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.”
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