Notes
I praised Holly for her lesson video of teaching “5 Little Speckled Frogs”. She did an amazing job of naturally inserting questions about the story that were higher-level questioning, such as “Why did the frog say yum-yum?” and “Do you think they liked the bugs? How do you know?” She also included a non-fiction book about frogs. She also asked several questions about the frog facts they learned. She did an amazing job of keeping 16 3 year olds engaged, and refocusing them when necessary.
Holly described her lessons using nursery rhymes as part of her teaching strategy, noting that the preschoolers she has this year enjoy repetition with nursery rhymes more than with storybooks. She also discussed her preparation for Monday’s lesson, which will focus on the nursery rhyme “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” She has created various materials, including visuals, puppets, coloring sheets, and a felt board version to support comprehension and engagement.
We discussed Holly’s progress in the application assignments she has left. She feels like she is in a good place with videos made and reflections drafted. She is grateful for the instructor saying extra time could be allowed. Holly has had more responsibilities placed on her since their principal left, and 2 other staff not doing their work.
When asked for some takeaways from the course, Holly highlighted the importance of oral language development in her teaching approach with 3-year-olds. She shared an example of extending a construction-themed activity to include rich vocabulary discussions with her students. She also mentioned challenges with certain concepts like morphology for 3-year-olds. She applied her new learning to include using plurals and some prefixes like untie,