Little Detective

Outdoors, there were many kids in the sand area, some in the playground and all of the tricycles were being used, it's the fist time I don't see any children sitting down, they were all engaged in some kind of play. When it was time to go inside, some of the children didn't have enough time to put their shoes on ans so they took them inside in their hands. By the door there was a small pile of sand, a little boy noticed the sand and grabbed a magnifier glass, he said "This is dirty sand, where did it come from?" He began to follow the trail of sand until he got to a pair of shoes that belonged to his friend, he said "This is where the sand camed from." Soon, one of the staff cleaned it up.
The developmental skills this child demonstrated were; fine motor skills, memory, cognitive thought, creative role, science.
If I were the teacher, the following day I would have a scavenger hunt. I would put some pictures on a sheet of paper instead of writing out what I want them to find since they can't read yet. I would pair up the children and have them look for the object letting them use a magnifier glass telling them they will be detectives for the day and they need to help me find all of the objects.

Doctors Visit

While there were kids playing outside during free time, I observed some girls playing in the sociodramatic area. One of the girls was laying down in a child size sofa for two while another girl was sitting in a small chair. The girl sitting on the chair had a clipboard in her hand, she felt the girl's forehead that was sitting on the sofa, she tells her "I'm going to be your doctor today OK." The girl on the sofa says "OK." The little girl with the clip board asks "Are you sick?" The little girl, pretending to cough says "Yes" with a sad look on her face. The little girl with the clipboard grabs a sheet of white paper and as she's nodding her head 'yes' starts scribbling on the piece of paper, she tells her "OK, you can go home."

The skills these girls demonstrated were; fine motor skills and hand eye coordination when writing on the clipboard. Memory since they recall going to the doctor, it also showed cognitive development as they understand the concept of going to the doctor.

If I were the teacher, the next day I would try and have a nurse come in and show the kids the different instruments and how they are used. I would let them play doctor with band aids and have them place them on each other, along with reading a picture book about a visit to the doctor.

Observation this Week.

Inside the classroom there were many kids playing with playdoh, placing pom poms inside ice cube trays with tongs, and some playing in the manipulative area. It was very calm while the kids were working on these activities. When it was time to go outside a lot of the kids put the materials away and went outside.

When I was observing the kids outside, I saw many kids in the sand area, some on the playground  and many in the soft area where there are many blocks. There was a little boy that was by himself, at first he was walking around with a smile on his face just looking around, he approached some kids playing with a basketball and just stood to the side watching them bounce the ball, at this point he was the onlooker.
He didn't say a word to them, just smiled and watched. After 3 minutes of watching them play, the kids left the basketball on the ground and left to play something else. The little boy picked up the basketball and started dribbling with his right hand, he paused, held the ball with both hands, looks up at the net, bends his knees, throws the ball in attempt to make a basket, when he throws the ball he hops about two inches off the ground, he lets go of the ball, his hands come back down quickly as he cups his hands with his palm facing his back. He continued doing this many times, after he missed  the second time he said "ahhh man!" He was throwing the ball at the Basketball portable hoop which was regular size. After missing about 8 times he actually made a basket, he clapped and looked around but no one else was watching.

The skills this little boy demonstrated were; sharing, gross and fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, learned through experience, jumping, throwing, balancing, dribbling and shooting.

If I was the teacher in this class, the next day I would bring in a book about sports to find out what sports other kids like. As a class we can make a chart with different balls to represent the sport, I would give each student a sticker and give them a chance to stick it in the sport of their choice, after they all stick theirs on the chart we as a class can count them and find out which sport is most popular. I would also bring different balls for the kids to choose which one to play with

"Pizza Pies"

There were many kids that were running late this week on the day of my observation, the kids that were there on time were playing with legos, puzzles, cutting papers while others were saying their goodbyes and putting their stuff away.
As the day went on, the kids went outside to play, I enjoyed watching the kids in the sand area. There were two girls playing cooperatively. The set up was a small table with 1 pan, 3 cups, 3 plates filled with sand and a pitcher of water, behind the table were two chairs where the girls were sitting. Both of the girls were shouting out "pizza pies, pizza pies for sale." The two girls were talking to eachother, one girl was saying "I'm going to put water here" poining at the pitcher. The same girl walks around to the front of the table facing the other girl. The first girl asks "What kind of money does it take?" the 2nd girl says "five!" "Here" and gives the first girl 3 plates. The first girl asks "Can I buy this pie?" (a plate with wet sand). The second girl responds "Yes, take it to your son." The first girl walks over to a different table and leaves the plate there and runs back to the chair where she was originally sitting. The second girl asks a boy thats passing by infront of them "Do you want me to make you a pie?" the boy responds "yes, a pizza pie!" with a smile on his face. They both handed over the plate and then left with him to play somewhere else.
The developmental skills they were showing were; sharing, negotiating, turn taking when it came to filling up the "pies", coordination when the little girl was taking the plate with sand and water to the other table, imagination, their play was collaborative.
If I were their teacher, the next day I would have the kids make their own real pizza. I realized a lot of the kids started making "pizza pies" after they saw these girls and so I think it would be not only something they would enjoy, but they would also be sharing, learning some cooking skills, putting their minds to work since they would have to think how much of each ingredient they would need to add. I would want to make it a healthy snack so I could have them make it out of pita bread, sauce, peperoni's, and low fat cheese.

Mystery Box

     This week during my observation I really enjoyed watching "Mystery Box". What the teacher does is, she picks a student to take this box home with them, the child has a week to come up with what he/she wants to put inside the box. The parents help out by writing three clues that the kids say out loud to the class. After the child (with the help of the teacher) read these clues out loud he/she picks three students to guess whats inside, if they don't guess, the student who takes in the box shows the class.
This week a little boy took in the mystery box, his babysitter went in to watch him do this, the little boy who is fluent in Spanish and learning English walks up to her and says "No escribimos las claves" (We didn't write the clues).  She shrugs her shoulders and says "I didn't know". The teacher opens up the box and when she realizes there are no clues, she tells him what to say. The little boy says "Es azul y blanco" (It's blue and white), a little girl raises her hand and guesses "The sky?" He smiles and nods his head no. With clue number two, the teacher tells him to say it has a hat on, he shrugs his shoulders and says in a very low voice "Es un pitufo" (It's a smurf). The kids didn't hear and so they went on to clue number three, she again tells him what to say; "Es pequeno" (It's small), a little boy guesses "Is it a cool car?" He takes out the smurf and all of the kids start chatting away mentioning things about smurfs.
                                                                                                                                                                               He showed cognitive development by being able to translate the clues from English to Spanish instead of simply repeating, he is showing understanding. He was practicing social skills by sharing something with the class, he is improving his language/vocabulary.

     I really enjoy watching this activity go on, if I were the teacher I would continue to do mystery box, but for the next day I would have a paper bag set out with different objects for each student, so that they can practice giving clues on their own instead of just repeating. They can share with the kids in their table so that next time the child can give his/her own clues from the top of their head which should be easier than the bag activity since they would already know what it is that's inside.

Weekly Observation : )

This week during observation, the activities that were offered to the children were; playing with trains, water colors, weighing pumpkins and measuring them. The activity they seemed most excited about was measuring and weighing the pumpkins, all the kids raised their hand that they wanted to do that activity. When they began, a little girl said "I think mines is taller." The teacher said out loud "I wonder how heavy the pumpkins are?" The kids were observing the scale, they realized that when they take the pumpkins off the scale it goes back to zero, one of the boys pointed that out right away.  One of the little boys said pointing at the scale, " It's pointing to 1 when i put my pumpkin there." When the teacher asked him how much it weighed, he responded "One?" They were really understanding this concept.

This activity was teaching them about measurements, there was math involved but it made it really fun for them. This activity also implemented sharing since there was only one scale and they had to take turns.

Since the kids were enjoying this activity and really getting something from it, the next day I would reiterate what we saw the previous day when they were measuring pumpkins and this time taking a balancing scale and having them place different small items on each side and having them figure out what side they need to place more items on to make it balance, it will probably take many attempts but they will get practice.

Observing 3-5 year olds

 The classroom was calm and welcoming as usual. This week, the activities the teacher had planned out for the kids were planting a garden, playing with  "flubber" and making muffins. The kids have a choice as to what activity they want to work on. The kids that chose to work on the garden were outside with a parent that was volunteering for the day, that parent also took her tortoise for the kids to observe. She fed the tortoise some lettuce.The parent simply left the leaf of the lettuce on the floor and waited for it to go towards it. When the tortoise finally reached the lettuce, one of the girls squats down next to the tortoise and says "he did it!" The other four kids joined around her squatting next to the tortoise to get a closer look. They all got closer and pet the turtle. One of the boys picks up a leaf off the ground and places it in front of the tortoise (just like the parent did with the lettuce). The kids spoke amongst themselves saying "It scared me", "Oh, wow it eats!", "He's eating like us", one boy pointed toward me and said "He likes her, he's walking to her".
 The boy who gave the tortoise the leaf picked up quick as to how to feed it, this showed cognitive skills, being able to squat and maintain that position in balance for a long period of time showed physical skills.  They were occupied for a long period of time and although they weren't sharing materials they were being cooperative by taking turns and being gentle with the reptile.
 The kids really seemed to enjoy having "Mohave" the tortoise visit, if I was the teacher, I would look for a book that had more information on reptiles that's kid friendly so that they can make a connection with things they see in the book and thinking back to when they had the tortoise in front of them. Since they seemed very interested I would finish reading the book to them and have them play with some clay and tell them to make a reptile out of it, its interesting to me how some kids when working with clay get very creative with small details and others make something unrecognizable but are able to explain what it is they have created. Whatever it is the child is explaining would definitely go under the description of their masterpiece. :)