My 2009 Early Childhood Education Summer Experience | The A2Z ...

My 2009 Early Childhood Education Summer Experience

This past summer, I had the pleasure of visiting Home Away from Home? in Stockbridge, GA the center serves approximately 25 children ranging from ages 3 months to 4 years old. The six employees are perhaps the most caring and charming child care workers I?ve ever met. Between the hours of 6am and 6pm, Home Away from Home offers impeccable love and care to the children of the local church, in which it is located, and surrounding neighborhood.???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Not only does Home Away from Home offers a caring environment for growth, but the center?s director makes an undying effort to ensure the safety of each student. The first steps toward adequate safety are made by carefully selecting qualified caregivers. Prior to an extensive interview and child-interaction observation, each prospective employee must undergo a thorough background check and submit three personal references. In addition, all staff members must be CPR and First Aid certified as well as pass a health physical. Both the students and employees are required to submit documentation of up to date immunization. There are emergency exits located at three of the four walls of the facility. The fourth wall is equipped with a door used for entering and exiting the center which has a number key pad that only authorized personnel had access to the combination.
Next, the center has a clean and comfortable atmosphere. The 1800sq ft. tiled floor had several educational rugs laid through out. The furniture was arranged in such an order where each play center could easily be accessed without interruption of the next. Each child had their own cubby to put their belongings. The brightly colored wall reflected the adequate lighting and displayed pictures and posters of children in action, rules and regulation, and other informative information. There was a table with chairs obscurely placed for parents in observation.
In addition the children have free play after breakfast until 8:45. The infant and toddlers played along with the preschoolers. Then they are lead by Mrs. Reed, the assistant director, in morning devotion, followed by their daily planned activities which had been laid out by their teacher according to their perspective age. These activities included daily physical and mental exercises to reiterate previously learned basic; such as shapes, colors and numbers, after that they later moving on to more fun subjects such as math, art, housekeeping etc.
In the mist of them having fun learning as they played, following the first incident the teacher reiterated and instructed the children of the importance of the rules and the consequences of not following them. Every child is given two chances to correct their actions by apologizing and/or asking for forgiveness. If they failed to follow the rule on the second incident the teacher reinforces them using disciplinary action from warning to 3-5 minutes of time out. While there?? the teacher goes over the rule which was broken to make sure that they know why they are there and remind them the next step is to inform their parents of their behavior. This is the final step which they very seldom get to.
Now I would like to tell you about the employees. There are only 6 but they are all so united. They looked happy and enjoyed working together as a family. They all took at least 12 hours of continuing education in child care a year which is a state requirement.? Jackie is the care giver for the infants. She is a high school graduate.? Jackie has been employed for 6 years. Ms. Pearlie teaches the 3&4 years old. Her degree is in early childhood education and has 13 years of experience. Mrs. Shirley, called MoMo, by everyone, is the toddler?s teacher as well as the cook. She has more than 30 years of experience in child care. She served as director for 25 years. Mrs. Shirley also took a class in medication administration. Kitty is a high school graduate that work part time in the evening. Mrs. Reed, the assistant director, has been working for 4 years. She previously worked at Kinder Care in the infant room for 2 years and with the 2 year old for 2 years. She is studying to get her degree in early childhood education. Ms. Molly is the owner and the director of the center. She has been in business for 6 years but helped Mrs. Shirley seven years part time. Ms. Molly attends a director class each month so she can be on top of all the changes and regulation to keep providing quality service.

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To conclude my observation of the workers I would like to say that I was impressed with the way Ms Pearlie taught her class. Her style of teaching was flexible. The children learned while they were playing.? Even though they were at different levels she made them feel like they were all winners. I noticed several incidents while I was observing her class. An incident happened while the children were on the floor putting together puzzles. Some one shouted ?I did it!? Another one said ?I know where that piece goes, give it to me; it goes right here, yea! Ms. Pearlie we are finished.? ?Already, great job, now help the other group finished so we can play with the balloons,? replied Ms. Pearlie. ?No Ms. Pearlie, we don?t need any help,? insisted Joey. ?We can do it ourselves; we are almost done,? said Tiara. A few minutes later they all excitingly shouted ?There, we did it!? ?Awesome job, I am proud of you all. Now put the puzzle pieces back in their proper boxes and put them up. Next we are going to play with the balloons on the table but first let?s count them to see how many we have. Kendrick would you like to count the balloons?? asked Ms. Pearlie. Kendrick began counting ?, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11, 11?.? ?Are you sure? Count them again.? So he began counting. ?No it?s twelve?, he said (with much confidence.) ?Great! Now how many red ones, questioned Ms Pearlie?. ?There are three red balloons,? answered Amanda. Ms Pearlie asked KeKe what was her favorite color. ?Pink, like my Hannah Montana shirt,? she said. ?Can you find the pink balloons on the table??? Keke ran and got two pink balloons from the table. ?Here!? She gave her the balloons and Ms Pearlie gave her a hug. ?Thank you.? ?Now let us play a game of keeping the balloon in the air by hitting it with our hands. You each get a balloon 1-2-3-go? said Ms. Pearlie. While they were playing Ms Pearlie noticed J.J. just standing in the corner, so she went over to him. ?What?s wrong?? she asked. He began sobbing ?I can?t do it, I keep missing it.? ?Oh that?s ok J.J. Let me help you,? said Ms. Pearlie. She took the balloon and barely threw it up in the air; she then took J.J. hand and hit the balloon. ?See as you get older you will get better.? She did it a couple more time with him. ?Now you try it; Come on you can do it,? she said as she gave him the balloon. J.J. took it, threw it up in the air and hit it. He yelled ?I did it!? He picked up the balloon from the floor and threw it up and hit it again. ?You did it; now keep on playing,? encouraged Ms. Pearlie.? After they played for ten more minutes she reminded them that they had five minutes to play. She informed them that they should put the balloon in their cubby to take home and that she was giving all of them a sticker since every one did a fantastic job of keeping the balloon in the air.?
The last incident happened during lunch time. Michael had wanted to sit by Tye, but Chris was already seated so he began to pull on the chair demanding ?I?m sitting here by Tye.? ?No, I was here first!? shouted Chris as he pushed Michael. Michael began to cry out ?Chris hit me!?? ?You tried to take my seat and I was here first,? Chris angrily replied. Ms. Pearlie interrupted them ?Michael, you said you wanted to sit by Tye, but did you ask Chris could you sit there since he was already sitting there??? Michael shook his head to say no. ?Chris you have broken a rule haven?t you?? ?Yes,? answered Chris sadly. ?Which is what?? asked Ms Pearlie. ?No hitting, I?m sorry, Michael will you forgive me?? asked Chris. Michael nodded his head to say yea. Rachel said ?Michael, you can have my seat and you will still be by Tye.?? ?That is a splendid idea and so nice of you!? proclaimed Ms. Pearlie.? ?Since we?ve gotten that settled let?s say our grace so we can eat.?
As an overall review of this center there were several things that I like about it. The two that impressed me most were the compassion that was shown between the employees, the children, and the parents. For example whenever a child came in the other children would come and greet them with a hug or high-five, or Mrs. Jackie, (the infant caregiver) would meet the parent at the door smiling, she takes the baby from them and begin talking baby talk to the baby, next she would tell the parent something about the baby while they would be signing them in. The parents looked confident in dropping their children off. One morning Eric?s mother had trouble getting him to come in so Ms. Pearlie told her to come on in and sign Eric in while she talked with him. Moments later they both came in singing. Eric?s mom waved bye to every one and left. The other factor that I liked was how; they went about making the children feel like they were at home with extended family. Everyone called the toddlers? teacher and cook MoMo. The children were able to visit Mrs. Jackie in the infant room and ask questions about the babies. Through play the children learned social skills and how to respect each other. They only spent 30 minutes sitting in a chair at the table with pencil and paper, but the teacher taught them as they played. The teachers played with the children instead of just watching them play.
However, along with my likes, I observed some things I didn?t like, especially when the children were denied to play at certain centers during free play. One day Trinity and Joey were at the block center playing when Ms. Reed came in and insisted that they put them up and sit down and watch TV or go play with the other children. That is another thing which I didn?t like, having the TV on all the time. I felt like it prevented the teachers from watching the children successfully, because they were watching TV. The last disapproval happened when Mrs. Shirley went to prepare lunch, Ms. Reed was supposed to watch her children, but most of the time she was doing paper work, and the burden was on Ms. Pearlie which made the adult-child ratio unbalanced.
?????????????????????????? Finally after observing this center for two days, some suggestions that would provide a better quality of service would be; to hire one more full time employee for the toddlers? class. By doing this there wouldn?t be any need to worry about the adult-child ratio, Mrs. Shirley could focus on getting her meals cooked, and Ms. Reed could concentrate on doing her paper work; they can increase child care fee by .00 and would still be lower than other centers to cover the cost. The parents wouldn?t mine the increase if they would explain that it would increase their children?s safety as well as their learning; sending news letters home to parents if not weekly at least monthly, and have a parent-teacher meeting quarterly or semiannually to keep them informed about the program and the progress of their children; to turn the TV off during lunch, and while the children is sleeping and put on some soothing music to help them to relax; the center could benefit from in service meetings where they would discuss important topics that could improved the center. These could be held during naptime; serve milk with lunch instead of punch which is much more nutritious and a less sugary dessert for snack. Finally, Instead of the teachers deciding what centers will be open for play they would let the children decide where they want to play because their interests are different and changes frequently.

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