Observing Communication

The setting that I chose to focus on for this week was in the Kidz Klub Classroom at my school.  I observed for 45 minutes before school started.  The children in the Kidz Klub Classroom ranged in age from 3-years old to 12-years old.  I only focused on the communication between the workers and the children ranging in age from 3 to five years of age.

The one thing that I noticed are that these children ask the adults a lot of questions and like to have someone playing with them constantly.  These children actually played with life-like toys and acted as if they were a doctor, cook and a teacher.  The adults acted as the children and the young children acted as adults.  They were having so much fun!

The one thing that could have been done to make the communication more effective is if the younger children played more with the older children.  There seemed to be different groups in the classroom.  This means that the children around the same age played with certain toys and they did not communicate with the older children and the older children did not communicate with the younger children.  The younger children could learn a lot more from the older children than what they will learn from the adults and vice versa. 

The communication interactions could have lowered the young children's self-esteem.  The one time that the young student went to talk to the older student, they pushed the little one away.  The adults should be the ones to encourage all of the children, at all ages, to communicate with others.

One thing that I have learned about myself is that I want to make sure that I allow and encourage the older students to help, communicate and play with the younger children.  Doing this will allow for me or the teacher to sit back and observe more communication with all of the children.

Creating Affirming Environments

If I was opening my own Family Child Care Home, I would want my setting to be in a location that was in a low-class or poverty environment.  I would want my setting to be in a poverty location because I want to make an impact on the families and children in the surrounding environments.  I would make sure to include different staff of different ethnic and religious backgrounds.  Doing this would allow for all of the children to feel welcome.  Not only would it allow for the children to feel welcome, but it would allow the families to feel welcome. 

Another element that I would make sure to include is different toys or manipulatives.  Doing this would allow the children a variety of toys to play/learn from.  The children could have toys that they played with, that was only from their culture/religion.  Incorporating these toys would allow the children and families to want to come to the Family Child Care Home. 

The last element that I would like to include would be field trips or activities that required the families to get involved and go into the community.  Doing this would allow the Family Child Care Home to branch out to others in the community and for those involved to realize that they want to be a part of this organization.

I will make sure that every child and family feels welcomed each and every day.  I would do this by getting out in the community as much as possible and making sure that the families were involved.  I would also teach about the different cultures.  Doing this would make the families feel welcome and comfortable.

What I Have Learned

One of the main hopes that I have when working with children and families from different backgrounds is broadening my horizon to the different backgrounds.  Learning about the different families backgrounds would allow me to become a stronger and better teacher.  It would also allow me to incorporate things into the classroom that I would not have done before knowing the different backgrounds. 

One goal that I would like to set for the early childhood field is that every student is able to see evidence of their backgrounds in the classroom.  Not only making them feel comfortable, but allowing me to put different aspects of everyone's background throughout the classroom.  This will develop a stronger and more healthier classroom environment. 

Lastly,  I just wanted to say thank you to my colleagues.  Our communication and sharing of stories have been very open and I have felt comfortable sharing my stories and experiences.  Also, thank you for understanding and giving me advice on what I have shared.  Good luck with the last few classes of your masters and I look forward to having another class with you all again!!!