Current Course Schedule

Designing Play-Based Activities for the Pre-K-1st Classroom

This workshop will focus broadly on how to design and implement curricula in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first-grade classrooms that are, or strive to be, interdisciplinary and play-based. We will explore ways to integrate social studies, language arts, math, science, and art activities. We will also explore ways to scaffold and differentiate these activities to make them more inclusive and to address a diverse range of student needs. The unique and specific contexts of your settings will be taken into account and discussed.
Term(s) offered: Summer
Format: online *  Additional asynchronous work required
  • Course Number
    TEWS666N
  • Focus On
    Pre-k - 1st Grade
  • Category
    Early Childhood, Online
  • Registration Options and Cost
    $425 12.0 CTLE or 1.2 CEU

Sections

Summer 2 2024

  • Section 1:
    Date(s)
    July 29 and 30 I Online
    Day and Time
    Monday and Tuesday, 10:30 AM-3:30 PM ET* Additional 2.5 hours of asynchronous work
    Registration Deadline
    Jul 22, 2024
    Register
    • Timothy Lightman
      Timothy Lightman
      Timothy Lightman MEd, is currently serving as the Head of the Lower School at the Shipley School, a PreK-12 co-educational independent school in Bryn Mawr, PA. Previously he served for five years as Principal at the Smith College Campus School, a K-6 laboratory school in Northampton, MA. He has worked for close to twenty years in the field of education as a curriculum consult, graduate supervisor in the Preservice Inclusive Elementary Education Program at Teachers College, and as a teacher and researcher at Bank Street College and the School for Children. Mr. Lightman is currently finishing his doctoral work at Teachers College in curriculum and teacher. He has an MEd in Special Education and an MS in Early Childhood and Elementary Education, both from Bank Street College of Education. He also has a BA in American History from New York University.
"I took away how to ask "certain types of questions to children in order to prompt reflection and metacognition."

"Timothy Lightman was a joy to work with. He was very knowledgeable about key tenets of educational theory."

"My takeaway from this course was learning more about the meaning of play; in an emblematic way. Understanding that children have the potential to learn by discovering and exploring their environments is fascinating to me. Seeing how they grow, develop, and become self-sufficient is an amazing; experience. I will put into practice everything I learned through this course."

"The importance of unstructured and open-ended activities was a big take away. And I particularly enjoyed learning new ways to incorporate social studies activities and create interdisciplinary lessons through fieldwork type of activities and teaching children to become little "social scientists". I had never looked at social studies in exactly that way before and it was very eye opening."