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. :)

Lab Observation

  During my observation, I saw many kids doing different things, some even doing more than one at once.  The activities for the day that the teacher had planned out were; making muffins, playing with train tracks, and using water colors. The teacher had the kids sitting on a rug, she asked "Who would like to make muffins?"  Ten out of the fifteen children raised their hand, the teacher was only able to pick five for that activity. While the kids helped make the muffins, they all had a smile on their face, they couldn't keep their bottoms on the chair. Once time was up for the activities the teacher had planned out, all the kids had a choice to either stay inside the classroom and play in any area or go outside.
  When the kids had their free time, I observed a little boy playing by himself.  He walked over to the kitchen area, picked up a pan that was on the floor and put it on the stove. He looked around, walked over to the refrigerator, there were two more pans in there, he placed those on the stove too. He pretended to turn on the stove, then covered one of the pans with a hamburger patty inside, after about a minute, he took off the lid, grabbed a spatula with his right hand, picked up the pan with his left and flipped the patty as he was also shaking the pan. As he was doing this, his face was very serious, looking directly to the pan with the patty inside. Not saying one word while he did this.
  During this activity, he showed gross motor skills as he walked around getting the materials he needed, fine motor skills when grabbing the spatula to flip the patty. He showed autonomy by having patience, concentration and physical skills to be able to flip the patty without dropping it.
  If I were the teacher, I would buy some blank aprons since I saw him pretend he was cooking and the other children seemed happy while helping bake the muffins. I would have them decorate their apron with fabric paint, gems, markers and glitter. Next time they help bake something they can put these on. While doing these aprons it will help with fine motor skills for other children that might have a hard time.