This section is where students demonstrate their acquired and growing skills, their ability to put theoretical/in class learning and discussion into practice and where they will demonstrate their professional skills as early childhood educators, colleagues, and contributing members of effective early years teams.
Headings Students will use the following headings to reflect and organize the learning they are demonstrating.
- Professional skills: Reliability, punctuality, communication skills, problem solving, contributions to team, initiative, reflective practice and ability to listen to and adapt practice based on constructive feedback, etc.
- Practical Skills: Responsive/Relational Care of young children, roles, duties, tasks etc.
Resources
To better understand and plan for building evidence in this section please refer to:
- BC Child Care Sector Competencies
- ECED 1200 Moodle Section: Professional Foundations
- ECED 1350 Moodle Section: Observation
- ECED 1330 Child Guidance
- CYCA 2500 Human Development Birth to Age 8
- ECED 1340 Interpersonal Communication
December 4th, 2024
Things I observed and picked up from today:
- Educators talk to the children like adults, not like how people talk to little children. They did not oversimplify or water it down for the children to understand it better.
ex) An educator told the children that were not really paying attention that, “Our expectations of you do not change”. - Children are very relaxed which may be they key reason of their well behavior
The environment is very calming, educators do not enforce a lot of work to the children that may cause stress.
Questions I had today:
- How do the lead educator regulate and refresh as it gets really overwhelming and stressful when taking care of so many children for a long period of time.
- Is there anything parents do that can support educators in taking care of the children?
December 5th, 2024
It seems gentle words actual does work when guiding children.
I always thought it was impossible to take care of children without having to raise your voice or being a bit strict however, these educators do not do those things but instead, they use soft and gentle words and tone of voice when talking to the children(which makes the children feel safe and comfortable) allowing them to listen and comply by choice without having to be forced.
December 6th, 2024
This career as an ECE is not too difficult if you have enough capacity to take make children’s business yours, be present with them, listen to them and care for them. In order to attain that level of space and capacity, one needs to take care of one’s needs and wants first, through self care, hobbies and others, to feel relaxed and having enough capacity to take care of others.
December 9th, 2024
Children aren’t too difficult to take care of. Understanding is key, [Relationship] .
When you know how a child reacts situation; like crying or hitting friends, (which may affect the whole room /environment) You will try to avoid “that thing” by shifting the child’s focus elsewhere(by distracting them, ask questions, suggest something new etc.).
A child was sad he lost the game and started to cry which led to aggressive tantrum which led to “I want my mommy”. When he got to this stage, there is pretty much nothing I could say for him to hear me so I asked him what he is having for lunch today(which calmed him a bit) then he said he doesn’t know so I asked if he knew what I was having. And I told him it’s a secret but i will tell him then I whispered “Chicken” into his ear. This totally distracted him from “I want me mommy”.
May not work for all children but we have to find out what works and what doesn’t when building a good relationship with the children.
December 10th, 2024
Saying No
When trying to be guidance professional, it can be hard to say no. You don’t want to be too restrictive, but You also done want to be walked upon. So how to be nice” and still be firm with your decisions?
→ Instead of saying “don’t do this !! ” or scolding in a scary manner, say things like “This is what we do” “We use inside voices”, things you actually want to see them doing not the other way around.
Because children do what they hear and sometimes they are so distracted they don’t hear the “don’t” but hear the rest. (By my mentor educator) – And also, telling then not to do something is not telling them what to at all (ECED 1320)
Cardboard Tennis
Today the children wanted to play tennis. They had 2 small soft rackets but no balls to play with. We tried to look for the ball but it was no where to be found. So I decided to ask them what they think we can use to play instead of the ball to see what they would come up with. The decided to look around the yard for objects that can be a replacement for the tennis ball. The first thing they came of with was woodchips. They tried to hit the woodchips with the racket to pass to their friend however, it just kept falling to the ground. “It’s too small!” “We need to find something else” the children said. So we decided to take another stroll around the yard to see what other things we could find. Next the children found some rocks they can use. They tried it a few times and it worked however, they soon realized the rocks were really hard and could hurt them when I asked them if they thought the rocks were safe to hit around with the racket. After that, the children found a small piece of scrunched-up cardboard on the ground, “maybe this could work” they said, and they decided to try it out. This time it actually worked! It was just the right size, not too hard, and they were able to hit it and pass to the other play. They played this for a while and decided it was it was time for something different.
What color is the sky?
White vs Peach, Black vs Brown, ….and peach-brown too
Kick-hand-base
I noticed a pattern in children’s play. Once I come into the yard, they ask to play hide and seek. One problem with that is there are no more places left to hide. So I decided it was probably time to introduce a new game. I taught the children how to play kick base but by hand, so more like hand base. This is pretty much baseball but without the complicated rules, bats, gloves or uniforms, only logs used as bases, a piece of bark, and 6 children grouped into 2 teams.
Rules:
Group A starts from home base while Group B starts from within the court.
When the first player in group A throws the stick into the court, Group B’s mission is to prevent group A from getting back to home base, get the stick and bring it to home base, while Group A runs through all 3 bases back to home base.
The rules were simple yet may have been a bit challenging for children ages 3-5 to quickly get the hang of but we kept trying to figure out way to understand better.
When we played this game the first time, the children seemed to like it but had little understanding of how the game worked which was why half of the game was me explaining and re-explaining from time to time. Soon, they started to understand the part where they have to bring the stick back and run through all the bases.
The next day, a few children came to ask if we could play this game again and I was a bit surprised as I never expected them to come back to want to play this game because I felt them not fully understanding the game would prevent them from enjoying it. This time, the game went a bit smoother as the children remembered the rules from the previous day and even more friends decided to join. When we first started the game (the first day), we had 2 friends on each team making 4 friends in total however, this time we had 4 friends on each team making 8 friends in total.
I honestly do not think we went anywhere with this game yet but I was glad to be able to introduce something new to them
Learning how to balance
We ran and played tag and race all morning and unlike the children, I was feeling out of energy so I suggested to them that we played a calmer game. There are some logs and stumps lying in the daycare yard which we once played statue on. One of the friends remembered this game we played previously and suggested that was what we should play. Statue is a game where one person stands on this log or stump and stays still like statues. If they move, the next person gets a turn. We played this for a while and I decided to be a balancing statue standing on one foot with my arms in the air. That was when one of the friends askd, “can you teach me how to do that?” This question led to us transitioning from playing statue to learning how to balance on logs. The log we played statue on was very flat which made it very easy to balance however, it was a bit too high for the children to climb up by themselves. There was a shorter log laid side ways nearby which was a bit difficult to balance but we dicided we would learn how to balance on that instead.
The first few tries were not a pleasant one for the child as she kept falling off even though I was holding her hands. Never the less, she insisted on trying again and again even after falling about 10 times. Soon, I started to get worried because I did not want her to get hurt or injured, but at the same time, I did not want her to stop trying just because of my fear of her falling.
On about the 15th try, she started to be able to balance on her own without my support for about 5 seconds. It gradually increased to 8, 10, then by the end of play time that day she was able to balance for 20 seconds without support and without falling! I learned the resilience of children, how we as educators often let our fears get in the way of children trying something new, but one thing I still would like to learn more about is how to balance risky play with safety.
Let’s make a house!
It was a cloudy day and children were in the yard figuring out what to play when they noticed big cardboard pieces from opened packages laying on the ground. They decided they would build a house. They began by leaning one long cardboard against the table to create a wall of the house but soon they realized it was not strong enough for the wind. Then, they found 2 logs to put behind the cardboard wall to make it stand better. The wall stood! But they seemed to not be satisfied with just one wall in their house and decided to add another, and another. As the house started to come together, more and more boys wanted to go into this house but there was just one issue. The house was too small for 5 boys! It was time for expansion. The boys joined hands, went to gather more cardboard, more logs and any other material they needed. Soon, there was an entrance (with door), a bedroom, and a yard, and more areas of the house was still under construction. Just when more boys came to help out with the expansion, the educator told them it was time to clean up as those cardboard pieces were meant to go in the trash and not to be played with. They boys had to dismantle their house and help clean up the cardboard for trash.
Tic-tac-toe
A random thought came to my mind a few days before the beginning of practicum which was: Do children know how to play tic tac toe? I decided to investigate. We were playing hide and seek when I and the 2 children I played with got tired and decided to take a break. We sat on the low barrier that divided the woodchip section and the ground section when we noticed colorful chalks laying on the ground and I remembered the random thought I had. “Do you know how to play tic tac toe?” I asked, “Yeah, let’s play!!” I was not expecting that response because I had assumed tic tac toe was complicated and may be a bit difficult for young children to play without knowing there are some young children (like the children at my center) who are very good at it. I played a few times with this girl however, I could only win once….it was an unexpectedly tough game for me. I asked the child how she knows how to play and her reply was, “I play it with my mom”. This made me to wonder how the mom was able to explain the rules to her daughter so well to the point where I could only win her once.
Rollie-Polly
Today we saw a rollie-pollie all rolled up in a blue bucket at the black top area. The children were curious to know what it was. I told them it was a rollie-pollie that it is rolled up and that if they wait to see, they may probably be able to see it unroll and move around. The children and I patiently waited for the rollie pollie to unroll itself and after a few minutes, it did! The children were excited to see the rollie-pollie moving around. More children began to gather round the blue bucket to see this insect and some children even tried to touch it and when they did, the rollie pollie rolled back up. They waited again for a while and it unrolled again! This time they watched it carefully.
A new play equipment in the yard!!
A transformation happened in the daycare yard. The dirt area turned into a grassy ground, and more play equipment like teeter-totter arrived in the new yard. All the children were very excited to play in the new yard(I was too!). One of the play equipment that arrived in the yard was a triangular climbing equipment where the children get to climb from both sides, one side being like a rock climbing wall and the other, a ladder and a slide surface with a rope. It was easy for most of the children to climb up from the ladder side and the rock climbing side however, some children found it difficult to climb the flat surface using the rope, even though they really wanted to do so. A child asked me to hold her up while she tried to climb up using the rope however, she kept falling because she was relying/leaning on my hands that was holding her instead of using her body strength and the rope to climb up. I tried to show her how she could better climb up but she did not understand what I was trying to tell her because I was not able to show her on the equipment(as it is not meant for adults to climb on). As I was looking for a better way to explain by using my rounding up my back, and bending my arms and legs, another child(P) came along to show the girl how she climbs up this wall using the rope. I decided to use this opportunity to take pictures of every step of the girl’s climb such as where she puts her arms and legs, how she moves up and other details. After this girl(P) climbed all the way up to show the child, we all looked at the pictures I took of her while climbing. Seeing this, girl(A) decided to try again however, she was still unable to climb up. As she kept trying, more and more children began to gather around this equipment wanting to try climbing up this steep hilly wall. They all tried it at first and all fell. Each time they would fall, they would ask me to show them the pictures I took of the girl who made it to the top and we analyzed where her arms and legs were, and how she curved her body. After seeing this most of them gave it a few more tries and reached the top!…except for the girl who first began the challenged. She ended up letting it go for today but maybe she would like to give it some more tries next time and hopefully get to the top.
The talent show
There are a few logs and tree stumps lying in the yard. I got an idea to use that as a stage as we usually just use it to play the balancing game. I did a simple twirl like a ballerina on the stump and asked the children to show the group what they can do too. We started this play with about 3 children and within 5 minutes, we now had about 6 children all together. Some sat next to me as audience, some sang original songs, danced and some even did both! The children seemed to have really had fun with this play that they asked me to play this game again at each play time we had this day and the next.
Dance Battle!!
The children and I came up with a new game to play in the yard today and we called it the dance battle game. This actually emerged from from the talent show play that we did previously, but this time, the rules were dancing only. The friends began to show their best dance moves to the group and gave each of their moves cool names some of which were called “The wave”, “Ballerina”, “Clapping my hands” and many others. At first, I just stood as a supporter and audience for all the dancers where I cheered them on and said encouraging things about their creative moves, then after they went a few rounds by themselves, they challenged me to battle with them with my best dance moves. I showed them all my cool moves as an experienced dancer, and they were very excited and happy. We all began to cheer and watch each person’s moves and took turns showing our dance moves as well.
A child called me “ugly”
During nap time today, as I was trying to put a child to sleep, he told me he didn’t want me to rub his back as he slept(which we normally do for all the children) because I was ugly. I was very shocked to hear that as this child has been nice to me and does not usually act mean with other children as well(except for being rude to educators but only sometimes). I asked him why he thought I was ugly to know what made him say so. “Because your hair is ugly” said the boy and I wondered to myself, what makes braids ugly? Was it because it is different from the kind of hairstyle he sees people around him have? I told the child that I don’t think my hair is ugly, I love my hair, and that it made me sad when he called it ugly. I also made him to notice that the color of my hair is gold which is similar to the hair color he has and that the difference was that mine is braided while he’s was straight, and mine was long while he’s was short. After hearing my words, the boy seemed to have understood my point and said sorry to me, then he began to call his hair ugly! I immediately told him that that was ABSOLUTELY not true at all and that he is very handsome(which he was) and he should be proud of his hair and himself because he has a very special hair color and style. He agreed with me and allowed him to rub his back to sleep.
from this experience, (I kind of viewed it from a larger perspective and ) I thought, maybe we also as adults do this too sometimes, where we condemn, dislike or call things or people we are unfamiliar with, ugly. If only we would try to find out a bit more about this thing or person, maybe we would have been able to see another side of the story.
Animal guessing game
Rock, Paper, Scissors
The lemonade story
I brought a lemonade(with turmeric and ginger) today as part of my lunch. A child saw it and asked what it was. I told him, and he told me he wished he had lemonade too. I