Durham PreK Teacher Spotlight
February 10, 2023
Happy February! Your Durham PreK classrooms are learning, playing, and working hard already in 2023.
Celebrations
Join us in celebrating these teachers and schools on their accomplishments in the past few weeks!
- Rosalind Ervin received her Continuing Birth-to-Kindergarten License.
- Vianey Pineda earned her Associate Degree in Early Childhood Education from Wake Tech Community in December.
- Shanitra McCoy-Garcia earned her Masters in Curriculum Instruction Design from the University of Phoenix. She was also the teacher of the month in November!
- Growing Legacy's administrator, Dionne Blackwell completed her CLASS® Observer Certification.
A special message from Technical Assistant Maggie Connolly:
Becca Crute and EK Harris-Bowens are first time DPK teachers at Growing Legacy Early Learning Center. For the past 7 months, I have had the great pleasure of working with these two amazing educators! There is so much new information to learn and expectations to meet in the PreK system; that it is a wonder how anyone can do it all! To list just a few of their many accomplishments, these two teachers have:
- Wholeheartedly embraced the Creative Curriculum, which was a brand new curriculum to both of them;
- Learned and mastered the Teaching Strategies Gold online platform for lesson planning, documentation and ongoing assessment of children;
- Remained positive as they met each new professional development requirement asked of them; and
- Explored and utilized resources and curriculum materials to the benefit of all the children!
We cannot thank them enough for all their efforts in providing high quality early childhood education experiences to the children in Durham County!
Classroom Highlights
Randy’s Five Star Academy
At Randy’s Five Star Academy in Ms. Angela Nichols and Ms. Dorothy Ramsey’s classroom they made their own classroom book titled “How We Exercise."Each child was able to name and add a picture of the exercise they like to do. As an extension to the study topic the children were able to engage in an exercise game and take turns rolling a dice to identify which number of each exercise they should do. While engaging in this game, the children were identifying their numbers and learning different ways to exercise!
Primary Colors Early Learning Center
In Making the Most of Classroom Interactions (MMCI) session #7- Productivity we discussed with teachers about the importance of making the most out of transitions and providing learning opportunities within. At Primary Colors-Dixon Road, Ms. Vivian Brown and Ms. Sady’s Benavides consistently provides transitions where learning opportunities are included. While transitioning to breakfast from large group, Ms. Sady provided each child an opportunity to match currency by type using a money chart and real money!
Ms. Abigail Barr, Ms. Shamika Torian, and Ms. Sharelle Torian from Primary Colors-Dixon were the "Feature Teachers" for the February NC Early Educator Community of Practice! The teachers shared what digital literacy activities they each implement in their classroom!
White Rock Child Development Center
At White Rock CDC in Ms. Gina Allen and Ms. Kiana McMillan Lattimore there are many opportunities provided where children are able to express their creativity in the classroom. While having a discussion about what a Megabus is, one child created her own MegaBus using magnetic shape tiles and another child drew a picture of a Megabus on the whiteboard!
