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I just wanted to reflect on this course a little bit. Over the course of this experience, I think I’ve realized that I would really like to become a lead teacher. However, I’ve also come to find out that it requires much more work and confidence. It involves a lot of things that I’m currently uncomfortable with. That aside, this course has helped me appreciate how much work goes into everything in a classroom. And I work in a classroom that doesn’t have to deal with curriculum. I imagine that is much, much more work. I also learned a lot about ethics and all the aspects and parts that play into dealing with ethics in a family situation. I now think about things a little differently before I make decisions at work. I think about how, who, or what the effect may be. I’m proud to say I’ve learned a lot during this course. 

Today in after-school I just wanted to do a cute, quick project. I prepared a dandelion art project. Some of the kids knew what it was, and the others just thought it was a flower. That okay. They glued the stem and used their fingers to paint the fuzzy part of a dandelion. It was a very successful last day. 

Instead of a goal for the next week, I have one for my time after this class ends. I of course want to continue working on my confidence in situations with parents. I really just want to work on improving overall. My patience has improved over this course, but it could always improve a little more. I want to improve my communication with parents because I think it would be awesome to become a head teacher. However, that position will require much more communication than I currently deal with. 

I ordered some foam visors and stickers so that the kids could decorate their own visors. I picked out letters so that they could put their name on them. They turned out perfect and the kids loved them so much. A few of the kids even wore them the next day out on the playground. That meant a lot to me. 

I’m in charge of the monthly sensory bins and so I had to prepare the bin for May today. I was super excited about this one. I made a construction sensory bin. It has beans and glass stones (like in fish bowls), and I also got little construction cones and construction vehicles. It turned out awesome, and the kids love it. 

I just wanted a simple activity today. I had some critter wood art. They even had tiny markers, and of course, they liked the tiny markers. Bonus, it was good for their fine motor skills. They also liked that they weren’t coloring on paper.

A good strategy that I use to problem solve is to, when there’s an altercation among kids or a behavior incident, I tell the child(ren) to go sit. I leave them for a little bit and then go and talk to them. I ask them if they know why they are sitting there, explain it to them, and we talk about other ways to go about the situation if it happens again. Of course, they’re kids, and of course the situation happens again, and they don’t use the advice that you talked to them about. But, I repeat the strategy over again, and sometimes, after several times, it starts to sink in. You start to see that children either walk away from a situation or get help. It feels good to see their autonomy grow and make better decisions.

Today, for morning group, it was the child’s birthday. He brought a book for sharing. This is the first time I’ve seen a kid not bring a toy. Then I got to observe the older classroom for a bit today. They have a completely different setup from my class. I think this is mostly due to the classrooms being set up differently. They don’t have snack all at once, they do sharing a little differently, and it felt a little more chaotic. I don’t mean that in a negative way, I’m just used to the way my classroom is run. Something that I really liked is that they put name tags on their working mats. A common problem in my classroom is that we end up with mats on the floor and don’t remember whose mat it was. Name tags would not only help the children recognize their names, but it would also greatly help the teachers. I didn’t get to stay for their mid-day group, but I understand that it is very different from my class, but I think that is mostly due to the fact that my kids are younger. 

For morning group today, the child brought a Hot Wheel. I always like it when the kids bring a not super extravagant toy. It’s comforting to know that something doesn’t have to be huge and super awesome to be a kids favorite toy. No after-school today, so I came home and did a training. I chose Family Engagement: The Road to Better Outcomes for Children. This was in connection to my goal about communicating with parents. It wasn’t so much on how to communicate but more on why you should communicate with the parents. Family engagement is super important and I wish that there was a little more of it at my agency. Unfortunately a few parents are not receptive to hearing that their child may have a behavior issue.

Today was a really good morning group because a child who has an obsession with construction vehicles brought some really cool construction toys. They’re so detailed, they’re basically figures instead of toys. They were really cool. The weather was really nice today, so I decided to get out the chalk again. Some of the kids wanted me to trace their bodies again while the rest enjoyed free art.