The West Wing appointments organize the schedule to support children throughout their day. The schedule is built for long periods of uninterrupted time for freely chosen play with teacher support and for teacher guided, small group work. Research informs us that children make better all around progress in settings where there is a balance of both.
We facilitate connections by calling the children by pairs to their appointments after circle time. This way they enter with a connection to another.
Through observation and documenting children’s choices via appointments, teachers learn about the children’s preferences. Based on these observations the teachers guide the children, making suggestions to work with specific children or spaces to deepen relationships with each other, materials, and their environment.
The appointments are written on a clipboard and are kept above the Parent Sign-In folder. The other folder there houses the history of the children’s appointments. Morning and afternoon appointments are documented on a daily basis.