About My Placement Room

The classroom at which I learned and grew as a student and as a future teacher was located at the Bennett Family Center in the Universe of Wonder. There are three teachers within the classroom, Ms. Rhea, Ms. Evie, and Mr. Matt in addition to eighteen amazing and bright children. The teachers are incredible and demonstrate the qualities from our reading of the "Twelve Characteristics of Teachers" including their patience, kindness and more. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to have worked with these teachers and children.

Classroom Set-Up

The set-up of this classroom was quite spacious with numerous components of nature involved, in addition to a wide variety of places to explore and be creative as reinforced by the "Design for Living and Learning" reading. The room would go through various themes based upon what we were learning about at the time including a penguin theme, and a spring theme. There are also pieces of artwork that the children have created hung on the walls all around the classroom. There is also a bulletin board outside the entrance of the classroom that has weekly updates and artwork of what was done in the classroom that week. There are cubbies and storage along every wall, in addition to three center time tables and a reading carpet filled with books. Pictures throughout this project illustrate the design of the classroom.

Classroom and Site Detail

The Bennett Family Center is located in South residence halls. The set-up of the Universe of Wonder classroom features three center time tables in the middle of the classroom, cubbies along the back wall and a quiet corner on the right side of the room. In the front of the room, there is a large window adjacent to the reading and circle time carpet in addition to a bookshelf. On the left side of the room, there is the bathroom, kitchen, sinks and the water table. Around the room, there is artwork that the children created.

Philosophy and Curriculum

The philosophy of the Bennett Family Center as a whole as well as the classroom itself is very centralized in family values and interactions. They believe it is highly important to get to know the families in order to be able to teach the children to the best of their abilities. The curriculum itself centralizes around real-world experiences including investigating components of nature and beginning to work on skills such as counting and being able to write. They are very open in their approach to observation and highly encourage it through making simple predictions and developing hypotheses.

My Opinions

I personally love the program's philosophy and I plan on incorporating it in my future classroom due to the success it seems to have when working with the parents and the children. I felt it was very easy to go along with and embrace considering the parents and teachers were so open to having me in their classroom. By my last day, I realized how beneficial it is to have such a strong relationship with the families for numerous reasons. I also enjoyed the real-life application and material of the cirrciulum considering the classroom wasn't only teaching the children academic skills, the children were also being taught to be good people. As demonstrated by our "Powerful Interactions" reading, every moment in these children's days makes an impact on their life and I think this center does an amazing job at making those moments special and influential.

What I Learned

Whilst being in my placement and this course, I learned so much about early childhood education. Including how vital the concept of play is in a child's development which I consistently observed in my classroom and was further reinforced by our readings and class discussions such as the "Free Choice on Play" reading based on the fact that children need play in their lives to develop in numerous ways. We later observed this in our classroom during the Playful Learning Project. I additionally learned how genuinely curious young children are. They consistently amazed me with their inquisitive nature and quest for answers.

Learning Moment #1

On a rainy and gloomy day in March, I found it very challenging to wake up and head to the preschool. When I walked in, Orion was sitting on the carpet reading a story to himself. While he could not actually read with the fluency we see later in life, he was practicing literacy skills by looking at the pictures and trying to recognize words he knew in order to put the story and plot together. In the literacy project and literacy observation, I learned how literacy is much more than being able to read. It was a learning moment for me to realize that literacy incorporatess so much thinking, reasoning and deduction and to see that there are so many situations in which children utilize these skills in order to figure out the world around them.

Learning Moment #2

In my placement, I consistently observed the fact that play has a huge influence on these children's lives which we later explored in more detail with the Playful Learning Observation. I watched Sebastian experiment with what is social acceptable one day when he was playing outside with some of his peers. He wanted to play in the sandbox and make cupcakes for a bakery in his set way. However, some of the kids did not want to go along with his way of playing. Therefore, he kept trying to ask nicely as opposed to being bossy which ended up getting him the results he wanted. This was a learning moment for me because I actually witnessed a child learning the life lesson that being nice is how one gets things accomplished.

Learning Moment #3

I was consistently amazed with how much the children seemed to learn about the world every day which I further observed during The Child Observation. In my placement, there is a young boy who consistently struggles to control his body and do what he is told. However, I watch him resist the urge to do what he is not supposed to and be good and kind. I learned so much watching him and was so impressed by his restraint. I figured that with his tendencies, he would frequently act out, but most of the time he did what he was supposed to even if it was hard for him.

Learning Moment #4

Through this course, I have come to understand the importance of children playing outside and exploring which we touched on in class through our "Early Years Matter" reading and The Environment observation. On a sunny day playing outside, Erin was going around looking in the mulch and under rocks at the little insects squirming around. She was asking friends around her what each bug was and was trying to categorize them based on what she already knew. In this moment, I learned that children find opportunities to explore and learn in every situation they are presented with.

One of my Favorite Moments

As I was working on this final project, I was reflecting on all of the special moments I had in my placement. Overall, I think that one of my favorites was when I did an activity in the classroom after reading them a story. We made capes from different fabrics ranging from princess to superhero print for all of the children. They were so happy and excited and were designing their special cape and wearing them around the room all day. This is one of my favorite moments because it was so amazing to see their beaming faces having fun because of an activity that I organized for them.