PROMOTING CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING
Throughout the Fall 2023 semester, I took particular interest to how I could help the children in the classroom reach their developmental goals and meet their needs through the activities we were doing. I have learned so much about what makes an environment or activity effective. As I got to know each of the students better, I learned more about their individual needs and interests, and how I could help meet those with the classroom environment. Overall, I have enjoyed learning more about this element of the classroom, with the guidance and insight of wonderful mentor teachers.
Designing a Center
Autumn Science
During my time at the Columbia College Child Development Center, I have the opportunity to design a learning center in the classroom. I designed a science center that was Autumn themed, in correspondence to the month's curriculum- "Fall and Feelings". Utilizing resources, as well as creating my own, I added some interactive sensory elements, related literature, and natural materials for the students to explore. After I set up this center, I observed the kids when they played with the materials, including what was played with most, and what materials they did not seem to be as interested in. For example, I chose to put out a few visually stimulating sensory bottles that had "Autumn" colors. Originally I thought these would be popular with the children as we had out similar bottles just recently. However, I observed that the second time around, the bottles were barely touched. This gave me a great example of how important it is for different materials to be rotated to follow changes in interest and to help the classroom to be consistently stimulating.
After observing one of the children playing with a pumpkin from another classroom, I wanted to incorporate this interest into my science center. I added some small pumpkins here, as well as one large pumpkin that we had cut open and explored earlier in the week.
While browsing the center's resources for visual elements I could add to the center, I could not find any posters about Autumn that I felt would be right for the classroom. So, I made one myself that displayed some elements of the season, along with the words, to encourage learning of the new vocabulary.
To incorporate literature and help initiate discussion and vocabulary in regard to Autumn, I added two developmentally- appropriate books that had rich images and simple text, such as "Leaf Rain" by Pauline Cartwright.
