My daughter gave me this wonderful record player for Christmas just so I could share it in my classroom. I have to say, it was one of the best gifts I have ever received and my students love it as much as I do…
It can be a little unnerving to take something you love like this into the preschool classroom because you have to really let go and allow the children to explore without the temptation to micromanage their every move…
I didn’t own any records so my daughter and Mr. Hayden picked up some old records we could use in the classroom without worrying about them. Some of them were children’s music while others were old country or classical. Since the records weren’t precious to me, I wasn’t worried about them getting a little dinged up through our explorations. However, we did talk with the children about how to handle and take care of a record…
During circletime, we took the time to take a closer look at our records. We talked about how the little records only have one song on each side where the bigger records have lots of songs on each side. Â We compared the different sizes of the records, Â the different labels on each record, the shapes of the records, and how to handle the records…
As the children spent time with the records and record player, Mr. Hayden or I would spend a few minutes talking about the very basics of managing the record players. Â We didn’t over do our introduction. Instead, we gave the children plenty of space just to see what happens if they turned this knob or changed that button. Â The only thing we emphasized is that the arm of the record player needed to be handled gently and my students were awesome…
We kept the record player out all week. If I had the space, I would leave it out all year. Perhaps one day, I will figure out how to have everything I love out all the time. Â But for the week, the children enjoyed spending time exploring the record player every day…
As the week progressed, and the children developed a good feel for how the record player worked and how to care for the record player. I integrated our record player into other activities as well because a record player has a wonderful wheel that spins around which naturally lends itself to all kinds of science and art experiences…
I will share our other record player experiences with you too because they were each amazing in their own way. Once our week was over, I brought the the record player home for my almost three year old grandson to explore too. Being a bit younger than the students in my classroom, I needed to sit with him at first but it wasn’t long before he was just as gentle and competent at managing the record player as my students were…
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