Hillary Wilson

Video Reflection

I was at the Weekday Preschool at Athens First United Methodist. This school focuses on
the students learning and motor skills, as well as a strong focus on bible studies. I really enjoyed
being in this classroom. A close family friend from home is the director at a church school and it
is always interesting to see the similarities and differences between two schools like this. My
kids are four and five years old. My lesson happened in the morning, and was a whole group
setting including eight students. The students arrive and sign in, complete morning worksheets,
and then the calendar time starts. I chose to do calendar time because so much goes on during
that time that involves the students learning, reviewing, and talking. I added in the read aloud at
the end to focus on the theme for that week which was families. I wanted to find a book that
covered a variety of families so that we could take the time to talk about how each family is
different.
There are many moments during the lesson that align with one of the Georgia Early
Learning Performance Standards. The students show that they can attend to routine tasks and
social rules while in a group setting. They know where their spots are on the carpet, and they
know the order that calendar time follows: months, weeks, day/date, weather, etc. A few students
were quick to tell me when I got off track! They are able to relate information from their own life
with topics that we go over in class. They have built a relationship with me over the past months.
When I first started going to their class a few students would not even speak to me, and now they
love to fill me in on all their stories. They have developed relationships with the other students in
the classroom and continue to work on social skills. We are working on keeping our hands and

feet to ourselves right now, and it is a true struggle for a few students. They are more and more
confident in their abilities to count and recall facts, and they typically respond quickly and
appropriately to spoken word. The students are able to follow directions and requests, even when
the requests come from their peers. They demonstrate oral language skills by using their words to
describe or discuss topics. They have acquired story sense and can remember what happens in
books. They can also show book awareness. They have a song they sing before a story is read to
them that points out the front cover, back cover, spine, and whether the book is hardback or soft
cover. Calendar time and counting the days we have been in class helps them build number
concept. The caterpillar pattern that counts numbers of days in school has a color pattern that
helps the students identify basic colors. During weather time they explore the environment and
are able to use language to describe what they see out the window and how the air felt that
morning. This week they were able to recognize family roles and personal relationships because
we focused on the students families. The read aloud book also helped them discuss how their
families are different or similar.
I feel that overall the lesson went well. Watching yourself teach a lesson is never a fun
experience because all you can really focus on is what you are doing wrong. After looking back
at my lesson plan I feel that I followed it pretty accurately. I was not able to do the extension
with the students, but I hit all the major parts of the lesson. I did not need to incorporate any
modifications, although I did use a few accommodations. It was only my second or third time
leading calendar time so I forgot that the students needed to work on finding what color comes
next on their days of school caterpillar. I had to accommodate by showing them the color, but
still asking what color it was and making sure it was the color that would come next. The
students usually react to me leading any lesson very well. One student, Auden, who I call and

refer to many times in the video, is always ready to tell me what I missed and what I am doing
wrong. While I love that and appreciate his love of routine, it did throw me off one or two times.
That is something I will have to work on as I progress in the program. There will be times where
I am subbing or with a different group of students and it never fails that there is one like Auden
in the bunch. They reviewed the months in the year, the days in the week, and counting by tens
and ones. They also learned about their friends families in the classroom.
After watching the video I realized I say good job and friends way too much. I have
been working on straying from using good job as a response for a correct answer, but after
getting so used to using it through the past few years it is hard to pull away from it. Friends is a
term I picked up from Mrs. Jessica, my mentor teacher in that classroom. While I like using it
more than saying students or you guys, I do think I said it too many times. I feel the volume
that I spoke at was loud enough to keep the students attention, but I also used inflection and a
calm inviting voice. I liked the fact that I allowed students the time to speak and share what they
felt needed to be shared. We also take time to pray during this opening lesson. Each student prays
for what they want that fits into the theme for the week. This week they could pray for a family
member. At the end they always sing the same closing prayer song. I got the song wrong but
Mimi, a girl in the classroom, new it well and corrected me. I allowed her to sing it and she
enjoyed her little cameo. One thing I noticed specifically from the video that I did well was
correcting the students without stopping the lesson. In the beginning Auden is in the left corner
and he is lifting his shirt up. Instead of stopping to tell him to pull it down I just made a motion
with my hand and he pulled it down. Another time was before we counted the fish tank. The
students were talking a lot and I just said, Friends please listen, and they did without
complaint.

The video cut off right as I started my read aloud at the end. The book was titled Whos
In My Family? All About Our Families. It followed a family with a mother, father, son, and
daughter, a typical family. The family was going to the zoo and along the way they see
families that are different, and families that are the same. This gave me the opportunity to ask the
students about their families. On each page we were able to talk about different things; breakfast,
pets, distant family, holidays, where they live, who lives with them, and things like that. The
students were about to use language to discuss and learn about the other students in the
classroom. I really enjoyed reading this book aloud because I think it gave good insight to the
students in this class. I was not able to get to my extension due to time. If I am able to do this
lesson, or a similar one, in the future I will make sure to find time to fit in the extension because
I think it is important for the students to see graphs and be able to think about things
mathematically. For the extension we would make a title, Families! and below that have three
categories; Whos in a Family?, Where do Families Live?, and What are Families Like?. We
would take turns answering these and adding the responses to the graph chart. Next we would
count how many people are in each family and make a chart to show that. This chart will have
numerals on the vertical line and names of the students on the horizontal. This way the students
can compare how many people are in each family by looking at numbers. Extensions are
important parts of lessons and I wish I had time to get to mine. Another thing I will need to
modify in the lesson is adding in a way to evaluate or assess the students response.