Sam's+Practicum+Blog



9/14/2011 //**‍‍Log #1 ‍‍ **// When I first entered the preschool classroom, the children were all playing with one another in different parts of the classroom. Some children were drawing pictures, others were playing checkers with the teacher, and a few were playing "house." The atmosphere is not quiet, yet it is calm and welcoming. In the mornings, until 9 A.M., the three year olds and four year olds are in the same classroom. Throughout the day, I realized how identical the schedule of the preschool classroom is to the previous schedule I did at another practicum site in the older toddler room. ‍‍The students get to have more a "free-play" in the early morning, then a lesson on the calendar, snack time, teacher structured activities, bathroom break, outside time, a story before lunch, and then finally lunch time. ‍‍ At one point in the day, the teacher got out the game, Candyland, paint for the children, and another another activity for them to do. It was set up in stations so when two children would go to paint, other children would go to the next activity that they were doing. They were very excited about this and loved these "different" activities. They could not wait to move on to the next activity.

When we went outside for recess, they children had so much fun running around and blowing off energy. For a lot of the students, they arrive around 6-7AM and are in the classroom until 11:30 so when they get the chance to run around and have freeplay, they are definitely more than ready. The children have an open field to just run around and play. On this day, the teacher brought out soccer balls for them to play kick ball with. There is one little girl in the classroom that needs a walker and has difficulty kicking the ball. The teacher kept telling her to keep trying and giving her more motivation to kick the ball so she did not feel left out from the rest of the classroom. She was able to kick the ball for a short period of time so we just kept kicking it back and forth for a minute or so and I could tell that she felt accomplished. However, I noticed that she did not even try to play with the rest of the children. She just kept walking or standing by my side the whole time we were outside.

When we all went back in for lunch, everyone sat on the carpet and the teacher read them a book, while the other teacher got their lunches ready. ‍‍After the book, he children all washed their hands and sat in their assigned seat for lunch that had a name card where their lunches were. ‍‍After lunch, I get ready to leave while they start to wind down for nap time. I am very excited to get to know all of these children better as the semester progresses on! All of these children are so unique and I can see that many of them also have different learning styles and it makes me so excited to see how they progress and develop throughout this my time there as well.

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10/05 - Log #2 I am amazed at how much personality all of these little guys have! Each and every one of them is different and unique in their own way. I love getting to know them and their little "quirks" they have. When I come in in the morning, I sit down on the floor with them and play with them. When I get on their level and actually interact with them, I feel as though I can connect with them easier and build more a trust and bond instead of constantly standing over them and just observing. I am also able to have more conversations with them this way and that allows me to understand what they like and do not like.

As of right now, I know that the students are all extremely bright, ‍‍but I see much more enthusiasm when they are able to have more a hands-on activity to do or something that gets them moving rather than when they are sitting on the carpet. ‍‍ I believe the head teacher also realized this because one week I observed her have a student pick a color and spell on it the bulletin board and all of the students' attention was elsewhere. The next week, she had them go around the room and pick something in the room with their assigned color. They did much better with this activity because they were able to move and be more interactive.

Almost every day during free play the students gravitate towards the blocks and lego area. ‍‍The children love to play with these and there are times where almost the entire class is playing with them. I also noticed that the students love to play board games! C ‍‍heckers is out everyday when I come in! During learning centers, the teacher usually puts out a board game as well and that is always the main attraction.

‍‍I love getting to know all of the preschoolers! It is just so interesting to see all of the different personalities blending together to make this wonderful class! ‍‍

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10/19 - Log #3 The children, every Monday, have a letter of the week. The teacher will read them a story that has a lot of "D" words, for example, and they will then think of words that start with D. ‍‍They love this and really enjoy thinking of words. I believe this is developementally appropriate because they are all able to understand it and everyone is a participant when saying the words that begin with a specific letter. The children also have known and grasped the colors very well and have moved on to spelling them. There are different colors on the bulletin board with the spelling and the teacher will call the students up to spell the word (using the bulletin board). ‍‍They enjoy this and is something that I believe is effective because it helps reinforce them learning letters and understanding that letters come together to create a word.

However, the teacher does do calendar time every morning. I didn't realize until it was mentioned in our class that the students just weren't grasping it. They also did it the year before in the 3 year old preschool, so it has not just been introduced to them. There are a few students who understand it, but for the most part, the children do not. Most play with the rug or stare off into space and when it is their turn to say, "Today is Monday, October XX, 2011, they struggle and usually say the wrong date or mix up months, dates, or just say something totally random. It really is true that calendar time is just not developmentally appropriate for the children.<range type="comment" id="273118">‍‍ Everytime I observe them doing it, I try to keep track of if they are understanding it better than the last week. Unfortunately, they do not and it just does not seem like it is an effective learning experience. ‍‍

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<span style="color: #e6855c; font-family: Georgia,serif;">11/02 - Log #4 <span style="color: #e6855c; font-family: Georgia,serif;">There is a child at the center that exhibits very challenging behaviors. She is very clingy and constantly wants teacher's attention, even when the teacher is busy with another child. She also does not seem to want to play with the other children. I have noticed over the course of my time there, that there are only 2 other children that she will play with (1 boy and 1 girl.) I'm not sure if it is just simply the fact that there is only one other girl in the class. During "circle time" she does not pay attention and usually is shouting out or looking around the classroom. When it is her turn to count or say a word that begins with the letter of the week, she only gives random answers that have nothing to do with what is being taught. I know that she is a very bright student, so I believe she may possibly be bored. I really believe that if more hands-on or bodily kinesthetic learning experiences were given, she would excell in what she is learning. <span style="color: #e6855c; font-family: Georgia,serif;">When we are doing free play, I can try and incorporate some learning experiences for her into it. For example, last week we were playing in the block area, and they were seeing how tall they could get their buildings. I decided that it would be a good experience for them to measure themselves against the blocks or to try and get them to build them as tall as another friend, etc. They really enjoyed this and she seemed interested. She was able to pay attention for a short period of time, however, she was the first to go off and find something else to do after a short period of time. <span style="color: #e6855c; font-family: Georgia,serif;"><range type="comment" id="647031">I really hope in her academic future that a teacher will be able to incorporate many different learning styles in his/her lessons so she does not become bored and fall through the cracks. It's a very scary thing to see, even in preschool...

<span style="color: #b31919; font-family: Georgia,serif;">11/22 Log #5 <span style="color: #b31919; font-family: Georgia,serif;">There is a decent amount of literacy emphasis in this classroom. The teacher has a letter of the week and the students are then asked to name off words that begin with that letter, during transition times the students are to get a book and "read," and the teacher reads a lot during the day. However, the centers within the classroom should have more emphasis in the language arts area. <range type="comment" id="90774">I believe that there should be a writing center because although the students cannot write formally, this shows encouragment and allows them to be able to depict stories through their illustrations. They are also able to write their names, and although I have never observed them practicing their letters, the teacher said that they get a lot of practice tracing their letters. The teacher also has songs that the children sing every day thatintroduces them to rhyming words. <span style="color: #b31919; font-family: Georgia,serif;">In my classroom, I would try to implement literacy in all of my centers. Labeling everything just to get the students familiar with words, bulletin boards with images and the word of that image, a writing center, a quiet reading center, a music center, listening center, and puppet centers - they all can implement literacy into the environment for unique and valuable experiences for the children. I would also like to use different manipulatives for the children to practice writing (i.e. block letters, different textured letters, etc.) <span style="color: #b31919; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="color: #b31919; font-family: Georgia,serif;">I thought this is a really cool way to implement literacy for young children! <span style="color: #b31919; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(This wasn't at my practicum center)

<span style="color: #6d6dba; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">11/30 Final Blog <span style="color: #6d6dba; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px;">This practicum experience has definitely been an interesting one! I can honestly say that I walked away as a different person, or at least [future] educator. Every center has imperfections and not everything is going to be exactly how you want it to be...and truthfully, where is the fun in that? Being in a preschool classroom is fun, but its hard work! You have to be dedicated and you’re students have to be number one on your list if you want a successful classroom. Because all classrooms have imperfections, teachers must be creative with what they do have and create valuable learning experiences that minimize those imperfections. Throughout this practicum experience, I began to realize this more and more. <span style="color: #6d6dba; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px;">Throughout my education at Carlow, I have only experienced primary field placements and one infant/toddler placement, so being in a preschool classroom was totally new to me. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but I definitely walked away from an eye-opening experience!<range type="comment" id="941885"> The kids were wonderful, and writing this blog now makes me miss them! They were all so different and unique and it was such a great joy getting to know them. It was really an amazing thing to be able to teach these children and get a glimpse of how they see the world around them…it’s so refreshing. That is the main thing that I have learned from this experience – preschool children have such an innocent, yet direct view of the things around them. That is how we should teach them! All children deserve the right to a great education and teaching them through experiences, touch, taste, feel, and other direct ways helps expand their knowledge and creates an excitement for them. Teachers should not want them to lose that excitement; students deserve an education that will not allow that. <span style="color: #6d6dba; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px;">I walk away from this experience and breathe in the //refreshing,// new changes that these students have given me.