Describe a moment and analyze: “Write about a single experience or moment, and ask: how does this moment, experience, or encounter relate to my essential question?”

• You can also compare it with learning experiences you have had elsewhere, whether in or out of a classroom, at LREI or elsewhere.

 

Essential Question: How does the environment or structure of a classroom affect a child’s learning and development?

 

Since I am currently working with students in the Fours, this is what I have learned from this age group. It is unrealistic to expect children this young to sit down and learn by being lectured to. They would be distracted and overall not take much from the lesson. So one of the ways that learning can be incorporated into the classroom is through fun activities that relate to the subject matter, but are still fun. Subjects sometimes also span multiple days, having Math in the mornings on both Mondays and Tuesdays, most likely to not overwhelm the children.

During Math, when students explore data collection, the children were given a bag of colored tiles that were blue, green, red, and yellow. Their task was to sort the different colored tiles into piles. Once that was finished they were then given a sheet of paper that allowed them to count how many tiles there were of each color. The paper had a huge grid on one side, and the students used the boxes to represent the tiles, coloring in one box for one tile. Students were then asked questions such as “Which color has the most tiles” or “which has the least”. They then shared and compared their results at Meeting, having to be able to understand what they did during the process and answer (simple) questions about it.

I believe that this is a great example of how you must fit the lesson to the children and age group that you are teaching. Four-year-olds would be able to wrap their heads around more complicated situations or questions, so this activity was an easy way to introduce them to this subject.