AN HOUR IN THE DAILY DEVELOPMENT OF A PRE-K CLASSROOM

AN HOUR IN THE DAILY DEVELOPMENT OF A PRE-K CLASSROOM

CAMILLE JONES
HOUSTON BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

AN HOUR IN THE DAILY DEVELOPMENT OF A PRE-K CLASSROOM

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1. PK-3 Learner Activities:
On September 12, 2014, I observed 20 children in a pre-K 3 bilingual classroom in a PK-8
charter school district in the Gulfton neighborhood, off Camino del Rey in Southwest Houston.
The classroom was staffed by a certified EC teacher and a paraprofessional. I entered the
classroom with the Principal around 1:40 p.m. and left a little after 3 p.m.
Eighteen of the twenty students stood upright, moving in a head-toe kinesthetic activity on a
rectangular carpet with their teacher. The teacher successfully encouraged all students to
transition smoothly to the rug. Each took a special spot on the rug. No students were crying or
complaining. The classroom exuded a gentle sense of community and easy adaptation to
routines. While the teacher engaged 18 students on the carpet, the Teacher Assistant was
preparing work for each student at their group-designated work tables.
2. Stations in the Pre-K 3 Classroom
Researchers of preschool best practices find that young children need spaces which promote
active learning opportunities. (Hooper & Umansky, 2009) Preschoolers are regularly in action
(using their gross motor skills), exploring, searching, creating and moving in their environment
and using materials as they act on their ideas and interests--as this classroom clearly evidenced.
Classroom station design can be represented as follows:
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Stations seemingly evident during observation were: 1) Circle Time; 2) Block Time: 3) Small
Group activity Time (Fine Motor Skills) and Snack timeeach accompanied by Dialogue in
Dyads and/or paired peers. All stations seemed to accord with developmentally appropriate
practices set forth in the Texas Prekindergarten Curriculum Guidelines. (Texas Education
Agency, 2008).
The design of this particular classroom learning environment embraced and encouraged whole
grouping, small grouping and individualization. At the same time, it made space for a few
fixed centers (like Block and Pyramid Centers), some small board activity-driven centers
(Lakeshore objects which helped students learn to recognize and distinguish shapes, sizes, colors
kinesthetically) while the remaining learners rotated through options of collaborative dyads or
triads per table.
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Circle Time Station: During Circle Time, all students (save the two) sat on a colored rectangular
rug in designated places, looking at the teacher's board where she showed them objects, colors
and spaces. The color of focus was redpresumably reflecting the pre-k instructional goal of
precurriculum guidelines. (TEA, 2008). Three objects formed their focus for fine motor skill
tracing, drawing and coloring: a heart, an apple and a fire truck. The teacher gave explicit
instruction as to how students were to color these three objects, invoking rhyme, song to share an
explicit tracing sequence. Students also used certain kinesthetic skills to tracing in the air.
Alternately, students practiced sensorimotor skills in the air as she modeled this with them. To
keep students engaged, the teacher also modeled aloud story like dialogues with about how to sit,
stand, listen and share before students returned to their collaborative tables. Exposing her pre-
K learners early onward to meta-cognitive strategies, the teacher asked the kids to think about the
shapes and objects by comparing and/or contrasting their size and shapes. This was a
developmentally appropriate best practice for both building both shape recognition skills and
sensorimotor mastery.
Small Group Activity Stations: The teacher and her paraprofessional placed 4 tables of 4 to the
right of the whole grouping area.. Each table was named for a young animal---- for example,
The Teddy Bears, The Rabbits, The Kitties, the Puppies et al. In small group, the prek-3s put
into practice what their teacher modeled: taking their red crayons, carefully tracing objects and
then taking little strips of red paper and glued these on top of their drawings. Varied
opportunities arose for students to seamlessly interact with others - some emphasized sharing of
tools, others completed more organized cooperative activity. All groups seem organized in such
a way to promote the children's language and thought.
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Snack Time: Students transitioned seamlessly from small group activity to snack time and then
on to Choice Centers: Book Cornier and Block Center.
Interaction Between The Teacher and The Students. Direct instruction in Circle Time
involved the teacher gently narrating how to do school as the she integrated fine motor skill
tasks with open ended questions modeling of responses. Importantly, while offering explicit
instruction, he teacher left room for individual voice from the kids. Three of the 20 spoke and
shared a story of relevance about their homes. Once snack time occurred, kinesthetic activities
involved practice, repetition and role playing to get right. Kids share and connect with the
activity by sharing little stories anecdotes about their parents. Aide prepared each child's place
with shapes and recognition worksheet for table and group time once circle time and its
modeling of activities to complete in group time were finished.
III. Motor Skills amongst Ms. Terminels Learners:
Preschool children are expected to undertake more delicate tasks with their index finger and
thumbs like drawing and handling crayons, like tying shoelaces, represent more challenge than
most of the gross motor activities learned during this period of development. Gross motor skills
use energy which is in abundance in preschoolers. Fine motor--by contrast--skills require
patience and delicacy, which is less abundant developmentally at this age. Fine motor
development varies considerably among this age group.
Motor development encompasses the use of muscles, joints, and limbs and is divided into
two categories: gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills use large muscle planning and
coordination to walk, balance, run, jump, climb, throw, etc.
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Most of the work completed by students during the observation dealt with development of fine
motor skills: 1) copying and tracing square, heart and rectangular shapes; 2) drawing a circle
and a square with a red crayon; using q tips with clue to paste on tiny pieces of red paper to their
drawings; 4) working to stay in the lines as they highlighted objects in red (the color of the day).

IV. Social Skills amongst Ms. Terminels Pre-K Learners:
Social skills are defined as prescribed ways of behaving; they are expectations of particular
groups as to how group members conduct themselves in private and public. (Allen, 1992 242-
243). Since social skills are socially and contextually defined, the definitional notion of which
skills are appropriate also varies. (Allen, 242).
Research clearly demonstrates the value of early education for young children. To prepare
children for academic success, it is important that prekindergarten programs employ effective
teaching practices that help children grow intellectually and socially. (TEA, 2008)
Developmental milestones indicative of the types of social skills that preschoolers generally
manifest accoding to the Prekindergarten Curriculum Guidelines are: 1) cooperates/plays with
other children, 2) can stay on topic during conversations; 3) begins to share tools and toys with
other children. (TEA, 2008)
V. Language Skills

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a. Texas Pre-K Guidelines and other developmental milestone checklists earmark several
traits in language mastery at preK-3: 1) students understand the concept of same and
different; 2) asks questions, 3) speak clearly enough for understanding and 4) tell student
tells stories. (TEA, 2008). Many students appropriately demonstrated the appropriate
level of communicative activities. Moreover, the teacher kept a warm atmosphere in
class, calling each of the children her "muequitas or muequitos" (ie. little dolls).

VII. Other Observations:
b. Academics: Academics were addressed in Circle Time: 17 of the students were deeply
attentive. Occasionally one would call out without raising their hand but the teacher
would stay in narrative dialogue and help them understand their role in the classroom
story. As academics played a key role in the classroom preschool curriculumas the
teacher used Circle Time to introduce or review skills such as: 1) Names, addresses, and
phone numbers; 2) Colors, sizes, shapes, and positions, such as under, over, 3) Numbers
and prewriting skills, shape identification, letter recognition, sounds, and rhyming, 4)
Simple sentence structure, 5) Simple addition and subtraction and 6) Ways to handle a
book. (California Department of Education, 2007)

c. Outliers: Two were not on the group rug: a little girl sat at a back round table,
completing a matching exercise on a worksheet very slowly. A little boy sat at a desk
with a bandage on the floor, staring at the circle time group from afar. He seemed to
contribute but on occasion blurted out without thinking his efforts to participate in the
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discussion. The teacher engaged him in her desire to hear what he had to contribute but
smoothly and seamlessly lamented the fact that she could not hear him because he had
not raised his hands or followed the rules... This practice validated the efforts of the child
to participate, caused him to follow the rule and the teacher gave him praise and
reinforcement for continuing to develop and appropriately try his socio-communicative
skills.
















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REFERENCES
Hooper, S. and Umansky, W. (2009). Young Children with Special Needs (5
th
ed.). Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson.
Wortham, S. (2012). Assessment in Early Childhood Education (6
th
ed.). New Jersey: Pearson.
Bly, Lois. Motor Skills Acquisition Checklist. San Antonio, TX: Therapy Skill Builders, 2003.
Texas Education Agency (2008). Texas Prekindergarten Curriculum Guidelines retrieved
September 17, 2014 at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=2147495508.