Tod Blog #5 Listening Skills

 Day 5 Listening Skills

• By Jasmine Santoyo
• Tuesday, April 13

Today, I was at the daycare and was planning on reading a book and doing a music and movement activity that focused on the children's listening skills. In prior weeks we would split the 2-year-old children from the older children based on their age. This week my CT told me that they've been practicing having the 2-year-olds join the older children. Since we were joining all the children together, I skipped on doing the book I had planned because it was mostly for the older children.  I could've tried tweaking the book a little so it was appropriate for all ages but the children today were having trouble listening to my CT during breakfast time and reading independently time. So I decided to do only the music and movement to get more of their energy out. 

The music and movement was a freeze dance song where it'll require the children to listen to the song and freeze and stop dancing when the song says freeze. I gave them each a kazoo to make the activity more entertaining. At first, the children just blew their kazoos. It was hard to get them to listen. My CT helped me out by getting the children to quiet down. She reminded me that when showing children how to do new activities we have to practice them together. She explained to the children that when the music says freeze don't just stop dancing but also stop blowing on the kazoos. After we practiced, we tried again with the music and the children did a lot better. 

My goal is to continue doing activities with the children and get stronger at leading the activities by demonstrating and practicing together before having the children try themselves.