Brown Monkeys Class At The ELC

Detailing the Experience:
On March 7th, I visited the Brown Monkeys class at the ELC. On the day that I visited, there were 8 students to one teacher, Ms. Coco. Upon arriving at 9 am, the teacher was involving the kids in a quick group activity of constructing a bonfire out of paper bags stuffed with paper towels with piece crinkled up pieces of red, yellow, and orange pieces of paper stapled to the bag to make them look like flames. The teacher had the students help her gather paper towels to stuff the log and help her crinkle the flames. Afterwards, she engaged the children’s auditory senses as played a soundtrack of a crackling fire, crickets, and owls. Next, she read the kids a story about a little owl that saw all the different kinds
One by one, the teacher glued a single piece of owl onto the paper bag and allowed the kids to help press the piece down. She did this until each child had a completed owl puppet. During this process, the kids would not stay quiet even though the teacher tried to calm them. They kept wanting to talk amongst themselves and play with the puppet, which the teacher told them not to touch in order for the glue to dry. I noticed when one child (especially a little boy named Hudson) would say something, the other children would repeatedly parrot this child until the teacher had regained some control of the classroom. The children did not parrot in a mocking way, but were merely repeating what they
At this stage in life, a few months does not make as big of developmental change in children than it did with the infants. Furthermore, at this stage in life, I can see how the students desire to gain acceptance from other students and adults such as the teacher and myself. It was interesting to watch when one child would say something, several to all the students would parrot what that child had said. In this way, I feel that the students felt kinship with each other. In the same way, I heard students repeatedly emphasize to Ms. Coco how they were friends with one or all of the students in the class. Additionally, in order to gain the attention of the adults, the students often were loud or they sat in the lap of the teacher or myself. For example, whenever I sat on the ground, one or two students plopped themselves in my lap. In the same attention wanting way, the two and three year olds often tried to be the loudest when responding to question in order to get the teacher to notice