Observations at Aldo

Last Tuesday I started my observation hours at Aldo. I am doing my hours in Chelsea Kelly's 4K classroom. While I was there the students had center time. Unlike in the Children's Center at St. Norbert College the students picked a center and then stayed at that center for the whole time they had center time.

During the time I came to their classroom they had just came from the computer lab and had printed of pictures of various place that they could use to color on. Since they rarely get to the computer lab this was something Chelsea wanted the students to experience. This did however cut into their free choice playing. After getting back to the classroom students picked centers they wanted to play in during center time. They had a lot of areas to choose from and had to stay in that area for the whole time. There was also a limit of how many kids could be at each center. Some of the students would change centers but then would have to go back to the one that they picked in the first place. It was interesting to watch how some children needed to play with other while a few where fine playing on their own. After a few minutes of play they had reading time, where they looked at books and just made up their own story if they weren’t able to read. I tried to listen to a few of their stories but then other students would come up and ask me to read to them. Once again they only had a short amount of time for reading and then it was snack time.

Pico Crickets

In class we have been playing with Pico Crickets. They are little computers you can program to do different things by touch, sound or sight sensors. In groups we were able to create our own little Pico guys and make them do three things. Ours lights up when it's dark, makes a sound when we touch it and the light changes color.

It was a lot of fun getting to play around with technology like this. I have to admit that I got a little frustrated with it at first when it would not do what we wanted it to do. I think I would benefit more from it if I was given more time to explore with the different things you can do with it.

Plan for observations

For EDUC 274 I am required to observe students in their natural learning environment. At the moment I am doing lab hours in the Children's Center on Mondays and Fridays.

I'm still waiting to here back from the teacher at Aldo that I plan to help out with on Tuesdays.

I am having a lot of fun being in the Children's Center and I am very excited to work with other students.