Project 1: Observations in Structured Environment

I have been receiving most of my observation hours at the Children's Center. This is a wonderful place to observe because the curriculum is very play-based. Bonnie has an awesome system that is very organized and works well for the students. During the circle times, the teacher usually starts the lesson with a brief opening on the topic they will be discussing and then she leads into a story. Most of the time the stories deal with the topic, but sometime the books are read just for entertainment. After the story, Miss sarah always does a follow-up activity that reinforces the topic of the week. The circle time usually last anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes. At this time of the year, the students are able to sit longer, but anything longer then 25 will loose their attention. The students are then released for free time play. There are many stations that are set up for the students to explore. I have noticed that the Children's Center has an abundance of manipulatives that are available to the students. When I observed there two weeks ago, I decided to observe just one students for 15 minutes. During this time, the student did not stay in one station for more then two minutes at a time. Until he came to the station where he wanted to learn how to tie his shoes. He was there for 8 minutes.

That is a long time for a student to stay at a station when their are so many other options to choose from. I am amazed every time I go to the children's center because they always have something new and exciting for the kids to do. I want to get more exposure to this type of curriculum so I'm going to try and get a job there this summer. Hopefully I'll be able too!!!

I actually didn't get over to Aldo yet, but I was able to sit in on a lesson at Webster Elementary. I did my sophomore block placement there and stayed in touch with the teacher. This school has a completely different philosophy then the children's center. Comparing Webster to the children's center, it is fair to say that the classroom I observed was way more Teacher directed and student directed. As Bonnie puts it, the teacher was more concerned with the product rather then the process. Similar to the children's center the teacher opened with a story and had a brief discussion with her students. Then they continued to do an art project, but the teacher explained the process step-by-step. This limited the student's creativity for they tried to make their project look just like Mrs. Fay's. These students weren't using their imagination to come up with a design that help them make connections to the lesson. After the art project was done, they moved onto the next subject. There was no other manipulatives used to help process and expand the concept that they were learning. This was the major difference I noticed between these two schools.