A Dose of Sunshine

... because the world is a big playground and we just have to keep playing... Blurbs on my forays on early childhood education and rumblings on my experiences with children....

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April 8, 2020

Circle time (video can be seen from my FB account)

1. Doing circle time has been one of the skills that I have to practice to do more in order to improve and do better. It has always been one of the areas that I consider to be weakness.

2. In doing this video I would want to see how and where I could improve on:

§ the flow of my circle - where to do certain concepts like songs, poems, teaching concepts, participation etc.

§ using props, poems and songs - learning these thing to incorporate them with my teaching

§ using words to explain and describe things, happenings, events for children to grasp and understand.

§ explaining reality and pretend

3. This video is an exercise and practice in how to do circle time. I think that I have improved from when I was when I started. I feel that I have more confidence in doing a circle and because I am currently working with infants there really has been no distinct circle time where we can all gather at circle at a specific time I have not been able to successfully transfer my skills in doing circle time with Preschool (or School Age) with Infants. This is a reminder for me that somehow I am still able to do it and that I hope I would not regress back to how I would be so nervous and terrified doing circle time with children.

Poem (by Susan Paprocki)

I'm a bunny watch me hop

Here are my 2 ears see how they flop

Here is my cotton tail, here is my nose

I'm all furry from my head to my toes

(this can be done with actions on yourself or with props using a stuffed animal)

Concepts:

1. Memory in learning and remembering the poem

2. Rhyming

3. Naming of body parts

4. Describing actions (verbs) and texture

5. Clapping while singing keeps them engaged and give them something to do with their hands while singing. It keeps their hands busy as opposed to them fidgeting and touching their body parts or friends. Clapping also teaches the children beat and rhythm. The changes of the two differentiates fast and slow and keeps the song from getting monotonous. It also signals that after getting the children excited the tone, rhythm and beat would help them wind down.

6. The question and answer portion helps to encourage interaction. A time to teach children expectarions also impart knowledge and trivia.

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April 7, 2020

I did a video of how to do this activity but I am unable to upload it here since its too big. I have it on my facebook account.

(Special notes on the video:

This is my first experience doing a video to:

1. Document an activity that I can typically do with children

2. Document experiences for my CECE portfolio for reflection

3. Challenge myself for improvement

4. Learn and educate myself on how to teach via a different medium)

Corrections & Clarifications on the video:

1. At the beginning of the video I mentioned this being the third week of quarantine. After checking the calendar today would have been the 4th week from the week of March 16, 2020

2. Currently I am working with infants but for the past years I have worked with age groups from: Pre-School, Kindergarten & School Age

3. This activity is done mostly drawing from my experiences working with the 3 age groups that I have worked with. This is my first school year working with infants so I am still working on trying to shift my methods towards being more effective at teaching with Infants.

Activity: Designing an Easter Egg (in keeping with the current season and celebration that children would be aware of)

Materials: Paper, pencil, permanent marker, watercolor/paint/crayons/markers.

For this activity I opted to use watercolor. With my previous experiences working with 3 different age groups: Preschool, Kindergarten, School-age I have noticed that they seem to need more experience and practice in using watercolor. They need to practice how to use it since they tend to end up making holes on their work due to too much or too less water that they use. It is also controlling how much water they can use and knowing when to stop painting over the same spot over and over.

Learning Area: Creative

Developmental Ages: Preschool - School Age

Developmental Areas:

Creative

1. designing their own easter egg on paper

2. practice drawing different kinds of lines and shapes

a. to guide and direct the children as well as to challenge them ask them to draw using a mixture of different kinds of lines and shapes.

Fine-Motor Skills

1. Practice holding a pencil by drawing

2. Practice using scissors

3. Practice using and holding paintbrush or crayons

Adaptation: For infants: pre-cut the egg shape for infants to paint using sponges for dabbing. To extend use glue and cut colored paper (or gift wrap paper) to glue on the painted paper. The cut paper can be shapes.

4. Controlling wrist and arm movements when painting or coloring

Cognitive

1. Discuss different kinds of letters and/or shapes

2. Making patterns with lines/ shapes/ colors

3. When extending it to make a puzzle: problem solving; using a ruler; planning; focusing

4. Playing with rules: when doing puzzle challenge; comparing speed while using a timer

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Acrylic paint on refurbished (recycled) wooden puzzle board.

Age group: school age children (5-10 years old)

Painted using hands, sponges, glitter, flour.

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This activity had very less input from the school age children (ages 5-9) that we had this year. It appears that the children only have a concept of a carved pumpkin with the traditional face of a jack-o-lantern. I had asked the children to draw up a plan but they were unable to get past the design of a face and some writing (which I wouldn't know how to do) so I ended up creating a big hole and decorated it with toys found in the room. It is more a diorama and a variation of a previous activity that I have done with other children of similar age group. It garnered interest from our class when we ( my co-teacher and I) had finished putting it together. Some of the children exclaimed "oh wow that's scary/cool/different/makes sense).

I guess children nowadays need to have more opportunities to exercise and practice their creative skills and thinking.

I had the children scoop up the guts of the pumpkin. The children who volunteered are the ones who liked the feeling and texture that is 'slimy' and who did not mind getting their hands dirty.

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Circle (Dots) Mural age group: preschool - school age If preschool children will do this you might want to cut several sized of circles for the children to glur. Of school achildren will do it the children can do the tracong and cutting of the circles. I was surprised at how a lot of my school age children struggled to cut in a circular pattern. This is a good activity to exercise and practice the children's fine-motor skills.

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Spring Blossoms (a 3 day process art) On the first day the children painted using watercolors. I chose tobuse light blue, yellow and orange. On the second day the children did blowpainting using a straw with black paint. After they did the blow painting I used a paintbrush to make the lines more dedined. On the third day the children glued rolled/crumpled pink tissue paper and green fabric-like material to arrange on the black lines. The preschool children that I worked with are ESL students so this activity is also an exercise on following instructions as well as comprehension when I give them instructions on what to do for the activity. The children exercised their fine-motor skills when they do this activity as well as an exercise for language/speech/mouth when they blow throught he straw. The children also learn how to work in steps and begin to understand the continuum of time when they have to wait 3 days to see their final product.

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STEM inspired Christmas tree Age: 6-8 year olds (school age) Materials: acrylic paint, paintbrush, clear plastic cups, hot glue, various art materials. This idea was inspired by a child asking if we could have our own Christmas tree in our room. The first step was to have the children paint the inside of the clear cups using acrylic paint. I had asked all 30 children in my room to at least paint one cup. The younger children wanted to do more than one. Painting the cups made some of yhe children sit still at an activity longer. The older school children used hot glue to assemble the stacked cups. I had to help them with the first few cups for the base for direction. The rest of the activity the children did themselves. We hot glued everything including the materials we used for decorations. I had to keep an eye on the children as they use the hot glue but other than that it required low supervision. It took the children 2 afternoons to finish the entire thing. Variations: I have another class that consists of preschool children and they were excited and curious with the Christmas tree. So before the older children could hot glue anything I gave them pom-pom balls to decorate the tree and they had fun putting it on the cups. It kept them busy for at least an hour. Reactions: This tree had had positive reactions from other teachers and children. They said that it's something different, unique and "cool". The best comments were "how do you intend to keep it intact for the next hour/days?", "is that thing glued together?",

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Leaf Crowns Age group: Preschool Materials: a strip of white paper, crayons, stickers

In doing this activity the children will: 1. Practice and exercise their fine-motor skills when they use crayons to color the paper; when they peel the stickers to stick the leaves. 2. Identify or recognize colors (for this activity we limited the colors for the crayons with gall colors: red, orange, yellow, green, brown) 3. Practice counting when they count how many leaves they used foe their crowns. 4. Practice how to do patterns using the stickers that they use sticking the leaves. 5. Assume roles when they use their crowns during pretend play

The children for whom we did this activity were around 3-4 years old, has English as thier second language, and are just beginning to get used to writing. We used this acticity to have them practice their writing skills by encouraging to color on their paper from side-to-side. This was particularly helpful to a few of them who still has not determined which onenis theie dominant hand and for those who still have difficulty with gripping a pencil/crayons. it also helps with practicinf finger dexterity when they use stickers. After sticking their leaves we ask the children to count how many leaves they used. We gave them colored dot stickers of different colors and some children made patterns.

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Fall Tree (Tape Resist) Age group: 5-7 year old school age children Materials: canvass, white tape/painter’s tape, acrylic paint (yellow, red, green, orange), cotton swabs

We did this painting activity in late September as a Fall Season activity. I have 6 small canvasses and I arranged the tape to resemble one big tree. It was still the beginning of the school year and I was still getting the children get used to routines, working with each other, and encouraging them to participate with activities. The children had to work together as a group to finish all 6 canvasses as well as exercise their patience when they do points or dots all over the canvass.

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Homemade Musical instruments and movement cue cards Age: Pre school Left photo: prompt cards for Animal movement activities. The children will imitate the movement each of the animal makes. Play music in the background as the children move from one animal to the next. This is how I started with my group of preschool children ages 3-5 (a mixed age group). Then I have extended it into the "Sleeping Bunny (Animals)" activity. The children do the pretend action for the "Sleeping Bunny" song but I switch up the animals with the animals listed from the cue cards. The children that I am currently working with now does not need the cue cards anymore because they recall the movements from memory. Top right photo: Hand drum made out of aluminum/steel planters (from the dollar store), water pipe, tape rolls. I covered these materials with duct tape to decorate around it. I also use duct tape across the openings in a * shape to cover the top part. Using a balloon instead of tape to cover the opening also works. The balloon gives out a different sound when hit by a stick. These are favorite instruments by the children in my room. Bottom right photo: hand shakers made out of toothbrush holders and plastic bottle. I use these materials for circle during our music/singing time. The children also use it for free play. The children can also design their own musical instruments.

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Pumpkin carving Age:Young School age

Our group had a lot of fun designing our pumpkin this year. The children that I worked with are 6-8 year olds. A lot of supervision is required because knives and carving materials are needed. I had the children experience how to carve the pumpkin using a carver knife. I just had to watch them carefully and remind them to just do up-down strokes along the line that I drew. The children appear to dislike the pumpkin smell because the moment I opened it they said “ewwwww”. They had a lot fun digging out the seeds though, so that was one activity they enjoyed. I had some children ask why I had cut a big hole on the pumpkin instead of making a face .I replied that we will be doing something different with the umpkin by decorating it inside instead of the outside. The children quickly caught on on how different our room’s pumpkin is going to be and they appeared to like the idea. The other children kept telling everyone that our pumpkin would be different and unique. I started by sticking twigs on the inside of the pumpkin to look like scary trees. Next I hanged the skeleton that we found from our science table onto the sticks. By then the children have caught on that we would be using toys to add-on so they looked for spiders, lizards, bats and rats. A child found a toy witch and we decided to use that too. We added some paint and dried leaves. When we finished our pumpkin and set it at our door. It definitely caused a lot of head turns and comments about how interesting and creative it is. Some commented that it is “freaky”. After an initial thought that I started, the children ran away with their different ideas and came up with something unique.

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Paint Explosion Age: 6 - 8 years old (or Pre School to Kindergarten) Materials: tempera paint, paper, elastic, coffee filter Directions: Put paint in coffee filters, tie with elastic and dab on paper Learning Opportunity: 1. Art exploration - painting using different materials; blending and mixing colors 2. Sensory experience and fine motor exercise 3. Experimenting with colors - cause and effect The colors and the likeness of a texture is amazing to see. I used primary color paints and white. I had children who did the activity twice because they think it was fun. The children who did this activity are 6-8 years old but younger children would find this so easy that they would be able to do it too. Have coffee filters ready because after being soaked in a while the filters broke. Remind the children to dab the filters instead of dragging it across the paper. Dragging the filters like it's a brush will put holes on the filters very quickly and the effect of dabbing is better than dragging.

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Constructing with foam blocks woth Senior Kindergarten (ages: 5 year olds) Top left: Final product of what was a child said is a library. Top right: the beginning of a child's building process. Bottom: A community with houses, library and apartment buildings The children's point-of-view of the community they live in.

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A castle Age: Junior Kindergarten I put all these soft blocks on the table and this was what a child came up with. He started with just 3 blocks at the beginning - 2 columns and a roof and I kept encouraging the child to add more and see what he would build and this was the finished product. At the end of the activity the child had a big smile on his face

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Faux ginger bread house the base is made ot of styrocardboard cut & shaped into a house using hotglue. It is covered with real marshmallows, gummy bears, cheerios, m&'s, & mint candies. The candies were hotglued because they keep falling or disappearing. So this is gingerbread house is strictly for decorating purposes.

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Christmas door decor -- red snowflake wrapping paper, white & gold tissue paper, ribbon. For the elf ornaments: wooden circles (pre-cut from the craft store) google eyes green felt for the collar Red & green foam boards Letter stickers sequins paint & marker Now I know we aren't supposed to pre-cut anything but I needed a Christmas take home for the children. I had to cut the hat & collar into different sizes because the circles come in an assorted package (& a package costs $7!!!). The differences in them would be the size/shape of the face, eye colours & expression on the mouth. I had a child draw a frown/sad face because he said "I don't like smiley faces", I had one draw a smirk, toothy grin etc. If the child is impatient or dislikes anything crafty then this activity would be tedious for them. Otherwise most of my younger school age cannot wait to get a turn to make their own elves.

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The thanksgiving tree (adapted from S. Silverstein's The Giving Tree) Age group: School Age Materials: butcher paper, brown paper, tape, construction paper, glue The trunk of the tree was done by two boys that seemed to calm them down. They took at least 30 minutes to put together the trunk using glue. I helped set up the first layer with butcher paper and tape to stick it on the wall. Then the 2 boys added more brown paper for texture. The branches were done by crumplig and rolling more butcher paper and tape. The other teacher in the room helped in taping the branches. Before we put on leaves we read and discussed The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. The children then traced their hands on construction paper and cut the paper with scissors. They wrote what the were thankful for and then we stuck the "leaves" using tape. It took us 3 days to finish this activity just in time for the Thanksgiving weekend.