1. Suwon Choi
(300671188)
ECE 229
Date Due : Week 8
Exploring Animals

2. Centennial College Early Childhood Education
Student Name: Suwon Choi
Agency: Sunnybrook Crèche Childcare Centre
Age range of children:2 – 4 years old
Centre Focus:
ANECDOTAL OBSERVATION POSSIBLE CUES
21, September 2012
Able to guess the animal by characteristics
Two children sat on the mat during
each animal has e.g. giraffe’s long neck,
free play time and both of them
elephant’s long nose.
brought animal toy box and pulled
animal toys out of the box. One child Able to count while lining up all the animal
began lining up with all the animal toys toys.
he grabbedsuch as giraffe, zebra,
Interesting in making animal sounds and
chimpanzee, lion, monkey and tigers.
imitatinganimal movements.
He showed giraffe to another child and
Interesting in sorting the animals by size,
said “it has spots” As they played, a
color or different species.
child pretended as if he was the animal
he picked as he made sounds and bent
his body. When he picked up the
monkey, he made the monkey sound
“Ooh !AhhAhh!”
A child gathered dinosaurs among
other animal toys and explained each
dinosaur by calling each one’s name.

3. Possible Interests Web:
Small group experience (circle) to confirm interest in the topic: (describe all parts of
your circle)
In a circle time we read a book “Animal boogie” which is about animals in jungle and
their move such as elephant thumping stomps with their big legs, slithering snakes, swinging
monkeys, and leaping leopards. This book has a supplement CD so that children could move
their body imitating each animals movement by the narration and songs. After reading this
book, we could have a time to talk about what they know about animals and their experience
of visiting the zoo. When I asked “Have someone visited to the zoo?” and one child began to
talk about the polar bear of how much big it is, and the color of the bear. Another child began
talking about zebraespecially the strips on his body. He brought the elephant toys and asked
what it is besides the nose pointing tusk.

4. Procedure:
The book “Animal boogie”
Animal toys
Sitting in a circle and talked about animals freely by asking question and just speaking any idea
they know or remember about animals.
Consider the following and fully describe how you INTEND to explore your chosen
experience with preschoolers
 How will you introduce the experience?
Since children were playing freely beforewe gathered to talk about animals, it was hard
for me to get their attention. However once I played the CD, they paid attention and
focused on to move like animal which narration and song refer.
 What lures might you use to attract the children?
I believed the song is one of the best ways to have children in one spot and get
attention from them. The animal boogie book and song worked really well.
 Preschoolers require support and guidance to fully explore an experience.
How will you guide and support their interactions with the materials and
each other and with you?
Preschoolers are mature in a lot of ways than toddler but they still have short attention
span so there were few disruptionsduring circle time. I had to call a child few times to
get them focus on it again, but generally the circle time went well.

5.  Closure is important in any planned experience. How will you end the
experience with the children? What guidance strategies would be helpful to
use?
Fortunately, after our circle time we had to go outside for the afternoon outdoor
activity, so I could finish my circle experience naturally. Few children wanted to play the
animal boogie one more time, but it was transition time putting their clothes and going
outside.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR 6 EXPERIENCES IN THE PROJECT, COMPLETE THIS
GROUP (CIRCLE) TO BE SURE OF THE CHILDREN’S INTEREST IN THE TOPIC
Arrange a date, and time to implement your chosen experience using the
elements you defined in your procedure.
Evaluation and Reflection:
NOW THAT YOU HAVE COMPLETED THIS GROUP EXPERIENCE (CIRCLE):
How did it go? ARE THE CHILDREN STILL INTERESTED IN THE TOPIC?
Generally, I was satisfied with my topic”Animal”and I could get confidence that this topic
matches children’s curiosity and interest well. Through the circle time(animal boogie) and my
daily observation I found out that children know a lot about animals than I expected they were
so excited whenever they do some activity related to what they know. First of allwe have a
really good environment to explore animals in a various way in daycare centre, so I believe we
could do a lot of interesting activities about animals.

6. WILL THE INQUIRY PROCESS WORK WITH THIS TOPIC? WHY OR WHY NOT?
First of all, animal is the topic which children could see, hear, and read in their daily lives easily.
In other words, there are plenty of chances that children will connect their lives with what
they’ll learn in activity.
Also, we have a lot of materials for the activity I planned in our environment. Without
complicating or difficult books or experiences, we could enjoy the activity about animal in
various ways.

7. Rationale:
After observing the kids in my preschooler room and having conversation with them, I found
out animal will be a good topic to explore together. The children will explore the animal in
various ways through activities in cognitive, art, science, math and sensory domains.
According to Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development, children make the best progress
through the collaboration with a skilled caregiver which is called “Scaffolding”. (Kail and Zolner,
247)
Based on what they know about animal, we developed our idea to further and interesting
activities. During the class time, the children will
 Guess and matching animals with following hints about animal’s properties
 Observe the various objects whether it sinks or floats
 Paint and draw the patterns of animals e.g. spots on giraffe or stripe on zebra
 Count the number through fishing of how many fishes does polar bear eat
 Make a fossil with bone shape objects including children’s own hands, leaves and
toy car.
 Compare the color especially black and white. You can discover the hidden pictures
drawn with a white crayon!
We will be posting the board about activities we have done. Please enjoy the artifacts and experience
we did together!
Suwon

8. Kwhl chart
K(know) W(what do we want H (how will we learn L
to know) it)
A zebra has stripe on Is there any other We’ll paint and draw A giraffe has a long
his body. animal has unique spots on giraffe’s neck so that it’s easy
patterns on his body. to eat some fruits on
body? the tree.
An elephant has a Can we guess or We’ll do the game Elephant’s long nose
long nose and a match the animals “who am I?” by is called “trunk” and
giraffe has a long with hints of animals’ explaining and guess the horn is called
neck. properties? the animals. “ivory”. Pigs make
sound “oink- oink”
A lot of animals Is there any other We’ll see the Both squid and
usually have no leg, animal that has more pictures of squid and octopus have 8 legs.
two legs or four legs. than 4 legs? octopus living under When they are in
the sea, count danger, they rapidly
octopus and squid’s recharge the black
legs, and put ink.
materials as the Counting from one
amount as legs. to eight.
Zookeepers feed the What does polar By dramatic play as a Fisher is the job who
animal. bear eat? How can “fisher” we will catch catches the fish.
we feed the polar the fishes as much as They uses reels and
bear? the bear wants. rods.
Dducklings are living How do they We’ll do experience Styrofoam material
in a pond and they floating? Will they with various objects objects are more
know how to swim. not be sinking? if it is sinking or likely to float on the
floating, and water. Salt and Sugar
compare the become “liquor”
different materials. when we pour it into
the water and we
cannot see.

9. 1. Squid and Octopus’s legs.
National standards in mathematics (NCTM, 2000) describe what children should learn in
preschool.
The key components include
Number concept/ patterns and relationship/ geometry and spatial sense/ measurement/ organization
Number concepts are the foundation of mathematics. These concepts develop gradually over time.
Counting is one of the earliest number concepts to emerge. It begins with the development of oral
counting skills
Through making squid and octopus, we learned counting from 1 to 8 and this counting practice could be
done at home such as scoops of flour to bake bread, block game, or setting the table with plates, and
napkins.

10. 2. Sinking or floating?
There are three components of science;
Physical science/ life science/ earth and the environment
And based on my observation, children were interested in how things move and change especially
sinking and floating. Through our sinking/floating experiment as comparing different kinds of materials,
they learned about the physical properties of objects.
It is not necessary to set up specific experiments. You can create opportunities to learn about physical
science in all interest areas such as mixing the blue paint with yellow paint and see it turns into green.
3. Spots on the giraffe
National Standards for Arts Education (Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, 1994)
includes four components:
Dance/ music / theater or performing arts / visual arts
We had a wonderful time making giraffe’s body pattern by dotting with colourful paints.
A lot of children know that giraffe has a long neck and especially it has so many dots on the body so
through this activity, we made our own giraffe!
4. Guessing game “Who am I?”
A lot of children could identify each animal by each animal’s own peculiarities such as sounds, body
pattern, body movements and where they live.
Through the activity, we pretended our own animal world as if being a duck, or being a snake.
We had a lot of fun! And now they became to know more than two or three characteristics each animal
has!
5. I’m a fisher!
According to the Association of Childhood Education International (ACEI), dramatic play is imperative to
a child's growth in all areas of learning and cannot be replaced by adult instruction
Also, dramatic play could be the first step to learn that other people may have different perspective –
perspective taking

11. The major areas of child development benefit from dramatic play and you can encourage it at home!
During fishing dramatic play, we became a great fisher with a magnetic fish and reel, and caught more
than 5 fishes!
Through this assignment, I could learn the process of project and benefits of it. I also have clear idea
how I can observe and plan activity or project for the rest of my field placement and even after I start
my career as an early childhood educator.
First of all, as I’ve learned since first semester all the activities should be based on children’s interest,
then I should draw the possible cues and plan the activity with that information. The one mistake I made
often at my first field placement was I kept trying to “teach” them rather than providing children with
opportunity to explore and learn something by themselves. So this time I try not to “teach” them but to
scaffold them with interesting activity by letting them to enjoy the activity and giving them a question
encouraging children to think further and deeply.
Secondly, during the project period, some activities were changed from the first activity I planned due to
lack of interest from children and age appropriateness ( I found out children don’t know the concept of
the activity). I was little bit frustrated at my activity didn’t go well or didn’t go in the way I expected, but
my ece supervisor told me it happens all the time, and even the other teacher who worked for like 10
years have the same experience with me. She also encouraged me that children learn certain thing from
my activity and that certain thing could not be the one that I expected. Then I modified my activity and I
was also able to get new idea for the next activity.
Lastly, I could feel more confident by giving children and parents’ feedback after my project is done.
Thanks for my ECE supervisor (Annie)’s support, I could decorate our board with my project at field
practice. When I started putting some pictures children gathered together to see the pictures with
interest and we could have conversation what we did and what we learned through the activities. For
the parents who don’t have enough time to know what progress their children make at daycare centre,
the documentation panel was one of the best ways to show them at one looking.
I was inspired by this project assignment for being a professional early childhood educator with much
confidence. My goal for the rest of field placement and next field placement is to get used to this project
process and implement project with a various topics and a lot of interesting activities.

12. Bibliography
Kail, Robert V., and Theresa Zolner.A Chronological Approach. 3rd ed. Toronto: Pearson Canada, 2012.
247-48.