Science Post 2: Brigham- Getting to Know the Students

            It is very important that we are able to set goals for ourselves when working with young children. Whenever we go into a classroom, we should always have a reason and purpose for being there. Although it was hard to set a goal without even meeting the students first, it is still important to have one. The goal that I came up with is, to meet and interact with the students who are English Language Learners so I gain some insight on how they learn best. I also hoped to observe and notice any signs of discomfort from the students because of what we have heard from the previous group already being in the classroom. I was able to observe those things when we were in the classroom. All of the students in our preschool class speak English so I think that their hesitation with us was just due to shyness, which is understandable because this is the first time that they had met us.

            When we were in the classroom, we first introduced ourselves. Then we did a get to know you picnic activity where we had the students tell us their name and then a food that they would want to bring on a picnic. Next we read a book about the five senses and closed with a song about the five senses. All of our activities that we had planned for the thirty minutes in the classroom only ended up taking us around ten to fifteen minutes. When we planned for this lesson together and with the instructor but were not prepared for how quickly it went by. None of our activities really required a lot of interaction or things for the students to do. This only occurred when we sang the song about the five senses and we had them point to their eyes, nose, etc. Also our activities did not require transitions because we just stayed on the carpet the whole time. I think that before going into the classroom, we could have talked more about what we could have done. But now we know that we should definitely always be prepared and have an extension activity ready. Something else that could have been done but would be difficult because we had not read the book before that day, would be to stop during times in the book and ask the students questions. For example ask the students, “One of our senses is taste. What are some things that you taste?” Another thing that I am reflecting on is our excitement. I know that we all felt a little weird walking into the classroom at first because it was our first time being there and meeting the students and the students were so small! Also there were almost as many teachers in the classroom as there were students so that is a little weird to get used to at first. But I think that being more excited during our next visit and every visit from now on would help the students to get talking a little more.

            Something that I noticed about the classroom was the mixture of English and Spanish words. We learned that a few of the students are English language learners so I think that it is great that they are incorporating Spanish words in the classroom. I think that something we could do in the future is teach the students the five senses sign language. I have been teaching my students some sign language in my PDS site and I have observed that it is really helping them understand some basic concepts!

Exceeds: Went over word count and suggested some ways to improve in the future.