September Extra Post

Pinterest is a-ma-zing!

I've been using Pinterest for a while now but for personal reasons, that is until I found all the lovely resources and ideas I can use at my mentorship! My mentor, Ms. Chami, has an assistant, Ms. Mary, who helps her in the classroom and usually comes up with all the fun craft ideas. However, I've been looking through Pinterest lately and I found some great ideas that I hope to add to their already colorful classroom. 

I would love to add these to the top of the windows in the classroom to create a more inviting environment.

Adding color to a room really brightens things up, especially for a child who is a visual learner. The bright colors, I think, makes it feel more open and fun.

I think that for a child it's very important to show them how they are doing, having a visual up to remind them where they're at can perhaps keep them on track of being productive. I also love the colors!

I've also discovered some great, well at least I think they are fun, crafts we can do with the kids to enhance/improve their motor skills, through a fellow blogger on blogspot.com who happens to be a Kindergarten teacher. She has various templates of activities and worksheets I know I can bring up with my mentor, and Ms. Mary, and perhaps use them the next time I go to help out. Pinterest is an incredible website that I know I will continue using for future ideas. 

Here is a link to my board.

Blog 6: Second Interview Preparation

The purpose of this second interview is to justify your mentor as an expert in the field. Thus, you will be asking them at least 5 questions about their background and/or the background of the organization or company where they work.

1. Who is your mentor and where do they work?
 My mentor is Ms. Chami and she works at the Montessori Academy of Chino.

2. What five questions will you ask them about their background?
I plan to ask her the following questions:

• What made you decide to become a preschool/transitional kindergarten teacher? Why not pick one over the other?
• Have you worked at other schools? If so, what are some differences in the schools?
• What does the "Montessori Method" mean to you?
• What kind of education did you have? How do you think it affected your life?
• As a parent, what kind of education do you want your children to have? Why?

Blog 5: Mentorship and Research Reflection

1. Mentorship question: Describe your experience on how you found your mentorship? If you haven't found one yet, describe your experience so far in the search for a mentor.
Finding my mentorship was...interesting. I wanted to do my mentorship at a cosmetology school, and everything was good to go but then at the last minute it didn't work out with my would be mentor. When I was starting to sort of panic, I thought I'd give teaching a try, so I contacted my middle school teacher but she was too busy and our school hours were totally different, so that wasn't possible. My mom then told me of a family friend who worked at a daycare, and I thought that I should give it a try, I mean I've always loved kids and I know I want to follow a career path where I end up helping them in some way. So I went down to the daycare, talked to the director and she said she'd love to have me helping out; the first couple of weeks I didn't do much, I was at the front office making copies, filing papers, and answering phone calls but then I was allowed to go into a classroom, with supervision, and I ended up really liking it. Next Monday, I will be officially starting my mentorship for the year alongside my mentor.

2. Research question: What has been your most important article you have read so far and why?
The most important article that I have found is on Early Childhood Education and it is from the US Department of Education. I find it very important because within the article there are other links to specific programs, studies, handbooks, etc., and I know I will go back and explore the links to help me on my senior project.

August Extra Post

Plan for the year

I haven't had the chance to go to the day care because I've been busy with school, however I've been keeping in touch with the director over the phone and I should return either this Thursday or next Monday. I plan to go right after school and on the day I return. The director and I, have been planning what I will do in order for my senior project to go well; we pretty much decided that I'd be kind of doing what I did over the summer just with more interaction with the kids. So I'd help Ms. Naomi Palma, my mentor, wake up the kids, instead of putting them to sleep, and afterwards get them prepared for their afternoon activities.

Until then here is a picture of where I spent most of my summer and of where I look forward to spending my time for the next couple of months:  

On the corner of Riverside and Ramona.

Blog 4: Interview Preparation

1. Who do you plan to interview? Why?
     I plan to interview Arelly Areola. Im going to interview her because she is a student teacher at my mentorship, so I think it'd be good to get answers from someone who is in the process of getting their credentials and see what they have to deal with.

2. You have to ask 5 questions. What additional questions do you plan to ask? Ask open-ended questions. 
I plan to ask the following questions:

• How far along are you with your studies?
• Did you always want to teach? If so, why? If not, what did you originally want to do?
• What is the reason behind choosing to work with children? 
• Do you have experience with them? If so, what have you done?

Blog 3: Topic Choice and Working EQ

1. List your topic here:
Early Childhood Education

2. Write a question that helps to focus on your research this month.
What is the most significant factor in helping a child transition into Kindergarten?

3.Post working bibliography (WB) on the right hand side of the blog and share it so anybody can view it.
The link has been posted on the right hand side of my blog. It can also be found here.

Blog 2: Summer Mentorship Component

Literal

1. Summer Log => Mentorship

2. Contact Name: Thushara DeSilva
    Contact Number: (909) 591-3937

3. What questions were raised because of the 10 hours of experience? List them.

• Based on the different developing levels of the children, how are lesson plans arranged? Each child has different ways of grasping various tasks, especially when they are barely beginning to learn and are already at different stages, so how is one lesson plan arranged for all the children?

• How does the academic plan, in action, differ from that of the summer? I saw during the summer session that the kids would have their hour or two of academic time and then they had their break, followed by their lunch and finally nap time. How does this process differ from the actual academic school year?
• Does the material taught to the children stay with them? When people put their child in pre-k/day care at such an early age they tend to do it because that way the child will have an advantage later on, is that true?

Interpretive

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
     The most important thing I gained from my mentorship this summer there is a lot more to teaching a little group of toddlers than I expected. Based on the far memories of what I remember preschool to be like, the teachers require an insane amount of patience. I have had plenty of experience with toddlers, my cousins, but not at the level I got to partake in. There was this one time a child did not want to sit down at circle time and while a regular parent would probably demand the child to sit down and listen, the teacher paid no attention to the child and gave the child time to see how much fun it was to sit down with friends and sing songs and let the child on their own come to the circle and participate. Teaching toddlers isn't just telling them what to do and when to do it, it is giving them a chance to learn when it's okay to do their own thing and when it's time to participate and pay attention because when they're older it plays it big part in how they interact with others.

Applied

5. What is your senior topic going to be? How did what you did help you choose a topic? Please explain.
    I originally wanted to do cosmetology; I figured it's my last major project might as well do something fun but it didn't really appeal to me too much or work out how I planned. So when my mom was telling me a story about how I used to "force" my younger brother to play school with me when I was in kindergarten and teach him how to do math, read, and write, I realized I wanted to do something related to teaching; more specifically teaching children. My mom's friend daughter works at a day care, so I asked her if I could go and she said she'd ask her director if i could come in. I ended up spending my time there for my mentorship and that's how I realized that for me teaching pre-k is fun and that's what I want to do for my senior project.