Pre-K Child Observation

A regular day in the Pre-K classroom begins with the children having free play, in any area of the class. This morning, some children played in the kitchen area, where four boys dressed up as construction workers or fighter fighters, while pretending to have breakfast. Others played in the block area with dinosaur figures, while others were either doing art on the tables, or were playing with magnetic blocks in the circle time area. Today, the children seem rowdy, as they ran and screamed across the class. Mrs. M would get their attention and say, “Use your inside voices, please” or “I need you to calm your body”. During check in, children get dropped off at random times, some children seem excited while others seem upset. There was one occasion,
where a young girl got dropped off by her mother, and began to cry once her mom had left. Mrs. M who was working on her laptop, got up to emotionally support the child. She kneeled down to the child’s high and said “Did your mom forger to give you a hug? Would you like me to give you a hug?” the child then replied yes, and received a warm hug from Mrs. M. The child was then taken to the library area, where she was being distracted by the books and the stuffed animals that were nearby.
Around 8:30, I served breakfast. The children received a piece of toast, slices of oranges and a cup of milk. After breakfast the children were sent to circle time, were two female interns or employees (was unsure of their position) organized a game. The lesson was to teach the children the importance of personal space. As the children were rowdy since the morning, it seemed difficult for the instructors to get their attention, as some children ran around, talked and screamed or did not pay attention. When the children were too talkative the instructors would say “Hold your bubbles my friends”. After the game, they asked the children “What can you to protect your bubble? And what can you do if your bubble gets popped?”.
During the second session of free play, one of the children was playing with his personal toy, which according to the children’s and instructors’ reaction, no one was allowed to play with their personal toys after breakfast.
The child was asked many times to put the toy away in his cubby and he would, but would suddenly have it out again. There was one occasion, where I did ask the child several times to put his toy away, and he ignored me. One of the instructors noticed and approached the child, by kneeling down and asking him to walk towards her. As she had one hand on the child’s shoulder, she spoke to him about the rules, and how his toy had to be put away. I have noticed that for those children who have a difficult time listening, the instructors tend to direct the child towards the location he/ she should be at by graving their shoulders or hold them down by a grip when they aren’t paying
attention.
The instructors have made the children believe, that there’s a leprechaun inside their class, as a way to celebrate St Patrick day.
Today as the children were playing outside, the instructors asked me to paint little footsteps on the cabinets, as well as the tables. I also turned all of the children’s chairs upside down. Mrs. Maya turned the toilet water green and locked the outside door. When it was time to come inside, Mrs. Maya wasn’t able to open the door, which made the children assume that it was the leprechaun. They all got really excited, as they jumped and screamed. We entered the building by using the 3 year olds classroom, which connects to the Pre-K class. As we walked thought the bathrooms, the children were shocked and excited about the toilet water being green. They tried flushing the water, but the water continued to be green. As we walked further into the class, they recognized the mess and the footsteps. They all screamed, and leprechaun. They immediately fixed the tables, while some found paper towels, to wipe off the footsteps that were on the tables. They were amazed by the “silly” leprechaun that was in their class. Soon after Mrs. Maya gathered all of the children in the carpet area, and read them a book about how to catch a leprechaun. It was very pleasing to see all of the children excited about what the “silly” leprechaun had done to their
class.