Rebecca Fischer

EDU 251

Alyce Gray

November 21, 2016

Group Time Evaluation

School: Creative Kids Learning Center Telephone Number: 702-645-0001

Teacher: Ms. Cecil Age/Grade: 3s/Preschool

Beginning Time: 9:25 a.m. Ending Time: 9:51 a.m.

Number of Adults: 1 Number of Children: 10 children

Nature of Group Time: Asked students what day it was. Sang a song about the day of the week.

Teacher and students sang “Baby Shark” and “Five Little Monkeys” songs as they sat in a circle.

Ms. Cecil then asked, “What will we do today? Yesterday we learned about Thanksgiving and

being grateful. Today we will learn more about the Indians and Pilgrims.” Teacher used

Thanksgiving bulletin board cutouts to teach the story of Thanksgiving. She passed around the

cutouts of an Indian boy, Indian girl, Pilgrim boy, Pilgrim girl, turkey, and corn in a field. They

discussed clothing differences and foods that were eaten then and now. She then told the story of

the Pilgrims not having a lot of food. The Indians were their neighbors. They taught them how

to grow food. When the food was ready, they had a party to celebrate helping each other and

being thankful for enough food. She then invited children to wear a pilgrim hat or an Indian

headband. She then said they would act like pilgrims and Indians at school today. Sang “Five

Little Monkeys” song again. Excuses each child by name to choose a toy to bring to tables or go

to a table to make their hat.

5. Appropriate? The songs were appropriate for the children to sing. They are classic preschool

songs with fun actions. However, “Baby Shark” had a very fast beat. Eight of the 10 could do

actions with it. However, only two students even tried to sing with it. “Five Little Monkeys”

was much more engaging. The beat was more kid friendly. All the children sang and did the

actions to “Five Little Monkeys”.

The story of Thanksgiving wasn’t appropriate and isn’t considered DAP for this age

group. Although the teacher tried to make it relevant by talking about clothes and foods then and

now, it was clear the ideas and main story were over their heads. Ms. Cecil also used vocabulary

that was clearly foreign to the children, such as America, ocean, freedom, planting, and

harvesting.

6. How long? Appropriate for the age? Group time lasted for about 30 minutes. It wasn’t

appropriate for the age group. The children were very restless, lying on the floor, or starting to

bother the child next to them by 9:40 a.m. That was after 15 minutes of group time. This age

group are all three years old and will be turning four years old during the school year. Thirty

minutes was way too long.

7. Space? The space they used was a large rug near the front center of the classroom. There was

plenty of room for them to sit in a circle together without being crowded.

8. Bring the children together and begin group time? Ms. Cecil didn’t use any special method.

She was at the rug and invited students that had finished snack to come join her and had them sit

with crossed legs. She asked the students what they wanted to sing. One child said, “Baby

Shark!” She agreed to sing that song. As more children were being seated, she asked, “What

about the monkey song?” She said, “Good morning!” She asked what day it was. She then had

them sing a song about Tuesday.

9. Involve the children? She asked children what songs they would like to sing and then sang

them. As she told the story of Thanksgiving, she passed around picture cutouts of what she was

talking about. Children were involved in discussing foods they like to eat. Children were

involved in talking about the clothes the Indian children wore and the Pilgrim children wore and

how they were different from what they wear. She involved the children in trying on Pilgrim

hats and Indian headbands.

10. Percentage of the time actively vs passively? They were actively involved about 30% of the

time. Most of the time, Ms. Cecil was talking. Although they sang action songs and passed

around picture cutouts and had some discussion, the majority of time was spent listening to the

teacher.

11. Children react? About four of the children were eager to volunteer discussion or comments

even if it had nothing to do with what was happening. The other six children sat and listened but

didn’t seem really engaged. They were the first to get restless after 10-15 minutes. Only one

child was not interested in group time at all. He was sitting at a table with a toy airplane. He

eventually did sit with his classmates for about a minute then got back up. He was happy to lay

on the child couch in the library next to me as I was writing my observation. At the end of group

time, there were two children that were still focused on the teacher.

12. Flexibility? The children followed along with Ms. Cecil. They seemed to be in a routine and

knew what to expect during group time. When children volunteered comments that were off the

subject, the teacher acknowledged their contribution by saying, “Thank you for telling us about

___.” Although she invited and encouraged the child that was not interested in group to join

them, she didn’t get upset and allowed him to do the activities that interested him. When he

brought a toy with him to group for about a minute, she didn’t ask him to put it away.
13. Individualization special needs and the typically developing? The only child that seemed to

have special needs was the one previously mentioned. At the beginning of group time, she

invited and encouraged him to join them at the carpet. He began to run around the room. She

reminded him about an airplane he likes to play with. He got the airplane and, on his own, chose

to play with it at the table. By not forcing him into an activity, she allowed him to come join

them at his pace when he was ready to interact as part of a group.

14. Gender inappropriate behaviors? Boys and girls were evenly numbered. However, since

one child wasn’t really sitting with the group, there were five girls and four boys seated with the

teacher. Boys seemed less verbal and began to get a little more restless sooner than the girls.

Two girls were most keen on participating verbally.

15. Inappropriate behaviors behavior management techniques? As students were gathering for

group time, she helped one child that had started to run around find an activity that interested

him. As children started to get restless and change sitting positions, she would ask them to sit

cross legged again. When one boy was laying on his stomach, his knees legs were bumping

another student. She reminded him to sit cross legged so he wouldn’t accidentally kick the girl

next to him. There weren’t any major behavior issues observed.

16. Ends group time? She ended group time by singing “Five Little Monkeys” again. Then she

dismissed each student by name to choose a table toy and take it to the table or go to the red table

to make a Pilgrim hat.

17. Activity follows? The next activity was to go to the tables to play with “table toys” or “do

art” by making a Pilgrim hat with the teacher. Choosing manipulatives or similar small toys to

play with is appropriate. The pilgrim hat was entirely a teacher product. There was no

involvement by the student in making the pilgrim hat. Some students made Indian headbands.
They chose feathers and glued them to brown paper cut as a headband. Again, a craft planned by

the teacher and largely prepped by the teacher. Doing a craft or product art isn’t a bad activity,

but it’s not engaging to students on a creative level where they’re learning through the process.

Evaluation: The purpose of DAP is for students to be engaged in meaningful activities and

experiences that are focused on the child’s needs. The majority of this group time only engaged

students passively. Under ECERS 35. Whole-group activities for play and learning, it discusses

that the whole purpose of group time is to encourage child participation and introduce children to

meaningful ideas in which children are interested. Thanksgiving history isn’t meaningful to this

age group. There were too many abstract ideas and unknown vocabulary to have a meaningful

experience. The curricular domains were merely skimmed with these activities. Aesthetically,

they sang familiar songs (one of which wasn’t a good beat to sing to) and tried on paper pilgrim

hats and Indian headbands. There was no real sense of appreciation for music or the types of

hats worn. The only affective quality of the activities was the teacher reminding children to sit

with crossed legs. There were some cognitive skills being developed by talking about clothing

and food and how it was different than the time of the first Thanksgiving. Although many new

words were introduced by the story of Thanksgiving, there was no prior understanding for the

vocabulary. It really wasn’t age appropriate. Physically, although they had actions to the songs

they sang, they sang sitting down. They sat down for 30 minutes. It was way too long. Socially,

they were only reminded by the teacher to be careful not to bump a student next to them and

encouraged to pass the picture cutouts. Although the teacher had short discussions about food

and clothing related to Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving was simply too abstract of a subject matter

to be addressed in this manner.

Ms. Cecil demonstrated appropriate interactions with the child that didn’t want to participate in

group time. She should’ve seen the signs of restlessness and been more child-centered during

group time. Instead she just plowed through what she wanted to teach them about Thanksgiving.

Although there weren’t any major behavior issues, she also didn’t plan to prevent them. This

group time didn’t provide for any authentic activities. Nothing they did provided for exploration,

problem solving, or was purposeful. Although the children listened and engaged in most of the

activities that were presented, the overall group time wasn’t as meaningful of an experience for

the children as it could’ve been.