Week One Observations

September 10, 2009
9:00- 11:00 am

Observation: Classroom and Non-structured

Today was my first day at the Children's Center. I really did not know what to expect. As the children were arriving, they were to hang their things on their hook in the hallway and then find their own name on the table press the EASY button and put their name into a slot. By each child seeing their name and recognizing it showed Miss Bonnie that they are learning the basics about preschool. There were 12 students, 3 girls and 9 boys.

After finding their names, it was circle time. During circle time, the children sang their "welcome to school " song and learned about forte and piano. The children were able to sing their song in three different ways: normal voices, loud voices, and soft voices. After singing the song, the children listened to Miss Bonnie read them a book called Rude Giants. This book was about manners. The children were able to collaborate with one another coming up with different ways someone can show GOOD manners and also BAD manners.

The children were then able to have a free choice time in which they could navigate to whatever center they wanted to. The children's choices included: Reading corner, Dramatic play, Block/Lego building, Writing, Computers, Science Table, Painting, Art Table- Necklace making, Snack, Rice Table and the hands on table. There were many options that the children were able to pick from and for the day, it was their choice as what they wanted to do. Each center was used during one time or another.

The Reading corner was used with children looking at books and then another pre-service teacher read a book to several students because they wanted her to. The Dramatic play area was used as a dress up area, and setting up a dinner table set up to share with friends. The Block and Lego area was used to build several building and a train track used from one of the blocks was a "train". The Writing center, I saw was being used to write a letter to their parents, but instead of writing there was a picture and the child's name. The Writing center was also used as writing the capital letters of the alphabet. The Computers were used with a Nick Jr. program. The Science table was really popular, today the students were able to measure water and pour it into different sized tubes. During this process I was able to ask some of the students questions as if they think the water in a fatter tube would fit into another tube. The children did not know, but after pouring into another tube the children were able to see that it did not fit and overflowed. The children had a lot of fun at this center. Another center was Painting, it was fun to see the different abstract paintings the children came up with. The Art table was used to make necklaces. I thought that this would be more popular, but only a few students chose that option. Another center was Snack, all of the children were excited about snack. The Rice table and hands on table were the last few centers, the children were able to work with their hands which is really important especially at their age.

After the different centers, the children had come back to circle time and read another story about manners and sang their departing song.