Functional Area 1- Physical
My goal is to enhance physical education/activities with the children. This goal is important to me because it helps childrens growth and creates strong bones/muscles to help children pick up healthy routines. One thing I like to do is plan a extra physical activity everyday. While on the playground I have done relay races, obstacle courses, and a good game of freeze tag to increase physical activity on the playground. We have an Enrichment Center where I like to take the children each week. Recently we tested our balancing skills on the balance beam. Also, on rainy days we play musical chairs, freeze dance, and a fun bowling game. Anything to get those hearts pumping. During circle time we also discuss why being physical is healthy.
Functional Area 2-Cognitive
One of my goals is to have various activities available to help with cognitive development. By meeting this goal it will help the children build different learning skills such as thinking and memory. In my classroom I created a memory game where the children have to flip over a card and try to match the uppercase letter with the lowercase letter. Another example of something else I do in the classroom is cause and effect activities to get their brains going. We do experiments and I ask the children to document what they think will happen before the experiment and then what actually happened after the experiment. In the classroom we also practice with sequence cards where we recall what happened first, second, and last. I am able to achieve the goal of cognitive development by doing these different activities and by providing opportunities.
Functional Area 3- Communication
My goal is to give children various opportunities to gain effective communication skills by practicing public speaking. This goal is important to me because communication helps them to feel confident by expressing themselves. To achieve this goal within the classroom we have show and share once a week. The children bring in one toy from home and then each child comes up to the front of the classroom one at a time where they will state their first and last name and a brief description of what they brought to school that day. After that the other classmates are able to ask questions or make a comment. Doing this helps the children gain confidence of communicating in front of a group and public speaking. During center time we practice sight words. Each student takes turns using a sight word in a sentence. Also, when reading books I ask the children open ended questions about the book to help them speak out on their thoughts and to work on comprehension. They are also encourage to try to read a couple of sight words found in the easy reader books.
Functional Area 4- Creativity
One of my goals is to give children many opportunities to be creative and to encourage them to think in their own unique ways. It is important for children to have the space to be creative because it allows them to become independent thinkers and to think in different ways. For Art I always list the materials that I will add to the table but I never state what the final product should be. For example, I will add coffee filters, pipe cleaners, and markers to the table. Some said they created butterflies and others said they made a airplane, bird, and pinwheel. Children can be so creative if given the opportunity. One lesson was about building a building using wooden blocks. When the activity was complete one child said they created a home for the animals and grabbed other materials outside of the wooden blocks. One more example is we were practicing how to write a uppercase and lowercase "A" on the chalk board. Another child actually wrote down several words that began with the letter "A." Children are creative if you give them the opportunity to think in their own way.
Competency statement 2- Minnett Woody