Practicum #1
Weekly reflection #1
During my first week in practicum, I felt a little bit nervous and wasn’t sure what my role was in this space of how to make myself helpful, especially on the first day. Because of this, I spent much of my time stepping back and observing. I found this to be very beneficial to my learning as I was able to watch how the educators interacted with the children, dealt with conflicts, and completed the tasks they had to complete. Through this, I learned the routine of how they did transitions from inside to outside, set up for lunch and snack times, and set up materials for the children. During this week, I also introduced myself to the children and started making connections with them so that they could feel comfortable with me being in their space. I made sure to take the time to engage with each child and explain to them who i am and why i was there.
Weekly reflection #2
During my second week in practicum, I focused on practicing what I had observed the educators doing in the previous week when working with the children. I practiced communicating with the children in ways similar to how the educators did and following the routines of the 3-5 room. During this week, I noticed children beginning to feel more comfortable with me as they asked me more questions, asked me to do activities with them, hold their hands, and even rub their backs at nap time. This felt rewarding as one of my main goals is to make all children feel safe and welcome when I am around, and not be intimidated by me. Since I had the chance to observe the educators’ daily routines in the room for a few days, I began helping out with these routines where I saw fit, such as setting up chairs for snack and lunch or sweeping and cleaning tables after lunchtime. During this week, our center was put into a complete lockdown, which was a very unexpected and scary experience. We had to move quickly to move the children, some of whom were still napping, into their safe spot and keep 19 children quiet for about 15 minutes until we were told it was safe to leave. Although this experience was unexpected and scary, I am grateful for it now, as it was a real-life scenario that I got to learn from.
Weekly reflection #3
My third week of practicum was when I really began to feel comfortable in my role as a practicum student, and when I was most helpful to the educators and children. This week, I noticed that some of the children had begun to take a real liking to me, and some were even excited to see me. Some children even made me things such as bead necklaces or drawings. This week, I also started having more meaningful conversations with other educators and got to know them a little better, which deepened my sense of belonging when I came into their center. During this week, I noticed myself constantly engaging with the children through hands-on play and really stepping out of the observational role. This was when I really began to see my future as an educator, as I started taking on some of the roles educators have and could envision myself doing this job once I am finished with this program. During this week, the second-year practicum student Ray started her practicum. It was really nice to have another practicum student in the 3-5 room with me, and meeting her and talking about our practicum experiences was constructive, as she was able to give me advice and encouragement.
Practicum #2
Reflection #1
After receiving my first feedback form from my mentor educator, I identified two actionable ways to respond to the feedback and support my growth during this practicum. The first is to take on a stronger leadership role within the classroom, and the second is to choose my discussion topic and begin exploring it with the children. In addition to the topics I will focus on improving, I will continue to do daily check-ins with my mentor educator to review the daily plan, engage with children to build stronger connections, and help de-escalate high-emotion situations. This first week, I focused a lot on reintroducing or introducing myself to the children and working on relationship building to make sure the children feel comfortable being around me.
My first goal for week two is to take on a stronger leadership role within the classroom and start leading some transitions on my own, such as clean-up time or moving inside from the yard. In doing this, I will push myself outside of my comfort zone and help me to feel more confident and capable in my leadership abilities. In order for me to lead a transition successfully, I have begun to consider how loud my voice is to ensure the children can hear me in order to follow through with the transition. Using a loud voice is something I have noticed to be a struggle point for me, and in being aware of this, I can work on it and find my loud voice.
My second goal for week two is to narrow down my discussion board topic that I will focus on throughout this practicum. Finding a discussion topic has been a little bit of a struggle for me, as I am yet to find a topic that sticks with the children long enough, or that they are all interested in. Two ideas I began to play around with were marmets and blossoms, as we had gone on a walk around MacArthur Park this week and had discussions surrounding both, but not enough interest surrounded them. Next week, I will continue to have conversations with the children to listen to what their interests are and do more drawing rituals to see what they draw, and hopefully find a common strong interest that we can work with.
Reflection #2
During this week I communicated with the educators in my room about my conversation board and was able to choose my topic for my discussion board. I found that the children were all very focused on ladybugs as the classroom happens to have a jar of them, so instead of working against this I am going to work with it and continue on with their inquiry and research. I am still working on my leadership skills within the classroom as the room I am in is very active and busy with high numbers of children, and I am continuing to work on developing my loud voice. This week I noticed my relationships with the children becoming stronger as well as having some opportunities to interact with some parents and I began to feel like a part of the classroom community.
My first goal for week three is to start diving deeper into our topic on ladybugs and begin adding drawings and discussions to my poster board. I am planning on doing this by bringing the drawing ritual outside and pre preparing some engaging questions to ask the children while trying to draw, as well as taking photos and notes while these drawing rituals take place to be able to bring up ideas, interactions, and findings later on with the children.
My second goal for week three is to take on leading in small group time as I feel like this is less intimidating and more manageable for me to begin with as the groups are eight children or less, whereas our class is up to twenty-two. I think this is a reasonable goal for me to complete and will make me feel more confident moving forward with the large group. During this small group time I would like to do some work on my conversation board as I will be able to give more attention to every child and ask deeper, more thought-provoking questions.
Reflection #3
During week three, I was sick on Tuesday and missed this day of practicum, making my week consist of only two practicum as it was also Easter Monday, and we had class on Wednesday. Because of this, I did not have as much time as I would have liked within the classroom, but I was still able to work with the children on discussions and drawings surrounding ladybugs and adding new material to the discussion board. I let the children lead a lot of these discussions to see where their imagination went with our conversation, and asked thought-provoking questions if they began to get off topic to draw them back into their drawings. This week, we also went on a “ladybug hunt” around MacArthur Park, where we were able to think deeply and have strong conversations as well. We packed some magnifying glasses, a bug catcher, and a basket to bring back our findings to the classroom, but we were not able to find any ladybugs during this time. Instead, we used our collective creativity to create what we thought a ladybug habitat would look like inside the bug collector, using natural materials we found around the park, and brought it back to the center.
The first topic I am going to focus on during week four is to bring in provocations for the children to explore. My mentor educator mentioned that this could be a good opportunity for me to take on more of a leadership role, as I would be adding something new to the program and running it by myself. I will make a plan as to what I am going to do and ensure that I bring or have access to the proper materials needed ahead of time to ensure I am prepared. This will make me feel more confident in my skills as a future educator, as I have yet to bring in my own activity for the children to engage in, and I have observed my mentor educator doing this many times now. I plan to work with natural materials such as leaves, flowers, sticks, ect, as we typically do activities outside, and will allow children to engage with the natural world.
My second goal for week four is to continue to work on taking leadership with large group transitions, as I did not have the opportunity to do so this week. I find myself feeling more and more confident in my abilities to be able to take on a strong leadership role within this space. Something I need to work on surrounding this goal is time management, as I often lose track of time when I engage in play and conversations with the children, but these transitions are a part of a daily schedule that I need to pay closer attention to going forward.
Reflection #4
During week four, I took on a stronger leadership role by leading circle time on my own for the first time. I brought in prepared new material to introduce to the children, such as a new song/dance and a book surrounding ladybugs, as well as doing a song the class already knew, and called the children off one by one to wash their hands for lunch. This went very well and made me feel more confident in my ability to lead the class on my own and prepare new materials. Many of the children are very intrigued by the book and asked me later on in the day, as well as in the following days, if I could read it again or if they could look at it themselves. During this week, I also brought in my first provocation for the children, where we explored stamping dandelions with paint onto a large shared piece of paper. This sparked new conversation surrounding the conversation board as we discovered aphids ( bugs that ladybugs eat) can be found on them, creating new ideas for drawing the children wanted to add.
My first goal for week five is to do a drawing ritual every day with the children to get out as many thoughts, ideas, and questions as possible, as my time in this practicum is coming to an end. I will bring out my drawing materials at any chance I get, as well as show the children photos from previous weeks to re-spark curiosities and thoughts surrounding our work with the ladybugs. This will hopefully allow us to dive even deeper into topics or ideas we have already discussed, and create new drawings, possibly surrounding the dandelions and aphids we had discussed this week.
My second goal for week five is to lead the class through all group transitions, as this is something that my mentor educator and I have discussed and planned for me to accomplish. I will use my leadership and time management skills to ensure that the transitions go as smoothly as possible, while keeping up with the center’s daily schedule and routine. I will also bring a provocation for the children to engage with every day in the next week to push myself even further into the leadership role that I now feel confident enough to step into. This will consist of my planning in advance what I would like to prepare for the children, and ensuring I have access to, or bring the correct materials to carry out the activity.