Blog Reflection #4

I had a really great experience in the preschool I observed in. I volunteered at Vineyard Elementary in one of their preschool classes with Mrs. Lorri Case, who recently graduated from the UVU Early Childhood Education department. She does such a great job with the kids and is just a natural. You can tell she’s from UVU because she is so spot on with everything we learn in class and read from the text book. It was almost difficult to try to apply strategies from the books because the kids were so great in the classroom; they cooperated and followed instructions so nicely, it was almost ridiculous.
I was able to observe a lot of great strategies and techniques that Mrs. Case used while working with the kids, and seldom, I was able to apply some of the techniques myself.
Chapter 11 – Because the kids were so well behaved, most often, positive consequences were stated and pointed out. If it wasn’t positive however, the text helped me understand how to state a consequence in a non-threatening way. I also took note to allow children to respond to each step of a consequence. I probably wouldn’t have done that without consciously thinking about it after reading it in the text.
Chapter 12 – In all honestly, I couldn’t apply chapter 12 very much at all in my field work. There really wasn’t much aggressive behavior at all in the class. There was one girl who was pretty feisty, but that was mostly her personality. If we let her know that her behavior was inappropriate, she would usually stop right away. I was so surprised by how well the children handled any frustrations. It was such a well set up environment that they knew what to do when they had a problem, instead of becoming aggressive.
Chapter 13 – Although, there was already quite a bit of pro-social behavior, you can always promote and encourage it a little more. In class, I was able to point out pro-social behaviors as they occurred naturally quite a bit. Occasionally, I would point out when “lack of kindness was shown” and then “describe an alternate, prosocial approach”. As I would directly ask the children to help me with something, they were always so willing to help, and then I could praise them on their kindness towards me by helping and being a caring friend. Influenced by the text, I would help children become aware of when a classmate needed help or cooperation. They were almost always willing and excited to help.
Overall, I had such an awesome experience in this particular classroom. I was able to apply quite a bit from the text, but I also just learned so much just by watching the teacher as I saw her implement so many of the strategies from the text directly with the children. I felt I learned a lot from these observations, and just wish I had known how to really apply so many of these concepts before when working with children in other settings. It would have been so helpful, for both me and the children.



p.s. Sorry this is late. I totally forgot about doing blog reflections during the break. Oops!