HDEC 101 - Learning Narratives

      For the learning outcomes of HDEC 101 I posted a few syllabi from my UBC coursework that I believe taught me about human development. Additionally, I commented on the posts to explain what aspects of HDEC 101 were covered. On this page, I have some photographic evidence of my practice from my class this year.

This is a picture of our door, which always has different pictures and quotes on it. 

One of my favourite corners of the room - the lighting does not do it justice! I hung two tree branches from the ceiling along with some tulle to create ambience for the environment. We hang different animals that we make on the tree branches. These snowy owls are from our Arctic Animals unit exploring Northern B.C. and Canada.

This is from an assignment I did for another NLC course on block play. I could not believe how much I learned just being given the assignment of observing children play with blocks. The developmental characteristics of block play were incredible.

These blocks are very special to me. They are Italian blocks, with a number and animal written in Italian on each block. It was fun to see how much the children wanted to play with them after seeing how passionate I felt about them. It showed me just how much my attitude can change the entire learning environment.

This student wanted to show me how when you drop something into the stream, it floats away.
 

I think that children's development is closely linked to how the educator views the child's capabilities.

I used to portion out the ingredients when baking or making our own play dough. As the year progressed, I felt confident that my students were fully able to measure themselves and follow each step of the recipe. My role shifted from facilitator to participant and observer. 

This is an example of how our calendar looked in April, before I changed it to have the students write the days of the week on the board. I felt that the children had progressed to being able to write the numbers on their own instead of just sticking a number on the spot. 

Here is our calendar with the students hand writing each number for the days of the week. I wanted them to feel empowered and confident.

I was told I needed to have a theme board by an administrator on the elementary side. Classrooms should always have theme boards, and they should go up the first day of the month. I was puzzled by this, as it does not agree with my philosophy. How can I put something up the first day of the month if we have not created something yet? Well, you go to the teacher store and buy things to paste on, of course. This is my first theme board that I made with the students.

Finally, this is a photo of my extremely supportive staff and colleagues. These women have helped me through my early childhood education courses and to be the best educator I can be. They make me a better version of myself and it is truly a pleasure to work with them. Even if I do not agree with all of the aspects of the ECE program, I will never find co-workers I enjoy working with more than this group.