Setting Up Shop
By Mary Ellen Bafumo

Early childhood is a time of discovery when learning occurs at every turn. Young children who have learning experiences and materials in the home arrive at school with an enormous advantage. The world around them has been translated into identifiable names, places, things and feelings. Elaborative explanations have given these children a significant receptive and expressive vocabulary. They are ready for formal learning.

Many more young children, for a host of reasons, enter school without such advantages and are not ready for formal learning. The task that early childhood teachers face is how to teach a class full of students who fall at each end of the learning spectrum and every place in between.

Set for success
An easy and effective way to address widely diverse needs among young learners – to empower those without basic skills and enhance learning for others – is to create a shop in the classroom. This sets every student up for success. Brain research demonstrates that motivation and relevance are key components for learning. A classroom shop addresses both and connects learning to everyday life. Collect a host of everyday recyclable materials, create a corner in the room for a "shop" and use materials to teach or augment the eaching of basic skills and information. Add this to your repertoire if you haven't already and help every child experience success.

Stock your shelves
Start your collection with items children know well. Empty cereal boxes, granola wrappers, cookie bags, vitamin bottles, diaper boxes, food labels, soap wrappers or containers, milk cartons, juice boxes, fast-food cups, boxes, napkins, bags. Don't be shy. When you have a fast-food meal, ask for a used box, bag or carton. Take an extra napkin. Enlist colleagues, parents and friends to recycle these items. It won't take long to get a collection for your classroom shop.

Supplement your collection by taking photos of Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Sears, Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, Pizza Hut and any other logos or signs (don't forget the ubiquitous stop sign) that are familiar to your students. If you have a scanner, enlarge the photos so children can easily see them and print copies.

Using the inventory
Pre-reading and reading skills are critical components of early learners' experiences. Many young learners are not ready developmentally for the curriculum that has taken the place of learning through play. While these children may not learn phonics or math, they learn that they are not failures. Change that situation by planning a pre-reading lesson around the use of familiar logos, packaging and photos of store names and signs; nearly every child will recognize one or more. Give each child a copy of the logo, sign or store name so that the children can "read" to celebrate their success. They should bring home the logo and read to family members. Be sure that each student "reads" at least one. Children should read as many as they can and choose a copy of the one they like most. Here are some other suggestions for how to use these materials in your classroom:

• Use the materials thereafter to focus on whole words, initial and ending sounds or finding vowels.

• Use materials to make or find rhyming words.

• Go beyond reading – teach colors and ask your students to sort materials by color.

• Teach the concept of greater than and less than. Your students can then sort materials by comparative size.
  
  
• Teach your students number concepts with counting. For example: count out four cereal boxes. When teaching addition, put together two logos that you can read and two cookie bags. Count them all together. For a lesson in subtraction, put together four cups and take two away. What's left?

• If you teach older primary children, place prominent price tags on each item and provide a calculator for adding up the "shopping bill." Assign a shop keeper to check the math.

• Teach nutrition lessons – which items in your shop can be combined to make a healthy meal? Which is a healthy snack?

Shopping rewards
Using materials that are familiar and motivating creates success rather than failure and gets all children off to a good start. In addition, authentic materials connect learning to life and are guaranteed motivators. There's a reward for setting up shop. You'll find it in the faces of children who thought they couldn't read, but have their first success in reading a logo or a sign. That's hitting the teaching jackpot!

Mary Ellen Bafumo is a Program Director for the Council on Educational Change, an Annenberg legacy group.

November/December 2005, Vol.36, No.3