Ashley

Patterson

ECE 251

Observation: Caring Classroom Elements

School: Adelson Educational Campus Telephone: (702) 255-4500

Teacher: Kim Bernstien Age/Grade: 3 year old class

Date: 3/2/18 Beginning & Ending Time: 7:40-840:am

Teacher Characteristics

1. Meeting the teacher: Upon first meeting the teacher, I felt relaxed and calm. I felt as

if I had known her for a very long time and that I would have fun observing her. Actually,

she reminded me very much of my favorite cousin. The characteristics of the teacher

that triggered these feelings in me were, she was vibrant and excited for the day, even

at 8 in the morning. She was not shy at all and shook my hand as she introduced herself

as well as the class to me. She explained during my introduction why I was there who I

was to the children so they would be comfortable with my presence in the classroom.

Later she explained that she did this because she has a few students that are sensitive to

strangers being near them. By the end of the observation, me initial feelings about the

teacher did not change as I saw she treated me with the same respect that she gave the

children. She was fun to watch, creative, attentive and I wish she had been my teacher

when I was young.

2. Individual differences: As stated above, I was introduced to the whole group to

support some of the individual students that had a fear of strangers. This teacher was

extremely aware of each child’s needs and supportive of them as well. Another example

of supporting differences was, one student works with a timer and she said this was

done so the child was able to have an audio signal of when it was time to move on to

another activity and this allowed him to move from one activity to the next without her

intervening and allowed him to feel more independent with his transitions.

3. Challenging behaviors: Her demeanor never changed when dealing with a child that

presented challenging behaviors. She spoke calmly and explained what the child should

be doing rather than focusing on what the child should not be doing. One child was

yelling at another child for knocking his block tower over. She went over and spoke

calmly to the children and asked what happened. Then she explained to the child that

knocked the tower over that it was upsetting to his friend to have worked so hard on

something and then have it knocked over. She then explained to the yelling child that he

should use his words to let his friend know why he was sad. Then she asked what they

could do to fix the problem and both children agreed that they would build another

tower together.

Bonding

1. Bonding rituals: A bonding ritual that I saw when I was there was the initial greeting

when each child came into the classroom at the beginning of the day. She greeted

children by name and asked how their morning was going showing sincere interest in
their comments. She also helped them to remember their morning routine by asking if

they had remembered to put their backpacks in their cubby, bring their water bottles in

and move their name from at home to in class on their magnet board.

2. Other ways: Another instance of bonding that I saw was during circle time. The

children were very excited about and event that had happened at the school the

previous day and they wanted to talk about it. She allowed the children to share one at

a time what their favorite part of the event was. She listened and used eye contact and

responded genuinely to each students comment.

Schedule & Routines

1. Schedule:

7:40-8:00 welcome into school and morning centers

8:00-8:30: Whole Group Circle Time

8:30-9:15: Small Group Centers

9:15-9:30: Snack and Bathroom break

9:30-10:15: Recess

10:15-10:45: Hebrew class (move to a different teachers class)

10:45-11:15: Movement/music (move to a different teachers class)

11:15-12:00: Lunch

12:00: Dismissal
12:00-12:15: Bathroom break

12:15-2:15: Nap

2:15-2:30: Snack/Bathroom

2:30-2:45: Recess

2:45: Dismissal

Evaluation of Schedule: According to the Elements of a Daily Schedule handout, this

class schedule has all of the elements listed with the exception of 5-minute warnings for

the students between activities. The teacher set the pace and it was a very busy

schedule to keep to from what I could understand. While interviewing the teacher about

it, I asked her why they had such a busy schedule she just said there was a lot the school

wanted the children to participate in and that was the schedule that administration had

set for their class. So I guess you could say that the administration set the pace and the

teacher and children followed along with it. Also according to the Elements of a Daily

schedule, the center time was too short and the large group time was too long.

However, there was a balance of long and short periods of time for activities and a

variety of activities for children to work on alone as well as in small and large groups

throughout the day.

2. Routine: During the interview, the teacher explained to me that she taught the

children their routines by modeling and explaining the routines and expectations. She

said they worked very hard at the beginning of the year trying to help the students
understand the routines and they had to be very consistent, especially at the beginning

so the children could catch on. I noticed that she used songs to help the students

transition from one activity to the next and she rang a bell to signal clean up time.

3. a. Transition: The transition that I observed was going from morning centers to

clean up and then to their circle time which is their large group time. First the teacher

rang a bell and the children began to clean up and put away what they were involved

with. When the classroom was clean, which took about 5 minutes, the teacher began to

sing a song and the children went to the large carpet and sat down while repeating after

the teacher parts of the song. The song went like this: Teacher: Are you criss cross?

Children: Am I Criss cross? Yes I am! Teacher: Are your hands in your lap? Children: Are

my hands in my lap? Yes they are! Teacher: Are you quiet? Children: (whispering) Am I

quiet? Yes I am! Then they proceeded to discuss an event that happened at the school

the preceding day.

b. I think this transition was appropriate for this age group. It reminded them of what

they should be doing and it was fun for them to sing with the teacher. They seemed to

enjoy saying yes I am whenever they found that they were ready with each part of the

song. The whispering part of the song also produced a few giggles, which also made me

laugh.

c. I’m not sure that it could have been improved. The children seemed to understand

what they were supposed to be doing and it even seemed as if they enjoyed the
process. They may have needed more time to clean up but I felt that the short time

period for the transition kept them moving quickly to the next activity and kept them

from having any discipline issues.

Rules

1. Posted rules: There were posters of Dr. Seuss characters modeling the rules as well as

the written rule. There were five posters and they said, Raise your hand, Be a friend,

Walk Don’t Run, Wait your turn and Share.

2. Verbalized or implied rules: The children were to wash their hands often, upon

coming into the classroom, after meals and after using the bathroom. They were also

expected to be kind to one another and to use nice words while they were at school. No

potty words was how the children explained it.

3. Consistent: The teacher was very consistent with the rules and I often heard her

asking the students if they had washed their hands, especially after using the bathroom

and when they came into school in the morning. I also heard her asking a child if their

word choice was a nice word or a potty word. The child classified it as a potty word and

decided it wasn’t a word that should be used in the classroom. (I think he called his

friend a poopy head but I missed that part and only saw her trying to help resolve the

issue.)

4. Nature and use of rules: I think the rules that this classroom had were age

appropriate and not at all an overload for these children. There were not very many

rules nor were there any rules that weren’t pertinent to running a smooth day as well as
teaching children how to be kind to one another. The teacher very rarely had to say no

and the children responded well to having some independence.