Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Patterson
ECE 251
Teacher Characteristics
1. Meeting the teacher: Upon first meeting the teacher, I felt relaxed and calm. I felt as
if I had known her for a very long time and that I would have fun observing her. Actually,
she reminded me very much of my favorite cousin. The characteristics of the teacher
that triggered these feelings in me were, she was vibrant and excited for the day, even
at 8 in the morning. She was not shy at all and shook my hand as she introduced herself
as well as the class to me. She explained during my introduction why I was there who I
was to the children so they would be comfortable with my presence in the classroom.
Later she explained that she did this because she has a few students that are sensitive to
strangers being near them. By the end of the observation, me initial feelings about the
teacher did not change as I saw she treated me with the same respect that she gave the
children. She was fun to watch, creative, attentive and I wish she had been my teacher
support some of the individual students that had a fear of strangers. This teacher was
extremely aware of each child’s needs and supportive of them as well. Another example
of supporting differences was, one student works with a timer and she said this was
done so the child was able to have an audio signal of when it was time to move on to
another activity and this allowed him to move from one activity to the next without her
intervening and allowed him to feel more independent with his transitions.
3. Challenging behaviors: Her demeanor never changed when dealing with a child that
presented challenging behaviors. She spoke calmly and explained what the child should
be doing rather than focusing on what the child should not be doing. One child was
yelling at another child for knocking his block tower over. She went over and spoke
calmly to the children and asked what happened. Then she explained to the child that
knocked the tower over that it was upsetting to his friend to have worked so hard on
something and then have it knocked over. She then explained to the yelling child that he
should use his words to let his friend know why he was sad. Then she asked what they
could do to fix the problem and both children agreed that they would build another
tower together.
Bonding
1. Bonding rituals: A bonding ritual that I saw when I was there was the initial greeting
when each child came into the classroom at the beginning of the day. She greeted
children by name and asked how their morning was going showing sincere interest in
their comments. She also helped them to remember their morning routine by asking if
they had remembered to put their backpacks in their cubby, bring their water bottles in
and move their name from at home to in class on their magnet board.
2. Other ways: Another instance of bonding that I saw was during circle time. The
children were very excited about and event that had happened at the school the
previous day and they wanted to talk about it. She allowed the children to share one at
a time what their favorite part of the event was. She listened and used eye contact and
1. Schedule:
9:30-10:15: Recess
11:15-12:00: Lunch
12:00: Dismissal
12:00-12:15: Bathroom break
12:15-2:15: Nap
2:15-2:30: Snack/Bathroom
2:30-2:45: Recess
2:45: Dismissal
class schedule has all of the elements listed with the exception of 5-minute warnings for
the students between activities. The teacher set the pace and it was a very busy
schedule to keep to from what I could understand. While interviewing the teacher about
it, I asked her why they had such a busy schedule she just said there was a lot the school
wanted the children to participate in and that was the schedule that administration had
set for their class. So I guess you could say that the administration set the pace and the
teacher and children followed along with it. Also according to the Elements of a Daily
schedule, the center time was too short and the large group time was too long.
However, there was a balance of long and short periods of time for activities and a
variety of activities for children to work on alone as well as in small and large groups
2. Routine: During the interview, the teacher explained to me that she taught the
children their routines by modeling and explaining the routines and expectations. She
said they worked very hard at the beginning of the year trying to help the students
understand the routines and they had to be very consistent, especially at the beginning
so the children could catch on. I noticed that she used songs to help the students
transition from one activity to the next and she rang a bell to signal clean up time.
3. a. Transition: The transition that I observed was going from morning centers to
clean up and then to their circle time which is their large group time. First the teacher
rang a bell and the children began to clean up and put away what they were involved
with. When the classroom was clean, which took about 5 minutes, the teacher began to
sing a song and the children went to the large carpet and sat down while repeating after
the teacher parts of the song. The song went like this: Teacher: Are you criss cross?
Children: Am I Criss cross? Yes I am! Teacher: Are your hands in your lap? Children: Are
my hands in my lap? Yes they are! Teacher: Are you quiet? Children: (whispering) Am I
quiet? Yes I am! Then they proceeded to discuss an event that happened at the school
b. I think this transition was appropriate for this age group. It reminded them of what
they should be doing and it was fun for them to sing with the teacher. They seemed to
enjoy saying yes I am whenever they found that they were ready with each part of the
song. The whispering part of the song also produced a few giggles, which also made me
laugh.
c. I’m not sure that it could have been improved. The children seemed to understand
what they were supposed to be doing and it even seemed as if they enjoyed the
process. They may have needed more time to clean up but I felt that the short time
period for the transition kept them moving quickly to the next activity and kept them
Rules
1. Posted rules: There were posters of Dr. Seuss characters modeling the rules as well as
the written rule. There were five posters and they said, Raise your hand, Be a friend,
2. Verbalized or implied rules: The children were to wash their hands often, upon
coming into the classroom, after meals and after using the bathroom. They were also
expected to be kind to one another and to use nice words while they were at school. No
3. Consistent: The teacher was very consistent with the rules and I often heard her
asking the students if they had washed their hands, especially after using the bathroom
and when they came into school in the morning. I also heard her asking a child if their
word choice was a nice word or a potty word. The child classified it as a potty word and
decided it wasn’t a word that should be used in the classroom. (I think he called his
friend a poopy head but I missed that part and only saw her trying to help resolve the
issue.)
4. Nature and use of rules: I think the rules that this classroom had were age
appropriate and not at all an overload for these children. There were not very many
rules nor were there any rules that weren’t pertinent to running a smooth day as well as
teaching children how to be kind to one another. The teacher very rarely had to say no