Field Experience

Field Experience

1. How many hours did you complete?   5 hours

2. In a short paragraph or bulleted list, how did you spend your time?

·      Book talk with Michael Glaser—I attended a book talk hosted by The Warren County Public Library where Michael Glaser, the former Starksy from "Starsky and Hutch", read an excerpt from his new children's chapter book titled Chrystallia and the Source of Light.  He did an outstanding job changing his voice to fit each character's distinct accent and personality.  You could purchase the book there and get it autographed.

·      Todder Time—I observed Toddler Time at the Warren County Public Library two times.  A staff member led this time by singing familiar toddler songs with the toddlers, reading short books to them, and participating in interactive activities with them (i.e., lifting a colorful parachute, shaking paper plate tambourines).

·      Preschool Story Time—I observed Preschool Story Time at the Warren County Public Library.  A staff member led this time by reading different stories about monsters, singing and dancing to familiar preschool songs, and having the preschools make a monster out of the letter “M”.

·      Preschool Spanish—I observed Preschool Spanish at the Warren County Public Library two times.  A staff member led this time by teaching the preschoolers how to sing familiar songs, such as “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and “Where is Thumbkin?” in English and in Spanish, teaching them the Spanish words for different fruits and colors, reading books about fruits and replacing the English fruit word with the Spanish fruit word, and making a craft of the particular fruit.

3. How did the experience help you to strengthen at least one Kentucky Teacher Standard?

     The field experience helped me strengthen Kentucky Teacher Standard 4:  The teacher implements and manages instruction.  Through my observations during Toddler Time, Preschool Story Time, and Preschool Spanish, I saw the staff members use a variety of instructional strategies to actively engage students.  An example of this is using colorful parachutes and paper plate tambourines during Toddler Time.  These activities were engaging for the toddlers and therefore made learning more meaningful.  As a teacher, this reminded me how important it is to make sure I plan lessons with activities that actively engage all students and help make student learning “stick.”

4.  Talk a little about one thing you learned because of this field experience.

     I learned that the public library is not just a place to check out books.  There are so many wonderful resources the public library offers for educators, adults, children of all ages, teenagers, and members of the community.  Our library offers weekly story time events for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, numerous workshops, a summer reading program for children that includes fun events, author/illustrator visits, computers, and much more.  I plan to use the public library as a resource, in addition to our school library, to help enhance student learning through literature in the classroom.