This semester, I have been given the opportunity to observe at the Tony Reyes Bilingual Child Development Center. The center provides early care and education to children from birth to age three. The program aims to prepare children for a future in school by providing opportunities for them to grow cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally along with developing their gross and fine motor skills.
Each Wednesday morning from nine to eleven, I observe and assist in a classroom at Tony Reyes. Most of the classrooms within Tony Reyes are a part of the Early Head Start Program, but the classroom I observe in is unique because it is not a part of that program. It functions completely separately with it’s own different rules and standards.…show more content… According to Copple and Bredekamp (2009), children in both their infant and toddler years need to be in environments that are homey, uncluttered, and aesthetically pleasing (p. 79). This is absolutely true of our classroom. The walls are painted a pale and soothing green. One wall is entirely made up of floor to ceiling windows, so the room has a lot of natural light. The furniture in the classroom is made in natural colors and textures and has been specifically created to fit the sizes and needs of the children. Copple and Bredekamp (2009) also mention that it is important that “play areas offer children a variety of touch experiences (p. 79). Our classroom has a lot of different textures and surfaces created by rugs, tile, beanbags, and various soft and hard seating options. Access to open spaces also play a role in development. Each morning the Tony Reyes students go outside to play for a minimum of 45 minutes. This is a developmentally appropriate practice according to Copple and Bredkamp (2009), who encourage “open areas (indoor and outdoor) for mobile infants that encourage them to test gross motor skills and coordination” (p. 81). Overall, Tony Reyes has created an environment that is suitable for the growth of children ages birth to…show more content… 98). In order to promote play and creative learning there are no areas in our room at Tony Reyes that are off limits to the students. Children are allowed to touch and explore anything and everything in the classroom that they so choose to. In addition, because we are not an Early Head Start classroom we do not have set curriculum and activities that we are required to complete each day. In many ways, I find this extremely beneficial to promoting free play. Whatever toys or activities the children find interest in is what we focus on working on. For instance, the other day one of the students brought me a puzzle of different kinds of animals. Because he took interest in that, I used that opportunity to work with him on animal names and the sounds each animal makes. We even walked around and pretended to be each animal. This was a developmentally appropriate practice because it was the child’s choice. Another example of child driven free play was when the children asked to play with play-doh. In an effort to promote divergent thinking, we allowed the students to pick their own color of play doh that they wanted to work with. One mistake that I made, was teaching the children how to make a play-doh “snake” a certain way. This was convergent thinking and not a developmentally
