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Tuesday 2/2/21 - I met today with my mentor teacher, Ms. Elisa, and one of her students, a toddler aged boy. Ms. Elisa is a homebased early head start teacher, so she meets one on one with her student and their families through WebEx. Last week, my mentor mentioned that she needs to be very flexible with her families schedules, so our practicum meetings may not always be at the same time. This first meeting was no exception, as the child was still sleeping for the original time, and we waited for the child to wake.

Once the child was on camera, Ms. Elisa started by introducing us and then quickly engaged the child. The child smiled when he saw his teacher but then looked concerned as myself and Marlene turned on our cameras. Ms. Elisa sang a hello song, then read a short board book "Dear Zoo." The teacher and parent had already pre planned an activity for the child to engage in and Ms. Elisa talked to the child while his mom helped him explore finger-painting. Once the child seemed done with that activity, Ms. Elisa waited while the child was cleaned up and continued engaging with the child and holding a conversation with mom about how the child is doing, upcoming trainings and events that the mom could attend, and the individual development plan goals that they had come up with together. She was very expressive and animated, and made sure to use interesting vocal pitches/tones to try to capture the child's interest while also very kind and empathetic to the parent. I forgot to ask the child's age after the meeting, but he was a nonverbal toddler. He was interested to look at the camera and seemed to enjoy the music and book, but maybe he was also thrown off by the new people in his virtual classroom.

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During our lesson, Ezekiel was super engaged in our activity. He spent the entire time very interested in the water and the materials that he had available like the cotton pads and qtips. He didn't quite interact with the materials as planned but it was very exciting to see such a high level of engagement. Mom did a great job offering Ezekiel lots of language throughout the activity too.

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This week our typical child was unavailable again so our mentor shared another video with a different family. We have observed this family before, with two siblings Camila and Sebastian. The mom of these children is a teen mom, so how Elisa approaches this session seems to be a little different. She went through the usual routine of good afternoon song, singing another song, reading a book, then encouraging the children while they engage in the planned experience. What's different is how Elisa talks to mom and the different topics she addresses.

This time she asked mom what she wanted to do with her life, like did she plan to go back to school, get a job, or something else. Mom relayed that she didn't really want to go back to school because she had a hard time with it plus her youngest, Camila, is only a year old so she doesn't really have time. Mom mentioned how she wanted to start her own business making treats like chocolate covered strawberries, rice Krispy treats and other treats like that.  Elisa asked her if she had previous experience with this things, but mom said that she had only tried it once before and needs to get better at it. Elisa encouraged her to keep pursuing it and to think about her future and what she wants to do.

While Mom and Elisa talked, the children played with play doh. Elisa talked about how play doh is good for fine motor skills for both the 1 year old and 3 year old. SHe encouraged mom to offer activities like this frequently. During the session, Elisa also talked about how services may change and where Mom can access support since she technically moved out of the Baldwin Park district and into a different one. The session concluded as usual with the goodbye song and planning to meet again.

After watching the video, we talked with our mentor teacher about the different services that are provided to young moms to help them and their children succeed. It was really interesting how much support early head start provides to young moms. We also discussed and planned for our upcoming lesson plan. We will meet one more time before we have spring break, then we will implement our lesson plan the week of April 12th.

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Monday 1/25/21 - I met with my mentor teacher, Elisa and my practicum partner, Marlene using WebEx. During our meeting we went over the schedule for our practicum hours. Ms. Elisa said that while they technically have set days/times to meet with the children and their families, she likes to be very flexible to meet the individual families needs. So meetings may be later if a child is napping or cranky, or maybe earlier to accommodate a parents schedule. I completely understand this, and will do my best to be flexible with her. Her expectations of us are to observe, take notes, keep track of hours and inform her of important due dates like for our lesson plans.

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We observed Ezekiel this week, and I was so excited to see him out of his high chair. The session began as usual with the welcome song. This weeks experience was having Ezekiel line up cars to help him develop one to one correspondence. As mom and Ezekiel lined up the cards, Elisa was talking about how what he's doing now lays the foundation of math skills that he will need later. She talked about the ten frame that her daughter is currently learning. They spent a lot of time talking about how even though Ezekiel may not count yet, its so important to expose him to these concepts early and often. Mom brought out an abacus and showed it to Ms. Elisa and they talked about how that was a great toy for both Ezekiel and his older brother to be exposed to math concepts. Ezekiel was very interested in the abacus and liked to manipulate the materials. After a while, he indicated that he was done playing so Elisa sang the goodbye song and continued to talk with Mom about Ezekiel's development and her concerns.

A lot of the session was focused on catching up about classes and support that headstart offers. Mom and Elisa also talked about family matters that are concerning mom.

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I was really excited to learn that we had been assigned to an early head start home visitor for infants and toddlers. This is basically the perfect practicum experience for me, since I want to specialize in infants and toddlers and I don't have experience with home visiting or Head Start. I know that it will be a little different because we're working with the children virtually but I'm excited to learn from the teacher about all the different thing her job entails. During our meeting she mentions how she's responsible for teaching the child and parents, as well as monitoring the child's nutrition, physical/mental health and overall development.

I think the thing I feel most nervous about is being flexible for my practicum. I have a lot of flexibility at work as long as my classroom is in ratio, but it's still a concern since it's unknown. Overall, I'm very excited to be starting my practicum and look forward to the coming weeks.

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I didn't fully realize how many different hats that an early headstart home visitor had to wear. Not only is she responsible for enhancing the development of the child through individualized lessons but she also has to provide support to the family and capture a variety of data and information to continue to move forward. In a lot of ways this is like what I do in my center-based toddler class. It's so important to talk to parents to understand their child and their families background, and really offer as much support as we can.  I try to give my parents resources and opportunities to learn more if they ask. We also need to collect data and individualize lessons but it seems so much harder through a virtual setting. I feel like the child doesn't have the attention span that they might have in a classroom but I do think my mentor teacher accomplished a lot in the time she was able to engage the child. She created activities based off his interests and prior experiences, and also gauged how fast to move on based on the child's responses and cues. I'm excited to continue observing and learning more in the coming weeks.

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Tuesday 2/9/21 - This weeks meeting last approximately 45 minutes, although there were some technical difficulties.

The meeting began with a hello song which went "Good Afternoon (name), How are you? Just fine!" She then began to sing "itsy bitsy spider" with finger motions but had difficulty with her video freezing. The mom mentioned it and Ms. Elisa had to reconnect to her hotspot and change a few settings. The mom also expressed that her own WebEx app said it needed updating. Ms. Elisa explained the mom would physically need to go to a Baldwin Park school to connect to their internet in order to get the appropriate update.

The experience today for the child was to put a small ball and toy into a sock then pull it out. Ms. Elisa preps her parents with a text ahead of time with the materials needed and what the parents should do during the activity. While the activity was happening, the mom offered her child some language while Ms. Elisa supported the mom and child with encouragement, language development and praise. For example, when the child put a car inside the sock, Ms. Elisa "where is it? what happened?" While the mom asked is it "inside? inside the socks?" The child continues this activity for about ten minutes when you can see he starts looking around for something else to do. The mom asks "are you all done" while Ms. Elisa says "all done E?" as she signs for all done. The child waves his hands in the air in a similar manner to all done, and Ms. Elisa claps and exclaims "you said you were all done!" She sings a goodbye song with the child.

The mom sets the child down to go play, but Ms. Elisa continues to talk to her about how her and the family is doing. She asks about their routines and how they're coping in a pandemic. The family lives in a small second story apartment, so the children have limited room to play and don't really get a chance to go outside. Ms. Elisa listens and also offers guidance about how the family can incorporate more outside time. She also mentions again that there's yoga for families which may be a great way to get some excess energy burned. The mom is distracted by her children, so Ms. Elisa offers to call her on the telephone since it may be more convenient for mom to supervise on the telephone in the same room as the children.

Talking to our mentor teacher after the meeting, we learned more about how the sessions are conducted. There is a schedule planned for the sessions that Elisa is required to go over. It starts with the hello song and making conversation about how the child and family are doing. Then she moves to a language/literacy activity, like singing, fingerplays, or books. Then she moves into an "experience" which is based off of a few different curriculums including Frog Street Home-based, Pathways, and another book. Elisa says she aims for her experiences to be 10-15 minutes in length to fit the child's attention span and the families needs. She also told us that it's difficult for families right now to schedule and make time for these sessions because of everything going on in their lives. She also mentions that it's harder now to plan curriculum since most families don't have access to a lot of materials/toys.

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Learning more about Ms. Elisa's job just really highlights what I mentioned last week, a home visitor has to wear a lot of hats in order to support young children and their families. Ms. Elisa mentions that she often feels like a social worker because not only is she responsible for the child's development but she needs to ensure the family is safe, eating healthy, and a bunch of other things. She also expressed how difficult it has been for her during the pandemic not being able to do all of this in person since families have such a short time available.

I wonder if the sessions are helpful for the children and families. I know that I've struggled to adapt my in-person teaching to the new policies and regulations that the pandemic has caused, and I'm a bit in awe of having to adapt those lessons to a virtual format as well. I worry about young children that don't have access to an in-person education, because I feel like they may not be getting the best intervention and support that they could. I wonder what effects this will have on children's development as time goes on.  I'm also feeling a little nervous about my lesson plan because 10-15 minutes isn't a lot of time to cover material, even if it is for a toddler.

I think keep the sessions structured the same ways helps the child and family stay on track, and Ms. Elisa does a great job being a great listener and supporting the family too. She's very expressive with the child and tries to get his attention in many different ways. I also think it's great to have continued contact with the family throughout the week so that she can support the parents in continuing to enrich their child's environment and enhance their development. I think the most important thing is to be really kind to yourself and to the families you're working with during this difficult time.

I feel like I'm learning about a lot of resources and curriculums that I didn't know about before, like Pathways and Frog Street. At my center, my director thinks that teachers should be able to think of their own curriculum based off their children's needs. I think this is important too, but at the same time I like how Pathways and Frog Street offer activities with specific milestones and developmental domains in mind. I think it can be a great tool, like for example you know you need to develop a specific child's fine motor, so you can find an activity that supports that.

We also talked about how to use materials that families have at home right now, which Ms. Elisa admits is a challenge since she was so used to sharing materials with families. It was interesting though, that Ms. Elisa wasn't familiar with using loose parts since I've had many professors really talk about its benefits. I guess that goes to show that an early educator is always learning and developing their practice.

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The meeting started with the teacher welcoming the child and his mother, singing the good morning song. Ezekiel looked at the screen and brought his hands together while Elisa sang good morning.  Her face was very expressive as she sang. She then began to sing "itsy bitsy spider" with the finger motions. Ezekiel moved his hands together and appeared to mimic the motions that the teacher was doing.

The child's older brother came into the camera view and brought a dinosaur with him. He began to point to it and said dinosaur. Ms. Elisa took the time to talk and engage both boys, asking the older brother about the dinosaur and asking Ezekiel if he's seen his brother's dinosaur while adding additional vocabulary.

Elisa also read a book with Inside Out characters and started to talk about emotions and feelings with Ezekiel and his mother. The mother had a mirror for this experience for Ezekiel to look at himself. Elisa described strategies to help all of the children to learn more about their feelings, be able to identity and express themselves, and how to handle tantrums.  After Ezekiel looked at himself for a while, he seemed to indicate that he was done. Mom and the teacher asked and signed if he was "all done" then let him go.

The rest of the meting consisted of Elisa checking in with mom about nutrition, allergies and what foods to introduce. She also checked in with mom about how the yoga class that HeadStart is offering went. Mom and Elisa also made plans for activities for the next week.

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I really like the job that Elisa has. I think Early Head Start is a really valuable service to support young children and their families. I keeping touching on this topic, but it's amazing how much of the child's development that Ms. Elisa covers and how much knowledge that she has to bring with her. She went really into depth about introducing new foods to Ezekiel and all of the potential allergens that they should be aware of. I always talk a little bit about nutrition or allergies if parent's have questions but I don't take a proactive approach in educating them. Elisa never comes off as if she's instructing or teaching mom, but it feels like a conversation. Elisa has mentioned that she has lots of paperwork related to the topics she covers but she wants to talk about it in a more conversational tone to build the relationship with the mom.

Talking with families is definitely an area that I need to improve on in my own practice, so I'm very grateful to be observing someone who does it so naturally. I also worry, too, about my authority on the topic of child development. Like, I've received a pretty thorough education in the field but I've had moments when people didn't respect my knowledge simply because I haven't had a child yet. Granted, I work full-time with young children but it's not the same as living with them.

I'm also feeling a little concerned about my lesson plan just because of the virtual setting and the lack of time we've had with the child. I think our first lesson will go well and I've been paying close attention to the child's interests.

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This week the child we have been observing wasn't available so our mentor teacher shared a recording of a different session that she had this week so that we can see the different ways she works with children and families. This week we observed 12 month old Jr. and his mother. The session began the same as usual, with the good afternoon song. A Elisa talked to the child and mom, she used her usual kind and animated voices. Mom and teacher spoke in English and Spanish this week, which is different than the majority English used in our typical sessions. This week she wanted to focus on teaching mom and child action words to help Jr. learn how to express himself self, like "want," "touch," and "give."

After singing and reading a book with the child, Elisa began to go over a milestone checklist with mom. They talk about the child's interactions with literacy, what words the child is currently using, about the child's pacifier usage and self-help skills like dressing. The child played on screen while the adults talked, but Elisa would shift her attention to the child when she noticed him paying attention by talking to him.

After watching the video, our mentor asked if we had any questions. I asked her how she enjoyed her job, and what she thought about since I wanted to know more about other job opportunities in our field other than as a center-based teacher. We talked about what home visiting is like, if Elisa enjoyed her work, and the challenging parts of home visiting. She mentioned that home visiting isn't for everyone because it can be difficult for some people to go into homes that are messy/dirty, small and cramped, or have cockroach infestations, without judging the families. A big part of home visiting is not only teaching the child but supporting the family and teaching them too.

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This week was a little different than usual again. My mentor teacher took a personal day on the day of our usual session, since she had to do a drive through picture day for her daughter. We met on Thursday and reviewed two different weekly sessions that were scheduled during times my partner and I were unavailable. My mentor teacher, Elisa, said that she liked having the opportunity to share different sessions since every family is different and the children's ages are much different as well.

The first video we viewed was of two older toddlers, Camilla and Sebastian. The children were technically aged out of early head start home visiting, but Elisa would continue to support them until the center based care opened. The session began in the same way as others with the good afternoon song and greeting the children and family members. This quickly transitioned into wheels on the bus with the children, using lots of hand motions to go along with the song. The two children seemed excited and engaged to be working with Elisa. After the song ended, the children were starting to "woof" like a dog so Ms. Elisa asked if they would like to sing Old McDonald and when the children shook their heads for yes she started. After the song, the children seemed to be less engaged so she began to talk to the mom about getting the children ready for center-based education and the activities that they could work on such as practicing hold a pencil and making lines. The children then began to engage again with Elisa, playing rock, paper, scissors while Elisa was animated and laughing with the children. The session concluded with the goodbye song.  This session was approximately 15 minutes.

The second session was with the child we typically observe, Ezekiel. Ezekiel and his family went to a drive through dinosaur exhibit over the weekend, so Ezekiel and his siblings were very excited about dinosaurs. They also received a goody bag with dinosaurs and slime so while Elisa originally planned this weeks experience around blocks, she quickly shifted to using the slime and dinosaurs to match the child's interest. Elisa offered mom lots of appropriate language for working with slime like wet, damp, moist, sticky, and squishy. She very animatedly talked to Ezekiel and made lots of gestures to capture his attention. She talked with mom about other sensory options, especially using sensory materials that are more taste safe than slime.

After viewing the videos, we reviewed our upcoming lesson plan for the next week. Elisa was impressed with our through lesson plan and gave us some tips to help it go more smoothly.

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I'm feeling a little nervous about implementing our lesson plan! Marlene is taking the lead but I still feel nervous about how it will go. I actually taught my toddler students via zoom for a few months, but I feel like I already had that relationship with the children and families to help it go more smoothly. This semesters practicum experience has been a little disappointing because I'm not getting as hands on as it would be in person, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can from it.

I like being able to see the different sessions that Elisa conducts, and how she interacts with the different families. She individualizes her content and demeanor depending on the family in a way that helps each family and child feel comfortable and at ease. I like how she never shames the parents, even if they aren't doing something exactly right (like giving a young child slime). She simply lets them know a better way without judgement or condescension and she takes the time to really listen to what the parents have to say. This is a really valuable skill in building those relationships with people so I'm glad to see it in action.

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I think I really need to improve my Spanish. I know a little Spanish from my childhood and I have a 3 years of high school Spanish but it's been years since I've really practiced it. I use basic words, phrases and commands with my DLL toddler students which is super useful in helping them navigate our class but I'm no where near fluent enough to have an actual conversation with a child or parent. I think that being able to converse with families and children is important, especially with so many Spanish speakers in Southern California. I'm lucky that I have a fluent co-teacher but that may not always be the case in the future.

I really appreciated the opportunity to talk to Elisa about her actual job. I've worked as a nanny and in center based care, but there are so many other jobs in Early Care and Education that I would like to learn about explore about. I think all infant-toddler positions really require building a relationship with families along with the children, but working as home visitor takes that a step further. Elisa seems to genuinely enjoy her conversations with parents and through that conversation she is able to teach parents about child development and how to nurture their child's development.

Elisa made a very strong point about how home visiting isn't for everyone, especially if you're uncomfortable with poverty. She says how some teachers were very uncomfortable with cockroaches and the small living spaces. For me, this isn't necessarily an issue. I have personal knowledge that cockroaches isn't necessarily something that an individual apartment can control, families can be super clean and organized and still have an infestation because of the condition of neighboring apartments.

Watching Elisa teach, I'm really aware of how much I need to improve in my relationship building with families. I try my best to offer judgement free support and to be warm and friendly but Elisa seems so natural at it. She has been teaching for over 10 years though, so she does have much more experience and practice than myself. But it is something that I need to be conscious and intentional about in the future.

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This lesson went really well! I think we need to work on our delivery and confidence in the next lesson, but overall I'm very happy with the level of engagement from Ezekiel. I would like to continue exploring water and sensory materials with Ezekiel for our second lesson plan but I do need to consult with our mentor teacher first.

I think a lot of my concerns and thoughts about this lesson were covered in my reflection that I turned in but I just want to post a small reflection here on the padlet. I was really nervous implementing this lesson, there's something about being virtual that really throws me off compared to being in the classroom. I think part of it is that in the classroom, I know my students. I have really strong relationships with them and their families, so it makes teaching easy for me. I know what they're interested in and I know where they're at developmentally and verbally so I can adjust really easily to meet their needs. Online, with the limited observation and interactions, is much more difficult even with cameras. I think the challenge of online teaching though can help strengthen my teaching practice in the long run, so I will continue to keep challenging myself to succeed.

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I'm a little disappointed that we've been observing only though videos lately but I know that Elisa is going above and beyond to meet our scheduling needs. I really appreciate watching the videos because it gives us time to really explore and talk more with our mentor teacher about what we are observing, which has been super informational and helpful while I figure out what exactly I want to do in the early childhood field.

I felt a little sad for Mom since she's so young and wants to just make homemade treats to sell on social media. I know several stay at home moms that do this, so it's not necessarily that I look down on it, but the economic support isn't very much from a small home based business like that. I think that hearing about Mom's desire really highlights to me how different expectations can be for other people, even if we're technically the same ethnicity. I was always pushed that college was the only way to succeed in life but I also recognize that that's my personal bias and not truth. Elisa does such a good job of looking at the positive aspects of Mom's goals without ever disparaging her or telling her it's not good enough. I think this is amazing and something that I want to emulate as I move forward.

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Today we implemented our second lesson plan with Ezekiel and it went so well! At first, it didn't seem like he was interested in the screen and looking to the side more at what his mom was doing at the side. As we progressed into the activity, I noticed him paying more attention after I adjusted my camera to show him what I was doing. Together we created bubbles and washed our toys. Mom offered amazing language support. Ezekiel was so happy and actually engaging with me through the screen, which in turn made me really happy as well. He was vocalizing a lot and I was able to understand several different words during our time together. I worked with Ezekiel until he was done, and I felt like it was a great experience.

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I honestly just feel really proud of my growth from the first lesson to this one. The first one I felt so nervous, even though Marlene was taking the lead. This lesson, after getting to know Ezekiel (and everyone else involved) I felt so much more confident on camera. I felt like my natural teacher mode kicked in like when I'm actually in the classroom with kids. I had a lot of fun exploring this activity with Ezekiel and I was so excited to hear him really verbalize and interact with the material. I think it helped that I was overprepared too.

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For this lesson, I took the lead in planning the lesson. I wanted to build off the great experience we had for our first lesson, with Ezekiel deeply engaged in playing with the water and materials that were provided. Marlene and I communicated through text, then I emailed her the draft of the lesson plan. On Sunday 3/21, we recorded our lesson trial and talked about what could be improved for our live implementation.

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During the week, Marlene and I communicated via text to plan our lesson based off Ezekiel's interests and developmental needs. We decided on a sensory activity since our mentor suggested that he needed to work with textures and fine motor skills. After deciding on our lesson, we collaborated through email in creating a lesson plan. Marlene took the lead on this first lesson, while I provided support and editing to the lesson. We then met on Sunday to record our lesson plan trial and work through any other issues that may arise during our implementation.

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No meeting due to mentor teacher's spring break

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No meeting this week

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I really wanted this to go well, so Marlene and I took extra prep time where we messaged to really iron out the details of the lesson plan. I also took the time to scan the pages of the book so that Ezekiel could see them well and for Marlene to have a copy as well. I gathered and tested all the materials to ensure that we were ready for our lesson and made adjustments to make sure it would be visible. I decided to use a cardboard box so that Ezekiel could watch me work with the materials as I talked to him.

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Mentor teacher unavailable, no observation meeting

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This was our final observation of Ezekiel. This week it was nice to see Ezekiel out of his high chair again. The camera was on the floor this week, which I found really interesting, while mom and Ezekiel sat and played on the floor as well. This week our teachers lesson was helping mom and Ezekiel play with the concept of object permanence. Mom was hiding toys in boxes while Ezekiel excitedly found them. Elisa then explained the idea of playing the shell game, but with her hands. so she hid things from Ezekiel in her hands, mixed them up, then asked him to choose. Elisa explained how this helps Ezekiel begin to track things with his eyes and also teaches him about object permeance which is an important foundational skill.   A lot of the conversation between mom and Elisa occurred while Ezekiel was playing. Mom mentioned that she recently got her vaccine, and was shamed by the nurse giving her the vaccine for breastfeeding 16 month old Ezekiel. Elisa really empathized with her and shared her own experiences in regards to breastfeeding while raising her children.

After the observation, we took the time to thank Elisa for mentoring us and supporting us during our practicum. We both acknowledged that this virtual format wasn't easy, but it was still a very impactful learning experience. Elisa let us both know that if we ever need anything, to just contact her and she will help us out the best she can.

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This experience has really shown me where my strengths are, and where I still need to grow. I'm very grateful to be able to experience the early childhood field from a different perspective and see what job opportunities are available. Ms. Elisa has a difficult job in not just teaching the children she works with, but supporting and teaching the parents as well. I see the tremendous value in the work she does, and I wish that I will able to develop my interpersonal
skills to the level that she has where she can interact with the families on such a personal level.  This last observation has shown me how much both Mom and Ezekiel have grown over the semester that we've spent with them, and this experience will forever have me as an advocate for all the services provided by early head start.

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Meeting and observations: 6.5 hrs
Lesson Plan Implementation: 1.5 hrs
Planning w/ partner: 2 hrs

Total: 10 hours