Topic Observations

One of the topics I chose was phonological awareness. The teacher's had been doing a project approach with the children about trains. They had been reading different books about trains. The teacher's were going over different types of cars that connect with the locomotive engine. They were discussing the gandola car, cattle car, piggy back cars, tender or coal car, and the box car. The children were really excited about the train, and the trains different cars. Every time a train would go by the children would yell "train." The children would also name the different cars that would go by.
Another topic I chose was math skills. The teacher's created a graph to do with the children. The graph was about counting the number of trains that went by in the morning and afternoon classes for the week. The children would hear a train, and yell "train." The teacher would put a sticker on the graph for the particular day. The children, and the teacher's would count up the tally for the day, and eventually for the week. They also would compare/count how many trains went by in either the morning or the afternoon. They found out that the afternoon class had more trains than in the morning. They also found out that the morning class averaged three trains a day, and the afternoon average five cars a day.
The last topic I chose was social skills. I observed this being done in a large group setting. The children came together to voice their opinion about what topic they wanted to discuss. The children in both classes answered pets, trains, bakery, trucks, garbage truck, dogs, and cats. The tallies were counted and trains had the most votes. Next, the teacher's asked the children what they knew about trains. The answer the children gave were that trains had wheels, trains go on tracks, trains carry things. Then the teacher's asked the children what they wanted to learn about trains. The children wanted to know what trains carry, what the bar was that went down by the road, and if people go on trains. They found out that some trains are passenger trains, trains can carry gas, oil, animals, wood, and that the bars that come down are called a crossing gate. The teacher's created a web for this, and would go back to it to discuss with the children.
They also wrapped up the discussion of trains by having a person that used to work on trains come in to talk to the children. Before the visitor came, the teacher's had questions they wanted to know. The teacher's wrote them down. The man wore a conductor's suit and hat. He had a real train whistle to show the children. Also, he had some model trains to show the children. Finally, he answered the children's questions. I feel this helps with the advocacy issue by having people from the community come in, and see what are program is about.