Work and Workings of a Nerd

(This is my last journal for the class) This week, I was in the language area, but with low interest in writing stories and having Christian nearby as well, that ended up being a small part of my actual focus as I drifted around. Instead, I want to focus on a longer interaction I had […]

This week, a short staff gave me the opportunity to stay in the art area again, though the more significant interactions happened incidentally in that area. A flower was put out, but only Nicole went by to make an observational drawing. Instead, children came to and went from the craft table and painting easels, where […]

This week, I was out on the back 40 where I saw both a mix of typical outdoor play and another more structured activity. For the morning, Peckie setup a station on the picnic bench where the children could squeeze oranges to make juice using a large juice squeezer. With the somewhat finicky cone, a […]

This week, I was in the art area where most attention was around drawings of the chickens. We put Fluffly and Sparkles into a box on the table, where the children could make observational drawings. A. was one of the first to draw, and she drew and finished quickly without getting stuck on any particular […]

This week, I stayed mostly in the sand area with Seyon, where the big activity for the day was a volcano. That morning, Seyon had snaked the hose through the sand with the end in the middle of a packed pile of sand, and slowly trickling water through the hose caused water to slowly seep […]

This week was the first opportunity I had to work closely with Peckie, my liaison teacher, as we both supervised the patio area. This situation was helpful in gaining insight into the design of the activities, the background of individual children, techniques for interacting with children, and other perspectives on observed behavior. Peckie pointed out […]

For most of my time during this past session, I was in the language area, either helping children with stories or watching them set puzzles. Although several children came through, there seemed to be a few children who primarily stayed in this area and that most of my attention was fixed on. N. came in […]

(This quarter, I’m taking Psych147, Development in Early Childhood. The main part of the class is spending some time every week at Bing Nursery School playing with children. As part of the class, we write journal entries every week about our experiences, and given the haphazard form of them, they seem perfectly appropriate for this […]