CS II
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
I am a firm believer that children need to be challenged in everyday living to be able to succeed in life. These challenges need to be expressed not only in physical activities throughout their days and lives but, also through their mental capapcities. It is not only my job but, also my responsibility to assess each child and help them to reach their fullest potential. I need to set expectations in order to help each child reach that potential. I understand and acknowledge that children need to have expectations placed on them or they can lose interest in striving for new things. Meeting expectations can provide a sense of motivation and have a significant impact on the child’s attitude, self worth, and confidence. Without expectations children often don’t feel they are capable and competent. I will be intentional in every aspect of my teaching strategies and not reach out expecting to reach the group as a whole but to set my expectations to maximize the learning of everyone personally. Only in this way can I set expectations that are really about helping each child reach their full potential. I will adopt a growth mindset that will be the key to each child’s success.
I will emphasize the importance of hard work and how valueable and rewarding the hard work is. My expectations will be clear, realistic, and reasonable. I will set clearly defined expectations and make sure they know exactly what they are and how I expect them to achieve them. Mistakes will be encouraged because I know that if I am to help too much, I will be conveying the message to them that my expectations are low and that I don’t actually believe they can achieve the goals. I will offer whatever emotional and practical support I can and that they may need in order to achieve their goals. All of this will be accomplished by my providing the children with a safe environment that they will want to explore and a nuturing environment through play experiences in order to build higher skill levels, by supplying the needed materials that stimulate their creativity, and by offering the needed space that will be interesting and inviting. I will be the caring adult that will engage in physical activities with them and give them the time they need and deserve to play, be creative, and communicate while learning. These daily physical activities will promote the children’s cognitive, creative, and language growth as well as their physical development. For these reasons, I feel confident that I offer great opportunities to advance physical and intellectual competence in children.
Physical
To advance the physical and intellectual competence of my students I will plan activities that will provide the children with regular opportunites to move their bodies both in free play and in organized activities. These activities will be comprised of movements that I am sure the child is able to perform. I will provide various amounts of equipment and activities that will enhance the physical development of the children. Children will be able to use both their large muscles (gross motor) and small muscles (fine motor) to build their body strength and to become familiar with how to use their muscles with my activities. To encourage frequent play, I will freely and willingly participate with children in active play or other physical activities.
This allows me to model movement skills, offer individualized assistance, learn how children approach and respond to physical challenges and encourage children to practice and refine skills. This will help to motivate children to engage in vigorous activities by showing enthusiasm, making it fun, and encourage them to step forward to try new and different things. By offering activities such as throwing things, rolling balls, and moving arms up and down, I will strengthen the upper body. When doing activities such as jumping, running, and balance beams, I will help them improve the strength in the lower parts of the body. Silly body movements and free choice dancing can offer multiple gross movements. I will also plan activities that will help the children learn to maintain a steady beat and provide simple games that promote eye / hand coordination. I will also provide activities and materials that will provide for a range of fine motor activities. These will include painting, puzzles, writing, and coloring. I will offer and adapt activities to allow children to participate with success. I will plan an approach that allows children to be actively involved in routines and allow enough time for participation.
Cognitive
To advance the physical and intellectual competence of my students I will encourage the children to explore, investigate, and ask many questions. Since childhood involves learning about the world, and finding their place in it and with so much to learn, I recognize that the source of each child’s motivation might not be clear and it is my duty to help them find it, especially knowing that teachers are one of the most influential people in a child’s life. I will encourage the children to actively explore their world and manipulate the objects in it. Children will be encouraged to think about how to solve problems rather than simply asking a question and receiving an answer. I will keep all activities interesting so that children will want to learn and use their minds. In my classroom cognitive skills will be used on a daily basis as children talk and engage with adults and other children in a variety of roles, repeating what they have seen and done, and practicing their learning. I will ask the children about their work and encourage them to discuss what they are doing. By increasing their ability to describe objects and experiences with words will help reinforce their understanding of abstract concepts. I will never try to teach all children in the same way. It is important that I know how the children learn and develop individually.
This allows for more effective teaching and allows me to be in tune with the way each child thinks and learns. Each child will be met where they are as individuals and each child will be able to attain challenging and achievable goals that will contribute to his or her ongoing development and learning. I will be sure that all children feel confident as they go forward and I will set goals for them that I know they will be able to meet. My expectations shall not be set too high or too low. I will plan my curriculum and adapt my teaching strategies to help children make continued progress. This developmentally appropriate practice will be based not only off the child’s age but also off their experience, abilities, and interests. This will help them attain challenging and achievable goals. Their learning will be maximized and most effective when the materials or experiences build on what they already know and on what they can do while also requiring them to stretch toward new skills and understandings. I will also expand their learning through play, introduce a variety of new opportunities for learning, and ensure the children experience a balance of challenge and success. My goals will be realistic and attainable for most children within the age group and set up to where all will have plenty of opportunities to practice newly achieved skills until the point of mastery. Once mastered they will be provided with new challenges to continue to learn.
Communication
To advance the physical and intellectual competence of my students I will develop a wide range of activities to communicate both verbally and nonverbally. I will spend a majority of my day communicating actively with each child while modeling good speech and listening carefully. I will document and make any observations I need in case a student may need to be referred for speech therapy or begins to display any developmental delays. I will have labels around my classroom so children will begin to match the words with objects. In my classroom I will help children learn and understand how to properly communicate by using words or body language as appropriate. I will do this by encouraging children to talk with their peers. I will ask the children about their work and encourage them to explain in detailed sentences. I will be actively responding to their expressions while engaging in conversations with them and building on their verbal and nonverbal understanding and vocabulary.
Knowing that early literacy experiences provide the foundation for later success in learning to read and write, I will be reading at least one book a day and offering books throughout the centers all day long. While reading I will introduce new vocabulary and encourage the children to use the word throughout the day. After reading a story I will give each child a chance to ask questions. My most valued point to communication is my response to the children themselves. I will reach out with inspirational words such as I believe you can do this, I have faith in you, and I believe you can reach your goals, lets work towards it. Only then will I know that my expectations will help them reach their goals, achieve their best, feel confident and capable, be motivating and encouraging. I will also offer reassurance and praise in times of disappointment as I want them to know it is normal to have struggles in everyday life and that by understanding that, they will grow motivated by their mistakes, try to discover where they went wrong, and strive to fix it in the future on their own. I will offer support and encouragement throughout all learning processes, not after an unsuccessful outcome. This will help teach the children to speak kindly to others, give words of encouragement, and have empathy towards their peers when they notice a friend is in need.
Creative
To advance the physical and intellectual competence of my students I will focus on the value of the process that goes into activities rather than the outcome. I will aim for personal bests and fulfilled potential. I expect them to be competent enough to independently fulfill all of their tasks and will be patient enough for them to complete them. I will observe the children’s engagement with materials, activities, and people in order to learn about each child’s abilities and interests. Their creativity will be promoted by allowing them to express themselves through the use of their bodies, words, materials, and through make-believe play. I will also promote creativity by providing space, time, and materials for children to create and recreate their individual works, their own dramas, and their unique solutions to problems and by respecting the process of creativity as much as the product itself.
My children will be prompted to be creative by asking them to think of different scenarios for things they are doing throughout the day. They will have access to materials such as markers, crayons, paint, pencils, and paper. Having these materials accessible will allow them to explore and be creative. I will also make it a personal goal to ensure the physical environment of the classroom has materials appropriately placed at the children’s eye level, make sure I have the day scheduled to best suit their learning abilities, and take the time to personally set up intentional groupings among the students for various learning experiences and activities. There will be sufficient space, toys, and equipment provided for children initiated physical activities that will allow the children to play and move freely without getting in each other’s way.
