Final Reflection

Over the course of the semester I have gotten really close to L. We have been working on him conquering his fears on land and in the water. Flashback to the first couple weeks, L would not go into the water, he would stay on the stairs. I felt at that time that we were never going to get off the stairs because Williams said last semester there was a girl that got in the last day of class. I felt defeated because L was getting baptized and his mom wanted us to be the ones to help with his fear of water. So we worked at it every week. And soon enough we were in the water up to his shoulders. But like Jerilyn said he would cling and would not let go. That's when we had an idea that Jerilyn would work with L and I would work with B. I loved working with B he was so optimistic and just such an amazing kid. We worked on floating and by the last day of CAPES! he was floating on his back ALL BY HIMSELF!! I was amazed! L and B are truly amazing and hold a special place in my heart forever! They make me appreciate the small things in life and bring excitement to my life when I feel like nothing is going right. I will miss them but like Victoria said it hasn't really hit me because I will see them for graduation. Thank you Dr. Z and Dr. Williams for giving us this opportunity to be apart of something so special and amazing. We are changing lives! And I hope that my schedule allows me to be apart of CAPES! for Fall semester.

Blog Post 9 Final reflection

Time flies! It seems to me that we just had our first CAPES! night with students not long ago, but actually we have come to an end of this semester’s lab. But children’s life and learning experiences continue with or without CAPES! As well as my practicum go on.

I remember myself feeling lost in the woods at the beginning of the lab. It was during the first time of lesson planning, when everyone was left, I sat on the floor with an IPad in front of me, had no idea what to prepare for the next night. Thanks for Jerilyn, she took me to the store room and gave me some suggestions for the next lesson plan. And Dr. Williams waited for me patiently until I finished the plan. As the lab went on, I realized I just need to try out various ideas and design different activities to see how they work. Some activities worked really well with some children; others did not go that smooth. But the key point is to TRY.

Without trying, one can never improve planning skills and guidance strategies in teaching. Without trying, one cannot move forward and discover potential talents in learning and development. It was interesting in the last lab at the rock wall place; I witnessed two totally opposite reactions from two children. L, a very obedient and caring child was so afraid of height, had an unhappy moment when he was “forced” to get up the rock wall. While, M, the boy I was assigned to that night, for his very first time, went all the way up to the wall excitedly. How different! However, I find the same element in both cases. For L, every step he makes in order to move up on the rock wall is a big challenge. If L keeps on trying and not giving up, he might make a big improvement in the future. On the other hand, we had found a potential talent that M had! M is good at rock climbing. He is a fast learner and physically strong for this sport.  

Playback the entire experience in CAPES! I am appreciate for the opportunities I was given to work with many individuals; the chances of seeing the differences from every one of them, and implementing different ideas and strategies in the practicum. Interacting with children, I believe for many of CAPES! students,  CAPES! foster positive attitudes of experiencing new environments and taking challenge to finish some tasks, which will contribute to their future life- long learning .  

 

Final Reflection

After a few weeks of working with BE I realized his most important skill development was going to be fine motor skills. So, I spent the last 4 weeks working on those. I came up with a lot of different activities and ideas to try to work on them. Then in the pool, my main goal with working with both L and BE was just to be able to get them comfortable to be unassisted in the water. BE was much further ahead of L in that regard because of L fear of water, but I worked really hard just getting BE to be able to float on his own. Not that he might need that skill in a life and death situation, but maybe its a step in the right direction. He made a lot of improvements in his ability to float unassisted. L was a little more difficult, because I had to just get him to get his head under the water. I saw SO MUCH progress in that over the 4-5 weeks I worked with him in the pool. At first he would scream and cling when we would go under. Then he stopped the screaming and just stuck with the clinging. Slowly we worked on him not clinging to me but plugging his nose, and last week I got him away from me and he was no longer clinging, and I got him floating on his back without clinging to me. L made LEAPS AND BOUNDS in the pool. He worked REALLY hard to be brave and do things that made him super anxious. So I am super proud of his progression in the water.

As far as saying goodbye, I knew that I would have more time with each of the children, whether that be next week at the party or next semester as I plan to be here working with them again. But saying goodbye was still tough. Saying goodbye to BE because he might not be there next week was the most difficult. He is just a sweetie and he is so optimistic and has such a great personality. I think that is why it was difficult. He was not my challenge student. He was pretty easy to think of things to do with, and he was so easy going about everything that I didn't have to worry that he wouldn't like something that we had planned. L was definitely my challenge, but I only really worked with him in the pool. And if that would have been goodbye forever it would have been super hard on me, but I already know I will see him again, as he is inviting me to some future events that he has and his parents would like me to keep working with him in the pool over the summer.

CAPES! has been a positive experience and I really love what I am doing. It has confirmed that this is what I want to do with my life.

Final Reflections....

During my time with B.V. I tried to incorporate a few different things while having a good time as well. During land-based activities I would try to help him read and identify different objects before we used them. I also tried to really get him to communicate better with, not only myself, but with the other kids in our group as well. I would get him to give encouragement to the other kids during activities, and during the last few weeks I could see that he would do it by himself sometimes without me needing to say anything. For both land and water-based activities I tried to incorporate math lessons as well by having him count everything; we counted how many times we did something, how many rings we recovered in the pool, and things like that. It was really neat how much of an improvement I could see in B.V. from the first week to this last week, especially in his communication with others and following directions.

I was really sad that this was our last week, but it hasn't really hit me yet. I know that I will see the kids next week fro our graduation, so I'm trying to not be sad until then. I knew this would be a fun experience, but I didn't realize how much I would learn from working with these kids and how much it would affect me. I enjoyed everything so much and because of this program I have realized that this is the area I want to teach. Although this semester might be over, I am already looking forward to working with the kids again next semester. Even if it isn't the same group of kids, I know it will be an awesome experience again!

The End is Near...

I don't feel that I have gotten in a rut with the plans I make for BE, and I don't feel like I am personally in a rut. I attribute this to several things, first of all BE has fun with everything and he has such a great attitude about it all that anything that I have tried with him he has enjoyed. Secondly, I have had several ideas that I may not even get to because we only have one week left. So that has been a bonus. I think that if I struggled coming up with things for us to do I may get stuck in more of a rut. Since I have so many ideas I don't feel like I've been stuck in a rut.
I think what the others' have said about letting our participants have some choice in the activities they participate in has a lot of pros and helps us stay out of a rut. I was planning on doing that with BE last Tuesday. I had 3 ideas I was going to let him choose from. He ended up not coming, so 2 of my 3 ideas will still be available to us this Tuesday when he comes and I plan on letting him decide between the two of them.
He likes the rock wall so that is one option
The other option will be to put a puzzle together, I also have some modeling clay we will make things out of, and then we can put shaving cream on the table and "paint" on it. All activities that will help our FMS. I know that he will enjoy all of those options.
Honestly, there are so many options with BE which makes it a bonus for me. If he didn't like so many different activities I think I would have a much more difficult time staying motivated.

I don't want this to end!

So we have this next week left and then our party. And I must say I am going to be pretty sad when this is all over. I think I fall into the trap of getting in a routine and just wanting things to be done/over. But I don't think I feel this way about this. I am actually enjoying myself. I have learned so much from L and about myself while dedicating my Tuesdays to CAPES!. I usually always have a contingency plan if L doesn't want to do what I have planned. This has happened on more than one occasion. I really thought he would be interested in climbing the rock wall but long behold he was not interested in the least bit. But we pursued it once more and this time he was very interested so this next week we are going to get him to climb the big wall because he really wants to. I decided I was going to let him choose what he wanted to do the last night and this is what he wanted to do! We are so excited for this :) I can't wait for the last night! It is going to be fun!

Oh No!! The End is Near...... ):

I have really enjoyed working with B.V. and I can't believe time has gone by this fast. I love coming up with new activities to try with B. Sometimes, though, I see that when I find one he really enjoys I kind of want to just stick with that one activity instead of continuing to introduce new things. We usually end up doing the same activity two weeks in a row, so that he can really get the hang of everything, but even I feel like things would get a little boring if I kept in the plan longer than that. In order to keep things fresh and exciting, I like to write out my lesson plan for one idea, but then over the next week I come up with a secondary lesson plan. This way I have something to fallback to, in case B.V. just doesn't seem interested with the original plan. Two weeks ago we did the rock wall. I was a little apprehensive about how it would turn out, because last semester the rock wall was not a big hit for B.V. This time, though, he seemed to really enjoy it and progressed pretty far. We weren't able to do it this past week, so I have put it on the lesson plan again. However, I have a backup plan of activities in case he decides he doesn't want to do the wall again. I think it is a good thing to have the participants involved in some of the lesson planning so that they can feel more confident about the upcoming activities. This also being the last week coming up, I want B.V. to have a big say in what we do so that we can end the semester with a BANG! instead of just another, "boring," every week activity. The energy B.V. brings every week keeps me excited and motivated, the least I can do is something to keep him engaged and excited as well.