The document summarizes the author's experiences during a 4-week practicum teaching kindergarten. It describes how planning lessons for young children with short attention spans proved more challenging than expected. After an initial lesson went poorly, the author incorporated more hands-on activities using images, stickers, play-acting and videos. These engaged the children better and helped them learn. The conclusion stresses that teaching young kids requires a playful, creative approach to motivate learning, and teachers must continually learn about their students' needs.

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TALLER DE PRÁCTICA DOCENTE
Tutora: Aurelia Velázquez
ALUMNO RESIDENTE: Ana Clara Mauro
Período de Práctica: Nivel Inicial
TPD
Kindergarten Practicum Period
Introduction
During a period of 4 weeks I carried out my Practicum Period as a Kindergarten teacher at
Jardin Colorin Colorado. I had 14 students that were 5 years old, among them I had one kid
with special needs. During this time, I had to plan 5 lessons of 35 minutes each, based on
the units and books provided by the teacher in charge of the class.
My experience
Having never experienced a Kindergarten teaching world, the idea of planning a lesson for
children seemed challenging but simple. However, after my first lesson, I realized that there
is much more to teaching Kinder than most people would think.
Children of young ages have a very short attention span, therefore the activities plan for
them must include Kinesthetic strategies, along with images, music and video tools. Even
though I had studied this, I didn't apply it on my first experience. Thus, after my first lesson
I decided to change my approach, and I planned a lesson that involved images and stickers

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and most importantly, individual work. This lesson went a lot smoother, and children were
active participation of it.
For my next lesson, I planned a bit of play time, as they wore clothes (which were big for
them) and they practised the vocabulary I had planned for them. After this activity, we
carried out the “final project” to close the unit.
Furthermore, for my last two lessons, I decided to add flashcards in an envelope and videos
with simple songs that they could follow and sang along. After both videos, they were
presented with a follow up activity to practise the new target language.
Conclusion
As a future teacher, I must admit that there are plenty of things I would do differently if I
had to do it again, for example: I would plan activities that involve a more playful context,
costume or toys for them to gain the target language. Teaching children isn’t as simple as
teaching teenagers, or pre-teens. When one teaches toddlers or young learners, there has
to be a different approach to engage them in the learning process, they must have a
reason, a trigger that motivates them to learn. Thus the role of the teacher’s creativity is
imperative, so as to develop an appropriate lesson plan.
Having said this, I do believe that each classroom represents its own word and that it’s very
important to know your students in order to plan activities that would suit them. There is
only one thing that I could pursuit as a teacher, and that is gaining new insight to teaching
young learners, and keep practising, as practice and learning are the two main ingredients
to our teaching word.
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