As a future educator, I believe that every child has their own unique learning style based

on their personality, learning modality, and multiple intelligence preference. Additionally, young
children tend to be egocentric, so the more you are able to directly link learning to the childs
world, the more interested and engaged the child is going to be. Finally, research has shown that
the more senses involved when learning a concept, the more that concept is reinforced.
Therefore, lesson plans need to target various learning styles, tap into student interests, and
involve hands-on projects that involve more than one sense for the students to learn to their
fullest potential.
When teaching young children, the environment, materials, and curriculum need to
support students learning in all domains: social, emotional, physical, cognitive, creative, and
language. This is done by providing students with a playful, secure, caring, and stimulating
atmosphere in which to learn and grow. I believe in an eclectic room design. There should be a
labeled place for a variety of beautiful, colorful, and well-cared for materials within the
classroom. Students should be taught to navigate these materials independently, to use them
appropriately, and how to return the materials once play has been completed. Areas in the room
should be designated for dramatic play, language/library, art, sensory, practical life, mathematics,
science/discovery, social studies, and music and movement. The room design, materials, and
curriculum should support an ultimate goal of creating responsible, creative, independent
students through a balance of play and instruction.
There are many different purposes behind assessing children. Guiding instruction,
determining background knowledge of students, evidencing growth, and determining the
possibility of a disability are a few of these purposes. One of the main purposes is to guide
instruction within the classroom. If the majority of your students possess knowledge of color
names, you should plan on embedding instruction to reinforce color names versus spending
valuable instructional time with explicit descriptions on colors and their names. At that point,
explicit instruction can be given directly during small group instruction or one-on-one with those
that need it.
The role of staff within the classroom is to guide students through learning by allowing
students to discover answers on their own, promoting safety within the classroom, and providing
adequate time for students to explore and interact with their classmates and the various materials
present within the classroom. Part of providing a welcoming, nurturing classroom environment

for the students is to include the family within the classroom. This can be done by keeping an
open line of communication flowing with the families of the students and by including them
within the classroom environment.
Student environment plays a huge role in within the classroom and, thus, must be
accepted by the staff. One way to show acceptance of the students home environment is to
recognize that the parent/guardian is the childs first teacher and should be utilized as a valuable
source of information. Additionally, staff need to partner with parents to ensure that the childs
cultural views are upheld throughout the curriculum taught. Finally, various community and
family members could be invited into the classroom to share his/her expertise with the class. In
these ways, staff, family and community come together to support and educate the child.