Hi! I need help answering the following questions
Find examples of how her preschool classroom meets the criteria for developmentally appropriate activities.
Explain how there is a wide, but not overwhelming, variety of age appropriate activities that occur throughout the day.
Give examples of how Mrs. Sandal schedules activities so that they occur at the same time each day.
How does she emphasize concrete activities that actively involve the children?
Explain how she encourages children to choose their own activities.
How do the children have options about when and how to complete activities?
I also need help making my paper 900 words or less could someone give me suggestions?
here is the case study:
Preschool: Mrs. Sandal’s Preschool Classroom
Mrs. Sandal, the preschool teacher, and her assistant teacher use the Project Approach to curriculum development, working closely with the children, observing, and consulting with them to determine children’s interests. The current project started with a trip to the hardware store to get a gallon of paint mixed for the tricycle storage shed (the trip was a shared experience for every child in the class). Mrs. Sandal had visited the store ahead of time and talked with the person who would mix the paint, giving the store employee suggestions as to what she might say to the children.
The “paint lady,” as the children called her, opened the can and showed the light base color, almost white. She showed the paint chip with the color the school needed. Then she used the rotating device holding concentrated colors and carefully added the three different colors they needed to the base color, showing and naming each new concentrated color. “I need a teeny-tiny bit of black,” she said, using her thumb and forefinger to illustrate such a tiny amount, “but we need a lot more blue paint (space measured by finger and thumb widened). Here’s the gray?only four drops. Count with me!”
She showed them the base color, now with the dark spots of coloring agents. When she put the paint can on the shaker, she asked, “What do you think is happening to the little spots of paint now? Why do we need to shake the can?” In addition, she said, “What do you think the paint will look like after it has been shaken?” When she opened the can, the children confirmed their hypothesis about a new color, and she made a color chip for each child. The teachers decided that a project centering on color and color mixing was appropriate and practical, as well as interesting to the children.
Mrs. Sandal and her nineteen 4-year-olds investigate things from their classroom base, a busy but calm place. She has organized the classroom into activity areas. The activities in small-group learning centers, for example, reflect the principles of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) and current projects under investigation. On arrival each day, children find areas ready for work and play, and Mrs. Sandal encourages each child to choose an area. On Monday, the children worked in different areas on the following activities.
Art Area
“Squish-squash, closely watch,” said Mrs. Sandal as four children joined her around a small table. She had placed one lump of smooth, white play dough the children had made on Friday in front of each child. Today’s focus was to add one drop of blue food coloring to a little depression in each lump of white dough and to encourage squishing, squashing, predicting, observing, and describing color changes. Investigating color changes continued at the finger-painting table, where blue and yellow paints were available, and red and white paints waited at the easel. (The play dough, finger painting, and easel are all art and science activities in this integrated curriculum.)
Library Area
This is a serene, quiet, enticing area, with good lighting and high-quality books displayed on the rack. One of the books was about mixing colors, the current topic for the investigators of color in Mrs. Sandal’s class. She put out the flannel board with figures for retelling the story of Little Blue and Little Yellow, and put out the tape recorder and headset, along with a set of pictures illustrating a story on the table.
Writing Area
This is also a high-interest area. Mrs. Sandal set out transparencies of the color of the paints mixed for the shed. Children placed the transparencies on top of each other to approximate the new color of the shed. Two children dictated a summary of that process just as the entire group had dictated a thank-you note to the paint lady at the store. Now, some of the children wrote notes to parents about the trip, attached their notes to the paint chip, and took the notes home. Two other children wrote in their trays of damp sand with a stick.
Science/Math Area
Today, the children made a graph showing the proportion of each color in the paint for the shed. Mrs. Sandal also placed three ice cube trays with clear water in each compartment on a separate table. Next to each tray were two eyedroppers, one with blue dye and one with yellow, for a color-mixing experiment. The parents have helped the teachers develop many homemade math materials (these items are packaged, labeled, and stored for easy retrieval). Two boys used some of the materials to work on the concept of larger and smaller “sets” on the table. Three other math-related games rested on shelves in the math area.
Dramatic Play Area
Dramatic play center activities usually stay set up for several days. This week, girls and boys working in the “fix-it shop” wore special “inspector” shirts. They checked books and puzzles for needed repairs, inspected tricycles for squeaks needing oiling, examined dolls for necessary bathing and washing of clothing, determined whether blocks had splinters and needed light sanding, and inspected animal housing for required cleaning and repair. They dictated needed repairs to a teacher, who wrote them in a notebook. Then, over several days, and with teacher supervision, they completed two tasks per day from the notebook,
Block Area
To follow up their one-half-block walk to watch the traffic signal change colors, Mrs. Sandal set out a model traffic signal the children could operate to change its colors. Several of the children worked on building a replica of the street outside the school, with their traffic light at the intersection.hecking off completed jobs. in the math area.
Puzzle and Manipulatives Area
The school has a large collection of well cared for puzzles and other manipulatives. On Monday, Mrs. Sandal placed three old, frequently used but well cared for puzzles on the table, and set two tubs of small, interlocking blocks on the floor. The children could also choose from among seven or eight other manipulative toys stored neatly in clear plastic containers on low, open shelves.
This early childhood classroom, the physical environment, the learning opportunities, and the time schedule, were designed and based on theory and research in child development and early childhood education.
