During the day, I was mainly moving between children and trying to help certain children out when they needed it. For example, X (boy aged 3) who cannot speak English clearly. I was mainly focusing on him as he had distanced himself from the children in the group. When his mother would drop him off at the door, he would always cry and be upset that she would be leaving him.

Therefore, I wanted to make him feel comfortable in the setting and give him some reassurance. Whilst the other children were playing with blocks, lego and play dough. I noticed him grab hold of a Montessori activity involving colours. The activity was based around a grid of squares which had different colours on them, and the names of these colours was on a separate piece of paper which  needed to be connected to each of the colours.

Hennessy et al (1992) day care settings promote language development – particularly if it is based around real conversations and not giving instructions. For example, if the child is telling the practitioner something or if they are having a normal conversation.

I asked him “Z, would you like to match the colours?” he responded “Yes”. After joining all the colours correctly with the names of them. He said “Miss, I tell you the colour”. So I nodded and responded “Sure!”. He began to name the colours: “Yellow, blue, green, white…” Most of the names he had said with a different pronunciation – I let him carry on until he said he was finished. Then we went through them together, with him repeating them after me.

The week’s theme had now changed to learning about seasons. The children were learning about the four seasons and what whether occurs in all of them.

We were all sat around the carpet, whilst one practitioner asked the children what they would like to do. The majority of children led towards something being played on the computer. Therefore she put on a sing a long song for the children explaining the seasons. As she was putting it on a four year old boy (B) turned around and said to me “Winter is snow and summer is sun!” and smiled.

We then went on during the day, doing Montessori activities based on what the children wanted to play with and learn. Surprisingly some of the children chose to learn about seasons and were interest in finding out more.

This week’s theme at the nursery is farm animals. Therefore, myself and the children spent the day talking about and naming farm animals.

I worked in small group of 3 (E, O, J). the focus in this group with based around language and pronunciation. We completed some Montessori activities which involved the children playing around with photographs of animals and differentiating whether they live in the sea, air or on land. Whilst doing this, J (child aged 3) told me “Miss, I have fish at home and they live in water. So that means that fishes live in the sea”. He then started reaching for all the animals that had water in the pictures background.

Holt (1989) argues that if a child chooses to watch and listen to an adult, they will begin to make connections between experiences and therefore be intrigued to learn.

The director of the nursery came up to me during the day and said that she was happy with my progress and she wanted to me to be more open with the children and perhaps create my own activity for the children to complete.

Today a new boy had started in the nursery, the other practitioners had told me prior to him coming in that he is delayed within his language development. Furthermore, he does not speak much and he chooses to be very separated from everyone; but he does speak under his breathe sometimes to himself.

The whole time I was at the placement, I was looking after him and was doing activities with him one to one. It was quite hard adapting to the things that he could and the things that he had found difficult. For example, when everyone else was having food at the tables, he would not eat. He only ate cereal and crackers and never sat around a table. However, despite how difficult I found this – it was interesting to gain a different experience within the nursery.

He would always run back and forth towards the table to grab some cereal but then would run to the other corner and play with wooden blocks with pictures on animals on them. When playing with the blocks, I sat down beside him and listened carefully to what he was mumbling. I could hear “Pig, Pink pink”

Crystal (1984) suggests that some children may be delayed within their language development or they could simply not be comfortable enough to speak in the setting.

The other woman working there told me at the end of the day that I had done well, and that he had shown great interest in me. She was shocked that I had done well with him even when he was screaming and crying.

This was my last week before the Christmas break. We were once again a full classroom of children. The main theme that the nursery was focusing on was Christmas, as this holiday was coming up.

The children all helped and came together to put together lots of different material to create a massive Santa Claus.

One child picked up some cotton wool and began to use this as Santa’s beard. Another picked up some glue and used this to stick down some red glitter to colour Santa’s outfit and coat in. One child (N aged two) was sitting next to another child (A aged four) and he started spilling glitter all over the Santa. Meanwhile, the four year old had gotten upset and he was painting Santa’s outfit in.

The children also sat down collectively to sing Christmas song to learn them for their Christmas play.

The morning started of slow and stressful too. A little boy aged two spent about two hours attached to me. It was only after 15 minutes or so I spoke to another practitioner and raised the fact that he might be getting a temperature or perhaps not feeling well in general. She went to get the thermometer to check his temperature and noticed that his temperature was in fact very high.

They were confident enough to give me the responsibility of looking after him as they called his parents to come and pick him up. I had to check him temperature every 30 minutes and note down any changes.

This was the first challenge I had faced at the nursery, and it was good to gain the experience and knowledge on how to respond without making the child scared or uncomfortable. Furthermore, I was a real-time experience where I oversaw the child and it gave me an idea of problems that I might face if this was my career.

This day was involved heavily around Montessori activities. I was sat on a small table with four children. One child was focused on different sized blocks, which he (X) had to stack from biggest to smallest. He had just turned three. He did not need any help as he had already known what to do. “Don’t help me. I can do all myself” He said.

Another child (A) next to me was arranging numbers in the correct order (aged four). She had small laminated cards with numbers from 1-30. She sat next to me and I just watched her place the numbers in the correct order, she was pleased to have got it all correct and wanted to do it again!

In the pre-school phase, play is likely to be a leading form of activity in which children choose how and what they would like to play with. This can therefore lead to children learning whilst playing (Wood and Attfield, 2003:99)

Throughout the day, the focus was widening the children’s learning and knowledge. It was almost like a classroom setting. However, it had a more relaxed and open approach to the children. This made me want to pursue a career in Montessori’s or a nursery setting more.

Today at the setting was a good day. The children had already gotten used to me and were comfortable around me. As well as teaching the children, I was learning a fair amount myself too.
Most of the day involved me being an extra pair of hands when needed.

A child (A – aged four) had gotten up during circle time, to simply walk around the room. I walked up to him asking him to come and sit back down because one of the other practitioners was about to read a book. He responded and said “But miss I don’t want to sit down anymore, it is boring!”

The practitioners mainly wanted to see how I worked with the children without being told what to do by them. I used my initiative and did what I thought was necessary. For example, I helped the children that I could see needed help. One of the main goals that one of the ladies had set me was to help the children without stopping their individual learning.

I quickly got the hang of this, as many of the children had been showing me where items should go as they knew more than me at this stage.

It was my second time at the setting, the first time I had done a complete day (9am – 5pm). It felt like I had been working there for a long time already. I had met the children and practitioners briefly when I had my induction at the setting, but I had not worked with anyone just yet.

The day started off a little slow and included introducing myself to both the staff and children. The staff asked me questions such as: where I had done work experience before, why I wanted to study early childhood and so on.

The day nursery and Montessori made me realise how important it is for small children to learn basics before they start school. We as adults are such important role models for these children and should take great pride in showing them the norms and values needed in life. During lunch time, O (child aged 3) sat next to me and I started to pour her some spaghetti into her bowl. She stopped me and said “No I do it myself, I know how” I hadn’t known this as I was not expecting the children to be serving themselves.

We completed many activities as a group (usually of about 22 children) in the nursery. Today we did activities including: colouring, painting, drawing, counting. When it came to lunchtime, most of the children were learning how to pour themselves sour and turn taking.