Reflection On Micro-Field Experience

I had the pleasure of doing my micro-field experience in a pre-kindergarten classroom at a head start program in Brooklyn. The classroom consists of 17 students, eleven of whom are boys and the other six are girls. The class is quite diverse with regards to individual needs, abilities, and learning styles. There are nine students who have an IEP for different learning needs. Six of the nine students with an IEP also receive speech and language services. The activities and materials in the classroom are designed to meet the needs of all children, those with and without disabilities. The environment is a positive one that welcomes children, and engages them in a variety of activities. There is enough space for individual, small-group, and large-group activities. From this class, I had the opportunity to work closely with four students, none of whom have IEP.
I chose to do a lesson surrounding the basic concept of mixing colors with these four children because, during my observation, these children were doing an art activity and one of the child commented that she cannot draw the trees in her garden because she does not have any green paint. I asked her, why don’t you make some and she
I contextualized these learning objectives for the students by allowing them to directly interact with the materials and encouraged them to make predictions and ask questions when doing their exploration. Martin, D. et. Al. (2005), mentioned that the inquiry method “encourages teaching that foster children’s construction of their own conceptualizations in ways that make sense to them…there are no right or wrong answer, however, there are valid conclusions” (pg. 23). The lesson was designed in order to have students experiment and draw their own conclusions. There were no right or wrong answers, the activities were age appropriate and were designed so they can explore