The document summarizes a kindergarten teacher's observations from her practicum period. Over four lessons on wild animals: 1) The first lesson was challenging as the students struggled to follow instructions in English. They enjoyed a coloring activity but had difficulty naming animals in English. 2) The second lesson saw improved participation during songs and videos. However, one student was distracting. The teacher remained patient. 3) Numbers 1-5 were introduced in the third lesson. A memory game engaged the students. They linked animals to their numbers. 4) In the final lesson, a puppet helped teach counting by linking numbers to quantities of monkeys. The students now eagerly sang the greeting song.

1. padlet.com/lizaoviedo_lo/j560l5ja6jik
Kindergarten Practicum Period
My Journal
LIZA OVIEDO 23 DE MAYO DE 2017 22:51
Observation 1
May 3rd, 2017
The school where I could start the kindergarten practice is called ''Patagonian School of
English''.
The moment I arrived in the class, the kids were playing with some toys waiting for the
other students to arrive to class. They were only ve, but enough to make the class very
active and lively.
After 5 or 10 minutes of waiting, the teacher started the warm-up activity.
First, she told the kids to put away the toys, there were two of them that did not like the
idea, so she let them stay with their dolls. This really surprised me as the girls were not
contributing with the teacher to begin her class. After this moment, she started with a
chant which said ''Hello, hello. How are you today? FINE - SO SO or BAD?''. And the
students started to comment their feelings sharing a moment altogether. Then, the
teacher started to introduce wild animals lesson. The kids seemed very motivated to work
with animals, they had to color and then paste them in a big chart, each animal to where
they belong. For instance, the monkey in the tree, the snake on the ground, etc.
What really surprised me is that the kids were not accostumed to listen to English every
time, even the commands were said in Spanish, so I thought the classes would be really
challenging.
After they all nished pasting the animals, it was already time to say good bye. The
teacher took them to another ''special'' room to make a circle and sing a good bye song.
The kids put their coats on, kissed the teacher and say bye bye as their parents were
waiting for them outside of the class.
It was really nice to check how they work. By the way, meanwhile they were doing the
activities the teacher were saying and giving me some tips in order to get to know more
about the characteristics of the group. One of these characteristics are typical of their
ages, they still do not know how to write and spell their names, they recognise them
though and they are learning to cut papers in order to improve their skills.
It is really impressive to watch how they think differently and very creatively.

2. Observation 2
May 8th, 2017
In this second observation I have made, I have noticed other aspects that would make my
classes more challenging. The kids were not accostumed to see me as a reference yet,
they hardly said ''hello'' when I greet them, but some of them opened their arms widely
and came to steal a kiss from me. They were playing again these 10 minutes before
everyone arrived, then they had to put the toys away but as always there were two girls
that couldn't leave the toys. I found this situation a bit worrying as in the rst observation,
the dolls and teddy bear seemed to distract them for the development of the activities.
The teacher was really nice when she told me I didn't have to worry about this as she
would help me with the kids to stay away from their toys.
The class started with the hello chant again. But they went to this ''special room'' to say
hello and share their feelings too. After this, the teacher presented the activities singing a
song of the wild animals, the kids were really attracted as they were also watching a video.
The teacher then invited them to follow some commands, but not all of them were doing
this. In fact, I have noticed a little girl who worked very well on worksheets or other
activities, although she didn't like following commands. The class then resulted a bit
stressing for the teacher as the little girl were distracting the other classmates. I have to
say that this started to worry me again, overthinking on how to manage things and react if
I have a situation like this during my practice. The teacher started to call the girl in order
to be quiet and behave, but she was not willing to collaborate one more time. I noticed the
teacher very calm and patient, so she continued with the activities.
On the other hand, the other kids showed a lot of enthusiasm for the activitites presented
by the teacher. They looked lovely working, dancing and singing.
After this class nished, always following with the routine, singing the goodbye song with
the teacher, putting on their coats in the special room, I nally got to talk to the teacher
to listen to some piece of advices and for starting my class on next week.
She really gave me some useful tips that can help me for beginning my lessons
Lesson 1
May 10th, 2017
I nally got started. I was really nervous about my rst class. I have prepared my lesson
according to what the teacher told me, this was ''wild animals'' topic.
I had to teach them a different ''Hello song'', so they can learn something extra. Moreover,
the hello song I brought for class had some commands to follow. These commands were
really nice for doing ''clap your hands, turn around, stretch up high and stamp your feet''.
Firstly, I started the warming up section, where the kids seemed to pay attention while
looking at me. Secondly, I played the hello song, I have given all the instructions in
English, so one of the little kids told me ''¿Por qué no hablas normal?'', I found this really
funny.
Thirdly, in the presentation activity the kids looked not very concentrated and I found
very dif cult to manage the class all in English. Fortunately, the teacher called the
attention of one of the kids who was the distractor of the class and she could perfectly
work after that. However, I found dif culties in the kids to follow me speaking in English
all the time.
In the presentation section, I felt some kind of frustration, I wanted the kids to tell me the
name of the animals in English, but they kept mentioning them in Spanish. I encourage
them to say the name in the L2 but still no success was achieved.
We nally got to work on the worksheet I have prepared for them, it was the face of a lion,

3. they were supposed to color and then paste some spaghetti on the ''mane'', they loved this
activity, specially working with the spaghetti.
Then, it was already time, I had to hurry the students so they get to nish on time to sing
the good bye song.
I felt relieved to see it was not so dif cult and that I could do it.
There are more classes yet to come!
Lesson 2
May 15th, 2017
On this lesson, I continued working with wild animals and doing the same routine I did in
the rst lesson. The kids looked very motivated, most of them participated even more
with the ''Hello song''. After that, I told them we were going to watch a video, this was like
a puzzle for them in which they had to guess the name of the animals, there were some
animals they didn't know of course. However, they LOVED the video, one of the kids even
said ''Esta clase está muy divertida'', and obviously I liked the idea of them watching and
enjoying the video.
I still had some issues with them saying the names of the animals in English, but I keep
encouraging them a lot to say it in the target language. By the way, some names seemed
to sitck in their heads faster than others, they could say ''monkey'' with no hesitation.
After the video, I showed them some wild animals ashcards, they were supposed to tell
me the animals they see there, some of them could but others were still hesitating. Then,
the kids had to paste the animals on the shape of other animals they had on the
worksheet. I think they loved this activity even more as one of the kids said ''Seño, puedo
llevarme esto a mi casa?'' and I just answered they could and shared a big smile with the
headteacher. I think this class was fantastic.
Best Animal Sounds Song (Jungle)
Best Animal Sounds Song (Jungle) Google+:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/102256515899413313342/ Lik e us on FaceBook:
https://www.facebook.com/Nurser yTracks Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/NurseryTracks See our website: http://www.nurserytracks.com/index.htm This
Animal Sounds Song co vers the sounds that all the w ild animals make. We've set it in the jungle
so that we could include all the fa vourites.
YOUTUBE
Lesson 3

4. May 14th, 2017
This is the third lesson following the topic ''wild animals'', but this time I had to include
the numbers from 1 to 5.
I started the lesson greeting them and they could answer me back saying ''HELLO MS.
LIZA'', I felt ful lled at that moment, then as always we sang the ''Hello song'' . When we
nish, I told the kids to sit down because I had a game for them, this was the ''memory
game''. I stuck the wild animal cards on the wall, so each one of the students come to the
front and reveal a card, they were willing to participate, all of them raised their hands for
me to call them to the front.
After they revealed all the animals, they had to come to the front again, but this time, they
were given a command like ''Show me or touch the Lion'' so they were encouraged to use
their bodies and mind in order to show us the animals they were given. As expected, they
liked the activity a lot again. When they nished this activity, we counted the 5 animals
stuck on the wall. From 1 to 5, then they started working with the numbers on the
worksheets I distributed.
I think this class was a success again.
When we all nished the lesson, I distributed happy faces they had to stick on their
worksheets. At the end, we sang the good bye song.
One more time, it was amazing!!
Lesson 4
May 22nd, 2017
On this lesson, I tried to continue with the topic ''Wild animals'' and the numbers from 1 to
5. But, I have presented a puppet, the puppet's name was ''Mr. Monkey'', this puppet had to
help us in all the activities, especially the ones related to counting the numbers and
counting other monkeys to paste on the numbers, the aim was to identify numbers with
quantities.
As always, I began the lesson greeting the students and singing the hello song, what it was
different from this class is that all the kids were singing already!! And I loved it!! They were
expecting me to put the song in order to start the class, they also did not feel
uncomfortable with speaking in English all the time, although one of the girls told me
''Ahora hablá como humano'' (LOL), their ideas are pretty funny!! After I presented the
monkey, the puppet encoraged the kids to come to the front and count with the
monkeys, then they had to paste the same amount of monkeys on another worksheet
stuck on the wall.
While the students were working, they were listening to ''5 little monkeys'', some of the
kids already knew the lyrics of the song.
This class was ok too, not perfect because I could not deal with one of the girls,
everything I told her she just did not liked, I guess this is the challenge of education and as
learning something every day I have to say that above all I still love this profession!!

5. ※※※※※※
Lesson 5
May 29th, 2017
This was my last day with the little kids, so I wanted to make this day a very special class. I
tried to mix the numbers with animals again as to close the lessons with that. Although
this time we had a fashion parade. Let me tell you more about it below.
So, as usual, I started the lesson greeting the students and singing the Hello song. This
time everyone sang the chant and did the action, I felt ful lled, as if my goal was
attainable! After that, I presented another puppet, we called it Mr. Lion, then, I told the
kids Mr. Lion wanted to count the numbers from 1 to 5 again and that he had a game.
The game consisted on a hopscotch, I had put the numbers on the oor then Mr Lion and
the teacher invited the kids to play this game, the aim was to jump on the numbers while
counting them aloud. This was really fun for them, I guess they loved it as they didn't want
to nish playing it.
In the presentation section, I tried to use the TPR bringing a magic box to the class, so
students come to the front and look for the objects the teacher said. For instance, they
had to listen and pick up the monkey or any other.
Everything was lovely. After this activity, I told them we were going to work with masks,
they had to decorate the masks and they felt really amazed with this surprised, I didn't
know they would love this activity so much. I guess this is a really nice experience to
discover more about this career. Anyway, they started decorating the masks and after we
nish decorating it, they had to put on their faces and walk on a parade imitating the
animals. THEY LOVED IT!!
Then, we nally nish class singing the goodbye song!!
What an incredible experience, I started with fear and now I feel that my creativity is
expanding even more!!