My pedagogical commitment: Create an environment where children can think, express their ideas, and learn to collaborate with people around them to create a meaningful experience in the name of creating a respectful and livable world.
My goal for this practicum: Building relationships with parents and educators, using materials and discussion topics to create conditions for children to think, ask questions, and build up on each others ideas.
Week 1
September 8, 2025
First day after coming back to practicum has honestly been a bit tough. There were a few reasons why but mainly because I have not been at daycare for a while and even though we had the conversations in class about what we are bringing back to practicum and our goals, I still felt like I was not really sure where to begin from, and how to start. Another reason for my nervousness was the fact that this final practicum will be graded unlike the previous ones. What brightened me up was the fact that many of the children remembered me, and the educators were very welcoming even after 4 months of not working with them. This was when I realized the importance of fostering a good strong relationship with not only children, but also the educators that we are working with.
This brings me to
September 12, 2025
I am still struggling with what I would like to think about with the children. I have had the same suggestions from my practicum mentor, faculty mentor, and even from my co-practicum student, that I should continue doing the outdoor games book that I was creating with the children during the second practicum. In as much as I would like to continue that and add more ideas to it, there are a few difficulties that I am facing with that idea. One reason is that most of the children that were here during the previous practicum were much older, and have now graduated. Another reason is that, the children that are currently here are not really interested in playing games and mostly like to play by themselves. When I try to get engaged and curious about their play, they would often walk away and play else where, or even tell me to go because they want to play by themselves ONLY.
Because of this, I came up with a few ideas that I am willing to try (even though I cannot really see where this will go), some of which are, talking about types of emotions and when we feel them, focusing on the changes happening in the daycare yard like the colors of the trees, sky and others.
I also wanted to try out the honorable harvest that we learned in ECED 1350 last year. This was about learning the relationship between nature and us, and learning to give back to the earth when we pick or take something from nature. In 1350, we spent a lot of time in the hills, thought about things, talked to nature. Then, we created an art from the things we collected from the hills, wrote about them, and after about 3-4 weeks, we returned them back to the hills where we collected them from to show our gratitude. I wanted to try this with the children because it gives them opportunity to take time to think about nature, themselves, and to be givers and not only takers. Despite the fact that I really love this idea, my co-practicum student is already doing nature walks with the children and collecting things to create a display outside the yard to engage with everyday, notice changes, and talking about it. This is another difficulty that I am facing which I hope to resolve and find a solution to it soon.
Week 2
September 15
I decided to try out my idea of the topic on emotions. At first I had no idea what I wanted to do or how to do it however, I always wanted to know how children view various emotions. Are their views very different from an adults view of emotions? Do they know empathy? Is there any way colors are related in their knowledge of emotions? Just like this, I had a few questions and thoughts I pondered upon before making my decision.
I took my first step towards this idea by drawing faces on the ground. I drew 3 circles for the face, 2 medium-size dots for the eyes, and left the bottom half of the face blank to see what happens. My expectation was that the children would maybe add a mouth or an expression. I hope to see what happens!
September 16
I took my idea of the topic of emotions and I decided to try something out. I bought a sketchbook, cute pencil case, and markers which really looked attractive to the children. I sat on the grass outside, and laid all my materials on the grass and waited. The children began to gather around the sketchbook and began to talk.
“Whats this?”
Me: Its a sketchbook and pencil case
“Can I draw on it?”
Me: Sure!
Another conversation
“Why are there many eggs on the ground?” (this child was refering to the mouthless faces that I drew on the ground the previous day.)
Educator came and drew a smile mouth, a frown, and a straight mouth on the three face
Educator: Now what do they look like?
Child: OH!!! Its a happy face, Sad face, and angry face!!!
Me: Would you like to draw faces too?
Child: Yeah!!!
The child then picks up a chalk to draw on the sketchbook to which I responded by giving him a marker to draw in the sketchbook with. He then begins to draw the faces he sees as another child comes to draw on the ground with the chalk. Another child comes over and sees a face that a child drew.
“That looks like a evil face” “It has a evil smile, see?”
Me: “What makes it an evil face?
“The smile looks evil”
The child then picked up a pen and drew the face on the sketchbook. As the child was drawing and doing his best to explain and describe the evil smile, the image of the grinch who stole Christmas came to my mind. The grinch is green and has a scary smile that went up really high. The grinch is not a nice character and is considered “mean” or even “evil”. I wondered if there could be a link between the grinch’s smile and the evil smile this child was talking about.
We were asked to take 1 week each to do group time and basically run the room by our mentor educator. Our classroom theme for the month of September was all about me, so I decided to take on the topic of emotions. The reason behind my choice was because when daycare’s do the theme of all about me, I see that they tend to focus more on the aspect of my family, my friends, what I like to do, to eat, how old I am, and all other basic facts about one’s self however, I wanted to talk a bit deeper and give the children opportunity to look into themselves and think about a deeper and a much more complex concept, which in this case is the concept of emotions.
After talking to my practicum instructor about my plan, she drew my attention to the fact that the concept of emotion is a really deep and complex concept. She also suggested I find a piece about emotion to settle on so below is my plan.
Circle Time Plan: Emotions
Talking and learning/identifying our emotions and what we have in our heart. Going beyond happy, sad, and angry.
Day 1:
Songs: Patty Shukla Action Song
Book: In my heart book & big feelings- an introduction to various types of emotions
Discussion Topic: When do we feel afraid? sad? broken? excited? (using feeling words that were introduced in the book to discuss our experiences)
Art project: What’s in my heart?
Day 2:
Song: If you are happy and you know it, you are my sunshine
Book: Ruby finds a worry & it could have been worse- focusing on a particular emotions
Discussion: What can we do when we find a worry?(and other not so good emotions)
(have a story board and sticky notes to add the children’s ideas and opinions)
Day 3: Working with ours and others emotions
Song: the more we get together, a friendship song
Book: rita ad ralph rotten day
Art project: My emotion book
Day 4: Movie about emotions and how they work
Art project: what color is my emotion? emotions we have in our classroom. drawing on the board of emotions
September 18
I was still unsure and not too confident about my plan so I decided to bring my worry and concern to class on Wednesday. I talked about how I brought my sketchbook and colored pens to the children and how they began to draw faces on the book, but I’m still unsure about where to go with it. Cory then suggested that I laminate those drawings of the children and that i bring it back to them just like a collection of faces and see what happens.
I did exactly what he suggested and I saw that the children were happy to see their drawing in object form, and were exited to draw some more faces. Some of the children began to tell me about what they drew and the emotions the faces had. There was a “happy sun face”, a “smiley heart face”, and many other faces.
September 19
One of my
Week 3
September 22
Today was my first day of doing group time. I read the book of feelings to the children, and the children were excited to tell me about their experiences with the different types of emotions and feelings.
“When I am angry, I feel broken”
“I feel broken when I get an ouie”
“I was sad when my sister screamed into my face”
” I am happy when I cuddle with my mom”
“I was lonely until I met my friend Memphis”
“I was scared when a monster in my room scared me. I think the monster bit my leg(that’s why I have an ouie).”
“I feel silly(playful) when I’m at Zaaz”
“I never feel shy”
Towards the end of circle time, I brought out the laminated drawings of the children and asked them what emotions they think the faces have. I got some answers that were different from the intended emotion of the drawer.
We then went outside and I took along my things and sat at the table outside. I called a few of the children and asked them questions about the story behind the laminated faces and emotions.
-The story of the happy sun-
Me: Why do you think the sun is happy?
Child: He was happy about the color of the spider, like the itsy bitsy spider song.
Me: Oh? what color was the spider?
Child: It was red and green, and it was a black widow and the sun liked the color. The sun and the spider are friends. and the spider took too long to climb the water spout because it was too big.
-The story of the evil smile-
Me: Can you tell me the story of the evil skeleton?
Child: This is the face of an evil skeleton. It’s a guys dressed up as a skeleton.
Me: Why is he dressed up as a skeleton?
Child: Because he is green goblin from spidy, and he is a bad guy. He stole spider man’s watch.
Me: Is he evil to is mom too?
Child: he doesn’t have a mom. His mom passed away. He used to be a good person before he became a bad guy.
September 26
A child was crying after waking up from a nap while she walked to get her lunch kit for sack.
Me: Why are you upset? (asking the child)
Jackson(another child who was heard my question.): Ms Marvelous I think she is sad, not upset.
Me: Oh really? How do you know?
J: Because I know her feelings.
Me: Do you think she can be upset and sad at the same time?
J: Yeah, maybe she is sad and upset.
The children and I continued drawing outside when we figured out that there were some face we were unable to draw.
Child: I don’t know how to draw a sad face
Me: What if we try make the face instead of drawing it, would that work?
Child: Yeah!
So we decided to try to make the face, take pictures, and print it using the printer.
Child: This is a sad face(While pointing to a drawing in the sketchbook)
Me: When do you make this sad face?
Child: When I miss my mommy
Week 4
October 29
Today the children and I began collecting the drawings of the faces which I cut out, on a large roll of paper. I also wrote the emotion categories on small pieces of paper for us to group and move the faces around. This was based on the emotion words the children used to tag their drawings. There was Happy, sad, mad, bored, confused. The children picked up the faces, and pasted them where they thought was right. There was no much conversation around this part of the project other than, “I think this looks happy” “This is a mad face”.
I would like to know more about the parts of the face that makes the children decide what emotion the face has.
October 2
Today, we moved the drawings and pictures to a presentation board to avoid the paper ripping, and for easier portability. About 3-4 children gathered around the table to continue categorizing the faces. They decided the category words we had from yesterday was not enough to describe the other faces so we added “Ghost face”, “Sleepy”, and “Silly”. There were still some faces that are yet to be categorized but I noticed some of the interesting conversations that happened today.
The children were debating on where to categorize the faces below.
Me: Where should we put these faces?
Memphis: That’s a happy face(pointing to picture 1).
Jackson: No its crying so its a sad face.
Memphis: No! its a happy cry. Just like when my dad says something my mom likes and my mom starts crying because she is happy.
Me: Where should we put this face?
Memphis: I think we should put it in mad.
Jackson: I think its sad.
Memphis: But it has the eyebrows!
Jackson: Oh yeah its mad.
Me: Where should we put this face?
Its evil so its mad
But it has the smile so its happy
No but its a evil smile and it has the eyebrows
No its mad!!
No its not!!
This was very interesting to me because it made me to pick up what the children think makes up a evil face. They all agreed that it was an evil face as it looked like green goblin from spidy however, their disagreement was on whether an evil face can be considered a happy face because of the evil smile or whether it can be considered an angry face because of the mad looking eyebrows. There probably was an option to just create a separate category for “evil face”, but I really wanted to know what the children come up with and also because I thought both ideas and perspectives were valid/understandable and I did not want to let go of either of them. So I intervened in their debate with this:
Me: Guys do you think it could be both happy and mad at the same time??
Children: …..Maybe..?
The children were not completely sure if this would work but they were curious to try. I then took a small piece of paper to write the features of the evil face that the children mentioned which was, “happy smile” and “mad eyebrows” and attached it next to the face. The children eventually put the face under happy but we all agreed that it was both by adding the note next to the face. Below was the end result:
There was another category that was interesting which was the ghost face category. The children categorized the 2 “brother” faces which had a round mouth as it looked like a ghost to them. I added a note that says “ghost mouth” which was the feature the children noticed.
October 3
The children were building a spaceship in the yard. The outer body part of the spaceship was built with tires, and the children were trying to build the inner part with logs and wood. They were done with the chairs, tables, and beds, but they needed a door/entrance to the spaceship. They found a bigger log that they wanted to use as an entrance however, they had one problem. The log was big, too heavy for 4 boys to carry, and far away from them.
“uh, this is so heavy….”
“lets push it”
“no no, hold it like this”
“its not working”
Owen: “I think we need more friends”
Jackson: “yeah lets go find Foster and James and Emmanuel.
The 2 boys go to call their other friends for help and after a while, the children come back with 4 more children who came to help them.
The children begin to push the log towards the spaceship however, they do it each in their own way. Some were pushing, some tried to carry from the bottom, and others were just happy to help, and they were just touching the log. The children began feeling frustrated that they were getting no where with the move and one child even got his finger pricked from touching the log, and became even more frustrated.
The whole time, I tried to stay back from intervening as much as I could however, when I noticed the children’s frustration, I decided to intervene.
Me: “Okay friends, I see that we are all starting to get frustrated, so lets take a break for a second, and talk about how we can move the log together. Jackson how do you think we can move the log?
Jackson: I think we can hold it like this!(from the bottom)
Memphis: Oh and I can hold it here.(at the top)
James: me too!
Me: Okay, should we all try that idea?
“Yeah”
Some children carried from the bottom, and others held it at the top. With the new strategy, they were able to move the log a little bit. The children were happy with this improvement and they were eager to keep going.
While that was happening, another child came over and knocked down all their tires and the other parts of the spaceship they have already built. This discouraged a few of the children making them to leave behind the log they were moving, to go see if they can fix the spaceship. Now, some children were putting the tires back up, some were still moving the log, and others were done with this play and went to find something else to play with.
After some time, the spaceship was back up, and the log had gotten closer than ever! some of the children that were helping rebuild the spaceship came back to the log to give it few last pushes. They pushed, and pushed and pushed. They finally had an entrance!!! The children were all very happy for this achievement.
This event consisted of excitement, thinking and coming up wit solutions and ideas, frustration and getting hurt, crying, change of focus and attention, and joy/sense of achievement at the end of it all. I believe I was able to observe all these things because I was not quick to intervein even with the clash of ideas and emotions, or give suggestion and solutions to solve their problem. The BC Early Learning Framework tells us that the role of the educator is to be researchers and use the pedagogy of listening to carefully observe, and engage in children’s play. This experience has allowed me to experience what that looks like.
Week 5
The children found pumpkin pieces in the yard and they began to explore what they can do with it. There were big pieces and small pieces. They decided they wanted to cook with it but could not figure out to make the big pieces smaller to fit the pot. A child began using a small shovel but soon foubd out it was of no use. Another child decided to give the bigger red shovel a try, and it worked! he children were able to cut the pumpkin to fit the pot that they planned to use to cook the pumpkins.
During this process, there was a lot of working together and looking for solution to the problem as a group. Some children got frustrated while others suggested possibilities that encouraged their frustrated friends. I learned to watch and wait to see what the children come up with instead of solving their issues for them. This exploration also made me realize the fear that I had of the children getting hurt or hurting others using the shovel as the pumpkin was a hard thing to cut. But instead of stopping them because I felt like it is dangerous, I paid extra attention to the movement they were making to prevent harm, and also to allow them to continue their exploration
Week 6
We finally took our boards of the wall and assembled our books with the children!
We first began with Daneeta’s book on the goo monster, then we moved on to my book of emotions. The children were really eager and enthusiastic to take part in this project so they gathered around to begin.
We first began by asking the children to bring some books from the bookshelf for us to get ideas on how to make our books. The children helped to write the title of the book, and they took turns drawing the cover picture. Next thing we did was right names of the authors on the next page. Some children wrote their names on their own, and some asked us for help so we wrote it with them thinking of the letters together. After that, for the goo monster book, the children began to take of the sticky notes which included the features of the goo monsters and selfies of it’s appearance. For the emotions book, the children began taking of the faces, category names and other notes on the board. We began to think about what color papers we should use for each of the emotion pages. The children took some tape and began pasting the faces on the papers which I added into the pockets. As we continued, a child saw that his face was not on any of the pages and wanted to contribute his selfie too. So made a silly face, we took a picture of it, printed it, then added it to our pages.
Conclusion
This project/inquiry and practicum as a whole has been a great learning experience which was one level higher than the previous ones. It was difficult in the beginning as I wanted to move in the room as part of the educator team and let my presence be known in the room through the way I interact with the children. At first, my main focus was doing things like making sure the materials are out, getting children ready for outside time, preparation of art and others, just like “an educator”. Because of this, it felt a bit tough for me at first to bring in my inquiry and work with the children to explore our projects. But after talking with my faculty mentor over and over, I began to realize that it is possible to do both. I also learned that if it does not excite me, it would be difficult for the children to get excited to work on it too so whatever I am offering to the children should be something I am excited to explore and learn. I was able to build stronger trust and relationships with the children, educators and even some of the parents. The children were able to see me as someone they can trust or find comfort when they got hurt or had an issue with their friends. The educators would trust me with handling big emotions and conflicts among children, they would also give me opportunities to prepare for arts and circle time to gain experience. As for the parents, it was mostly them greeting me and handing their children over to me during drop off time, and even bringing me a balloon and card for my birthday along with their children because of the relationship I had with the children.
As I go into this field, I would like to value relationship more and be excited about my work more to create the environment of joy and an environment that fosters children’s curiosity and thinking. I would also like to have spaces where children are able to see their ideas and creations to boost confidence and also to encourage them to keep doing it.