and it very vague at best.

When I volunteered for my older granddaughter, they used Houghton Mifflin, much more organized - using themes very similar. But the Houghton Mifflin, introduced letters, colors, and theme stories, puppets, music, art projects and books. My grandson's teacher has to find her own books to introduce the themes. DCPS doesn't provide them. It just seems like a LOT of work just to reinforce play.

Parents ask your teachers what your children are really learning with Tools and you decide. If it's enough, then fine.

Just my 2 cents..... As a retired dedicated volunteer room grandparent.

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