Prompt 10: Recognizing Growth

            I could see significant progress throughout my activity plans. Although I have written plenty of lesson plans before this course, I had never written one for preschoolers and the format seemed stricter than what I was used to. Early on, I feel that I did a good job with including a lot of detail in my activity plans. As I progressed, I began writing in bullet points instead of long paragraphs with “teacher talk”. I used to think that quoting what I would say would be the easiest way to get my point across. I have learned that listing the information in bullet points makes it a lot easier to follow along.

            I noticed that it was very challenging to maintain the children’s attention during a lesson.  While writing my activity plans, I made sure to write it in a way that would keep the students focused. I noticed that a lot of students responded well with asking them to keep a secret just between us, asking them to help me find something I lost, and using different voices. I think it is important to have a strong anticipatory set in each activity plan to catch the children’s attention from the very beginning.

            One area I am still developing on as a future teacher would be writing and implementing assessments. On occasion I will struggle with figuring out what I feel is a strong assessment to use within my lessons. It is difficult to understand when you will complete the assessments when you are not yet a teacher. For now we only need to include them in our lessons, but there will come a time when I actually have to implement the assessments in my own classroom. By writing the different activity plans I feel like I have become more confident with my assessments. I feel like this is an area where “practice makes perfect.”

            Each of my activity plans made a connection with the material my students were learning in class. My first activity plan worked with the ABC’s and my second lesson worked specifically on the letter K. These two lesson plans made a connection because they both worked with letters. Activity Plan 3 dealt with mathematics. Because my class does not do a lot of math, I decided to work with measurement because I knew they had at least heard the word before in class. Before I began creating any of my lessons, I would check in with my teacher to see if she was comfortable with my idea for an activity.

            I have had such an amazing experience in my placement. I feel like a have grown as a future educator during my time at my school. I have never worked with this age group before so I was able to broaden my age range. I had a lot of “hands on” experience with the children and I was able to implement my own lessons. By implementing two of my lessons, I was able to see how unpredictable teaching can be. I understand now that you need to be prepared for any situation as an educator. My placement taught me how to think on my feet and expand my creative thinking.

            In my first prompt I said, “I believe that students need to learn from experience. I do believe that the students need to be pushed in the right direction, but I feel like teacher’s today spoon feed the material instead of letting the students find the answers.” I still agree with the philosophy of learning through experience. Young children should not be told everything they need to do. These children will not fully develop as a learner if they do not learn to explore and learn for themselves. If these children are “spoon fed” information, they will grow up depending on their teachers to give them all of the material. The Bullard text talks about how it is a teacher’s job to create an environment where the children can initiate the activities. 

Prompt 9: Social and Emotional Development & Communicating with Families

            I am very disappointed to say I have not experienced any sensory activities in my placement. The closest activity I would consider as a “sensory activity” would be when the children were recently finger painting. Although they were using their hands to feel the material, the teacher still had them follow rules of what colors to use and where. Therefore, all of the students created the same products.

            My children interact very well with each other and the teachers in the classroom. During play time, my children are very good with sharing items and including others in their play. They are very open to meeting new people and accepting them as one of their own. I notice that the children have a great amount of respect for their teacher. The children listen to what the teachers tell them and normally respond in an appropriate manner. I have never noticed any “talking back” to the teachers or other adult figures. When I arrived on my first day, the children were very interested to learn more about me. They asked me to read them books, push them on the swings, and sit with them on the carpet. They quickly accepted me into the classroom and began treating me like one of their “teachers”. They listen to me when I talk and they come to me with some of their problems.

            The Shallcross article states, “Soft skills might include teaching kids to work cooperatively in a group or teaching them how to think about the long-term consequences when they make a decision, whereas teaching physics is an example of a hard skill.” My teacher has done a great job with building a sense of empathy in the classroom. The children are very aware of others feelings and how their actions can hurt them. When the teacher witnesses a child being hurtful to another child she does not simply say “don’t do that”, instead she will talk to the child and ask them to verbalize what they did and how it could hurt the other child. By creating this sense of empathy, children are a lot less likely to hurt others feelings. I personally feel that this type of learning is crucial for a classroom environment. Soft skills are the skills that children will use throughout the rest of their lives. This type of learning could decide who they are as a person and how they carry themselves. I think this type of learning could be taught through videos, or allowing the students to role play different situations. I have seen role play as a very beneficial approach for young students to put themselves into the “shoes” of a certain situation.

            My teacher does a very good job of keeping parents “in the loop.” She frequently sends home classroom newsletters, and emails them with reminders or good news about the children. She has a snack calendar and concept calendar that she sends home as well. If there are any papers that need to go home the teacher will place it in the children’s cubby or totes for the parents to pick up. I do agree that there is a lot of pressure on families today with children attending these institutions. The Grose article states, “Schulte notes that working moms now spend as much time taking care of their kids as stay-at-home moms did in the '60s: 11 hours a week, compared with seven hours a week for working dads.” Some of these institutions have become very selective and demanding on the prospective families. If I wanted to strengthen the classroom-family relationship, I would create a classroom website. I feel that these websites are beneficial because the parents can find all of the information online and they can see pictures of their children and their work in the classroom. I enjoy the sentence from the Bullard text that says, “Regardless of socioeconomic status, a parent’s educational background, age, ethnic or racial background, or gender, numerous outcomes for children improve when families are involved.” 

Prompt 8: Health, Wellness, and Physical Development

In my classroom the children have about 15 minutes every day to run around outside or in the gym. I have noticed that this time can be cut short depending on how long it takes them to complete their work. The schedule is never consistent when it comes time for them to go to recess. During recess time the children are extremely active. They become very excited when it is time to go play because they have so much energy built up. When they get to recess the teacher encourages all of them to run around instead of participating in stationary play. I have observed a lot of indoor play due to the inconsistent weather. Indoor play limits the children to the materials that they normally have on the playground (swings, jungle gym, balance beam, slides, rock wall, etc). The Bullard text states, “children who play outdoors demonstrate better visual motor integration, imagination, and verbal and social skills than children who play inside.”

While observing my classroom, I have found no source of blocks and a very limited source of fine motor activities. The closest thing the classroom have to blocks are Legos. A lot of the children spend time building objects out of the Legos. The Bullard text talks about the different opportunities blocks provide. The text says, “While children build with blocks they develop mathematical skills, use symbolic representation, practice science skills, make use of literacy, exhibit social-emotional skills, demonstrate aesthetic awareness, and practice geography.” The teacher does not scaffold the children’s play when they arrive in the morning. The children have puzzles, crayons, markers, scissors, colored pencils, and tinker toys. These materials are the only ones I could even consider the classroom using for the children’s fine motor development.

My program would score really well on the Health practices item for ECERS. My teachers make sure the students blow their nose when it is running, wash and dry their hands in the bathroom, and use hand sanitizer before snack and after recess. During snack time the students are provided with healthy options. This normally includes; whole grain goldfish, applesauce, and fresh fruits. The teacher makes sure to always have an abundant supply for the students who have certain allergies. The only suggestion I would make to improve this item would be to display more pictures/posters about health reminders for the children. I believe my program would also receive a good score for the Safety practices item in ECERS. I have noticed that my teachers are very proactive when it comes to a student that could potentially get hurt. They make sure to always keep an eye on the students and prevent them from participating in hazardous activities. The only suggestion I would make for this item would be to display examples of possible hazards that the students could use as a resource.