I was wondering this ..some of these prepackaged deals are soo expensive - do you pass the fee over to the parents?

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I don't use a curriculum anymore. The reason for this, is while going to school for my CDA, all they stressed was "cookie cutter" work is wrong. The children need to be creative and not do "mock" work. I quit buying the curriculum shortly after all this started being stressed and while in school. I'm in my last semester and I only have two more assignments and I'm finished! I strongly disagree with what I have learned. I think the children can be creative at their choosing (during children's choice) but then when we are doing a theme like for example "Bugs" and the curriculum tells us how to make a bee puppet, I think we should all be able to make a bee puppet and not be told it's wrong to do.
When I purchased the curriculum I paid for the whole thing myself. I plan on ordering my curriculum as soon as I have my CDA certificate in hand!
Tami

Tami can I ask what curriculum you used?

I dont' charge extra for anything I normally provide. If it's something extra the parents want than I will.

We have had a music lady come in every two weeks for a little while. At the time I had 8 children, and I explained to the families that while I have everyone.

I totally agree with the issue of "kids being creative". There is a time and place for this type of thing. Kids need to know a bee looks like a BEE. I like to do a more structure project, like making an actual BEE and than letting the kids make there own type of insect.

Every few years there is a new thought to education. Back in the 60's sight reading was stressed. The result, I am not good at pronoucing words I have not heard or used. In the 80's when I was going to college for elem education the push was for whole language approach. If you don't know about this, its about kids learning at their own speed and in their own way. NO tests, no assessment. I don't know what you think, but an assessment on paper help me know what I have to go over in the future in a different way.

I think "time outs" according to a child's age is another one. 30 seconds per year...1 minute per year I've heard it all. Just how do you get a child to sit in an area for a length of time when they don't want to? I can't tie them down, I'm not going to scream and scare them. To me it's just better to have talke WITH the child, NOT LECTURE. YES The the child have a chance to talk and respond. Do they know what they did that caused a problem? Do they know what the problem is? what did happen because of it, what could happen? What could be done in the future to get the result you want, with out hurting anyone.