Teacher Discussion Forums

I have a class of mostly 2 year olds who are just turning three... The class seems to have a lot of discipline problems... For example children will often not want to participate in our dance class (it's like a ballet class) or our sports class, art class or our music class. Some of them don't like to sing. Also, they constantly run out of the room and I have to keep running to get them back in.

My question is, how appropriate are time outs for this age group. The other teachers/nannies at the school continuously threaten the kids with such punishments as:

Forcing them to eat more food that they don't like
Threatening them with time-outs if they don't participate in the dance/sport/singing
Threatening them with a big stick (though they don't actually use this on them of course)

My approach has been to just let them sit out of the boring dance/sport/whatever portions of the lessons as long as they are in the same room. I may try to bribe them with a sticker or encourage them to join in, but I don't like giving a time-out every time they don't want to do something. I save time-outs only for if a kid hits another kid or if they try to run outside or do something dangerous.

I get the feeling that the other teachers think that I am too easy on them, and that all the students should be participating in everything or else they should be punished.

What do you think?

Also, how appropriate are crafts for children this age? It seems to me that the only crafts they can actually do are coloring pictures in coloring books, maybe cutting out some pictures from a magazine, and gluing stuff that I have already cut out for them.. It seems to me that the craft portion of the lessons are pretty much a waste of time. They are too young to really do any crafts, and I feel that the time would be better spent playing games that will help them learn English. But the school likes to show the parents these "amazing" crafts that the kids can't really do themselves at all... What do you think?

Also, how realistic is it for me to have a class of 9 two-three year olds and actually have them tracing lines in workbooks. If I pass out all the books then half of them start just coloring all over the book. If I only pass out one book at a time and work with that one kid then the other kids are running around going crazy doing other stuff... What should I do?

You should be in a room that is contained! It is too dangerous to have even one child in a place you can't allow the children to move around freely but safely. In Canada we can only have five children with one teacher. You can have more children in a safe room -up to ten but need an assistant .

These kids are amazing. You would never find that level of obedience in Canada and we wouldn't want it. Two year olds need to learn to play and get along and to learn a language by osmosis.

Don' t do something because other teachers do something different and to me horrendous. Follow your heart.

The ideal for everyone would be a Montessori type set up. The kids would learn so much more than English.

Let them colour on blank paper. Get older students do crafts and give them to the younger ones to impress the parents. Let the little ones learn to do appropriate crafts for their age -go to any site for two year olds.

Fight to get the administration to be honest and the parents to want honesty.