March! More observations of Kindergarten...

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education-Albert Einstein.

I think that this quote describes what the kindergarten environment is like on a daily basis, at least in  the classroom I am in for my field. I want to focus on improving classroom management this semester but I think I also need to realize that I cannot change some things and I think that maybe my expectations for kindergarteners are too high. Well, maybe too high is not the right way to phrase it, but what i mean to say that their behavior is very different from 3rd grade, where I observed last semester and it doesn't necessarily have to do with classroom management but the age of the student. I wouldn't necessarily say that the students misbehave, but it might be more accurate to say that at this age they are eager to learn. This means that they probably want to touch everything to get a hands on experience, they probably will ask a lot of questions and want to share stories, are eager to participate which may result in talking out of turn, and are wanting to make new friends and interact with peers. If I look at it this way, it becomes more of a positive and I think I will be better able to redirect their enthusiasm and energy in a more positive way.

Today in the field, I tried to look at the students in a different way and I tried to focus on two other students closely, in addition to my case study student. I chose to look closely at three very different children and to compare how they go about different tasks, the skill level, their attitude and emotions, their physical development, and their social interactions. I think this helped me to pick up on new things that I didn't notice about kindergarten students and the range of development and abilities you get in a classroom. I was also able to observe Sam teacher her second lesson and she did an awesome job! I love watching other people teach because there are always things I see that I like and that I am sure will help me to come up with ideas of my own for lessons or different ways of approaching a lesson. I know that as I have reviewed for my public speaking midterm on my own and in the review we did in class, it is continuously emphasized that we think using images. So when you imagine something or are trying to understand something you get a picture of something in your mind to help you to grasp a concept. I think this a good explanation to why visual aids are so important, especially when teaching, and especially for those students who may be beginner readers. So many people are visual learners and therefore visual support in lessons is very important in Early Childhood lessons. We all have different learning styles, but we all do use pictures and images to some degree as a tool to help us when thinking and in the learning process.