Observing Communication

I was able to observe my daughter, Arianna with her daddy.  Daddy was pulling weeds and Ari was with him in the garden.  Daddy was bent over showing Arianna which items were weeds and which ones were plants.  He explained he wanted the weeds pulled but not the plants which would later become flowers.  He asked if Ari wanted to help him.  With an enthusiastic YES, Daddy put gardening gloves on Ari and and weeding began.  Ari would ask, "Is this a weed?" Daddy would go over, say yes and help her pull it out.  He would show her where the mint leaves were beginning to grow on the root.  They continued like that and when weeds were pulled Ari would clap and say, "YES!" 

There were ways that communication could have been more effective.  For example, Daddy could have asked more questions of Arianna so she could have shown what she was learning.   Arianna learned a lot with Daddy and self-worth was increased by celebrating a goal getting accomplished. 

I learned a lot about watching Daddy with Arianna.  I, in my impatience would probably have rushed the weeding to hurry it along.  Daddy was very patient and took his time.  I could learn to be more patient especially when children are learning something they haven't done before. 

Creating Affirming Environments

At Joyful Rainbow, we will celebrate families.  I would like to adopt some of Adrianna Castillo's ideas.  Some of the ideas I would incorporate include a communication binder where parents can sign in and talk about how the child slept the night before and how their morning was.  This would be incorporated into our Welcome Center where parents can find additional information such as daily schedules, monthly calendars, photo binder of activities completed, and general resources.  The Welcome Center will also have a calendar where parents can sign up to come participate in our day to volunteer or just observe.  We will have photos of our families to foster community.  I think having a nap room is wonderful.  It will be  a place where children can cry or sleep when they come in.  I think Adrianna's belief that she lets the children cry and lets them deal with their emotions is a wonderful idea.  Helping children make their own transition is a positive aspect of the day.

The classroom environment will be rich in color and diversity.  Children will see themselves in their classroom.  The people in their community will also be visible along with people from various groups, and ability groupings ( Derman-Sparks, & Edward, 2011, p. 43).  Our classroom will be filled with puzzles in our puzzle corner.  These puzzles will be hand-made to reflect our families by taking enlarged photos, matting them on manila folders and cutting them into age-appropriate sizes and number of pieces.  Our classroom will be filled with toys, specifically dolls that represent the students in the class.  There  will be a doll place where children can play with our realistic dolls in imaginative and creative ways.  We will have an art center incorporating colored pencils, crayons, paint, stamps, ink pads, paper and other art supplies.  Children will be encouraged to draw and paint about their world.  Our literacy center will be filled with books that are multicultural, multilingual, and kid-created.  We will have a reader of the month that will be a respected person or parent in the community.  Our school will be a place where our students and their families are celebrated.  We will have mostly kid-created items in our classroom.  Parents will be an integral part of our school community.  To incorporate a home-school connection, there will be a Bookbag of the Month.  In this bookbag there will be a multicultural book, maybe Hairs by Sandra Cisneros. Families will be asked to read the book with their child, and write or respond in a creative way to this book.  Those responses could include a photo of them reading with their child, an illustration of their favorite part or any other creative way to respond.  Our school will be a place where everyone is welcome and celebrated.