Week 8

Something that I could definitely work on is being more assertive with the kids. I think that sometimes i'm too laid back and let things slide when instead I should correct the child. A great teacher, in my opinion, is someone who is patient, kind, understanding, and a quick thinker. I have a lot of teachers who possess these qualities and they are some of my favorite classes to go to everyday, so I think it's important to work on gaining these qualities to better myself as a teacher.

Week 7

The negatives about being a single teacher is that you have a large amount of kids with only one of you. It can be difficult to wrangle all the kids and get each one of them to sit quietly, or pay attention, all at the same time. Especially with preschoolers, you need to allot a bit more time when doing things all together because they don't always listen the first time, and they tend to take a longer time to complete small tasks (in the preschool its hard for them to sit down at circle and be quiet right away, because they want to sit with their friends, and talk. Its also hard for them to get into a straight line in a timely manner because they all line up in their own lines and we then have to maneuver them into one big line). A good thing about being a solitary teacher is that you have one on one time to get to know each student on a closer level, and they feel closer with you because there is one constant teacher,as a pose to having multiple teachers teaching. Another positive about being a solitary teacher is when you're teaching by yourself it's easier to change plans quickly because you don't have to consult with other teachers about the change in the schedule.

week 6

Something I don't like about the new schedule is that we have calendar/opening at almost the very end of the day, when I feel like it would be best if it was held at the very beginning of each day. With the change, I like that we have activities at the end of the day, because there are less people, which allows it to not be as hectic and we don't have teachers sitting at an activity table when they're supposed to be supervising.

Week 5

I think teaching is difficult sometimes because children are all over the place and don't always cooperate in a timely manner, which can be a challenge. Preschoolers are especially difficult because they always want to go off and do their own thing when you need them to be listening paying attention.

Week 4

A few non artistic activities I found involving bugs are:
1. Half of a bug is drawn on a piece of paper, with a line down the middle and the other half left blank. They have to look at the half of the bug that is given to them and try to draw the other half of the bug on the blank side.                                    









2.

2. Another non artistic bug activity: You have strips of paper with a part of a bug and they have to put it together like a puzzle.

Week 3

   A problem or situation that I saw this week was Brooke's continued behavior about the bathroom. It was a repeat of a previous week where she was in the bathroom crying, and not wanting to try and use the restroom without her mom. This incident didn't only effect Brooke, but it affected Blake as well because he was sitting in the bathroom with her, trying to keep her company and missing out on a bit of circle time. A good thing I came across this week, was on Tuesday with Christopher, when I had to sit down with him and help him with the worksheet he needed to complete to move onto kindergarten. It was really interesting to see how much he's developed since the last time I did a kindergarten readiness worksheet with him. He was a trooper and cooperated with me while doing the worksheet, even though I know it is not his favorite thing to do.

Week 2

Preschoolers throw tantrums when they don't get what they want, when something isn't done their way, when they're angry, or when they aren't able to do certain things independently yet. If you give into a child's demands when they are having a tantrum just because "it's easier", it teaches the child that the bad behavior they are displaying is an OK way to act to get what they want, when it is not. They will think that they will get what they desire, when they act good and badly (when they throw tantrums and the parent gives in), when they should only be given what they desire when they show good behavior.

Week 1

I think that he makes a valid point about having the preschool run for 2 weeks. That way, the preschoolers are able to learn a little bit more, and be introduced to the theme more in depth, as a pose to just one week where we only have three days of a certain theme. I think its also a good idea, because sometimes kids only happen to come for one or two days of the preschool and don't get to experience all three days of the theme, but if we kept the same theme for 2 weeks, the kids who might have been gone for the first week of the theme, are able to come back the second week and still participate. I think that running the same theme for an entire month is a little bit crazy, because we have to come up with about 4 weeks worth of activities for the same theme, when we already struggle with coming up with three days of activities for one theme.

Week 8

Something that I would change about the preschool is how many teachers there are, because with so many people it is easy to have lots of people wandering, without a specific job to tackle. I also would change the way that we sign up for jobs, and switch every week. I think it would be easier and less of a headache for everyone if one person wrote everybody's names down on the sheet posted on the fridge, this way people won't forget to put their name down, but it also allows the sheet to be filled out at one time, instead of people coming on tuesday and realizing that they haven't signed up for a supervision area. Along the lines of changing jobs every week, I somewhat agree with what Jamir said about having a designated director, that way the preschool would run somewhat the same every week, because there are one or two continuous directors.

Week 7

Passive play: Play in which a person does not participate actively. Examples of passive play in the preschool can be when we have the kids sit and listen to us read a story, activities where we have them look at pictures, or when they sit and listen to their peers.
Active play: any activity from which one derives amusement, enjoyment, and entertainment by taking a participatory role. It refers to the type of play in which a child engages in an activity, rather than watching others passively.  Examples of active play in the preschool are any kinds of sports, trikes, running around on the patio, and playing in the sandbox and play structure.
Active play is better than passive play, because the children are moving around, exercising their bodies and energy levels, while getting the benefit of enjoying the play as well.

Week 6

My job as a teacher in the preschool is to aid the kids along in their preschool experience. We need to help them get ready for kindergarten, and make sure they are able to do a lot of the things on their own that we are currently helping them with. A parents job is to fulfill the child's wants and needs, because they should be stepping in as the parent/role model not us here at the preschool. These two jobs are different, but similar in some ways as well, just in different areas.

Week 5

     I feel that the week ran smoothly. Everyone did their jobs 100% and were in the correct places. One instance I feel that didn't go too well were people didn't know where to be if they were the Assistant Director Substitutes, because it didn't give them a specific place to be in the preschool so they would tend to wander around with no goal. I think that if we had certain places for the Assistant Director Substitutes to be, that it would be more helpful.

I think that we are doing most of these things with the preschoolers to get them ready for preschool. A few of the things that we could be doing, is working with writing names, and the difference of upper and lowercase letters. When I was working with Christopher on writing his name, he seemed to not know how to spell it, or which letters came next after another. We could definitely find a way to incorporate writing their names into some kind of activity, which I think could be really beneficial for some of the kids on their way to kindergarten. Another thing that we could work on with some of them is identifying some of the more difficult shapes that they may not recognize right away, like a rhombus, diamond or oval. Activities with these kinds of learning can better help them prepare for the different things they will be doing in kindergarten.

I did see a change in peoples initiatives this week. I still think a few people could step up and get more involved in taking initiative, but overall, I think we have improved. We can relate "devil's in the details" by focusing on all aspects of everything, and not leaving anything out, it also refers to details being important. We can relate this to the preschool, because I've noticed that some people don't pay attention to small things, like fillers for circle time or how long they need to take to do opening so we don't have any down time, etc. Other than that, i think this week went smoothly.

To help the preschool run smoother I think we could've been more prepared with the agenda for the day. For example we could've prepared more filler activities for circle time, and been more aware of how much time everything would take so we don't have downtime. Some other problems I saw was pick-up got a little hectic, we would get confused as to which kids were leaving, so it caused some problems as to who was getting what kid, and then the child wouldn't be helped to a car because no one got them ready to leave. Other than that, I think we had a good week.

Some things that I learned about being a teacher this trimester was that some of the preschoolers had to warm up to everyone again because we had been gone for so long, so we had to be patient with them and help them to be friendly with the other preschoolers again. Another thing i've learned is that since we have some new teachers and people who i've never had to work with before, so it was a learning experience for me to see how they are a leader to the preschoolers. This first week back was awesome!