Mid Semester Reflection: Temperament In The Classroom

Mid Semester Reflection One developmental “aha” moment I’ve experienced while interning in the Ducks classroom is the realization of each child’s specific temperament, or temperament style after my second week of being around the children. A couple of the children have a flexible temperament and typically have positive moods, adapts easily to new situations, are easy to feed and put to sleep, and have moderate reactions when their parents leave after dropping them off. One of the children has a slow-to-warm-up temperament because she is shy and usually sits in a teacher’s lap until she feels comfortable trying something new but takes her time to adjust. A handful of the children have a difficult temperament in which they do not have regular …show more content…
There was one instance when Miss Sarah brought out two cardboard boxes for two of the children to play with but the children just glanced over at the box and continued looking at it. Miss Sarah then modeled the action of hitting the top of the box with one hand like a drum to produce beats. The two children were sitting or standing next to the box and watched Miss Sarah model the action of hitting and proceeded to lightly hit the box just like Miss Sarah did. Their faces lit up into smiles and laughter as they realized their actions of hitting the box would produce sounds and continued to do so for the next five minutes. This teaching strategy was effective in this instance because the children seemed unsure of what to do with the unknown boxes and Miss Sarah’s strategy of modeling helped to scaffold the children’s learning so they would know that they could use the box as a toy to create musical …show more content…
The children in the infant classrooms eat and rest based on when their body needs to eat and sleep and there is no set meal or nap time. It requires the teachers to be more interactive and hands on with the children because some of the children are not capable of feeding themselves and falling asleep on their own even if their bodies are tired. Teachers in the Ducks also rock the children to sleep individually in their arms or the rocking chair until they fall asleep. In the transition and preschool classrooms, children are directed to sit down and feed themselves during meal time regardless of whether or not they are hungry because there is a set routine that we want to encourage the children to follow as they grow older. They are also asked to lie down and rest their bodies during nap time because they engage in physical activities all day long and should be resting their bodies in the middle of the day. The amount of activities in the transition and preschool classrooms in comparison to the infant classroom is also very different because the older children require activities to stimulate their learning while the infants typically only play with the various toys around the classroom. This is because the infants are still learning about the world around them and getting familiar with all of