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Teresa Escalante

ECE 251- 2001

Observation: Group Time

November 23, 2016

Group Time Evaluation

School: Lincoln Elementary School

Telephone: (702) 799-7133

Teacher: Ms. Poleski

Grade level: Kindergarten

Beginning/ ending group time: The activity began from 2:30-3:00

Number of adults; number of children: 1:17

Nature of group time: Within group time, the activities are very structure and teacher directed

because the teacher told the children what they needed to complete within the time frame to

finish the activity. The activity that the teacher did with the class was to create a two-dimensional

turkey by cutting out pre-made shapes that form a turkey at their seat. The pieces include 5

feathers, the turkeys body, a beck, and a snood. The extra materials included scissors, and glue

provided within the classroom and googley eyes which the teacher had separate. The students

were to make a turkey with a variety of colors. The classrooms environment was very calm due

to every child focusing on their turkey but from time to time would get loud.

1. Appropriate: With thanksgiving coming up the children are doing turkey themed projects.

In my perspective, this activity was not appropriate for the students because there was
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nothing being learned through the craft. For children, thanksgiving does not have a

meaning to them because they do not understand what it means to be thankful. The only

appropriate part of the activity is that the students could practice their fine motor skills by

cutting out and improve their creativity when coloring and forming their turkey.
2. How long? Appropriate for the age: The group time is about 30 minutes. I believe this

was appropriate in the part that the children were not sitting. The students were standing

as they colored, cut, and pasted. Yet due to the fact that the students are kindergarteners

which are from five to six years old, some say that the attention span is the age of the

child plus one. Therefore this would not be appropriate for these kindergartners because it

would cause various behavior issues. One child was coloring his turkey but would easily

get distracted by others at his table.

3. Space: The space for this activity was appropriate for all the students because there was

four students at each table, which allowed them to spread out their materials. A child

decided to place all the colors that she wanted to use for her turkey at the table and

surprisingly all the colors she wanted stayed in her area. Another reason why I believe

that the space was appropriate is because when the students cut out the papers, the parts

of the turkey were either on their table or on the floor. If there wasnt enough space,

students would have been losing their pieces.

4. Bring the children together and begin group time: The way that the teacher brings the

children together is by activating their prior knowledge and state what the children will

do in the activity. Within this the teacher made connections towards the book that they

read that focused on thanksgiving and turkeys.

5. Involve the children: For this activity, the teacher explained the directions to the students

and the process that would occur. She explained everything at the beginning and then

whenever a new portion would begin she would explain tell the children what they
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would. An example is, she told the class that they were going to make a turkey and they

would have to color it nicely, cut it out, and then glue the turkey on the paper. When the

children were coloring she came around and looked at the childrens work making

comments such as I see you made your feathers with lots of colors. She then went on to

say when you are done coloring, you can get scissors to cut.
6. Percentage of the time actively vs. passively: Within the activity about 90% of the time

the children were involved passively as they stayed on task and did what they had to do

to complete the turkey in which most of these children finished on time as they worked at

their own pace. Meanwhile the other 10% percent was up and talking to their neighbors

in which this percent did not finish on time and needed assistance from their classmates

who were finished with the activity. I believe the activity allowed for the children to be

involved throughout the activity and even when they were done with their own, they had

the opportunity to use their time to help someone and clean their area.
7. Child react: The children did not seem to be too enthusiastic towards the activity because

there was nothing that grabbed their attention because it was the same concept they do

every day of coloring, cutting, and pasting. The children began to gain an interest when

they were gluing down their turkey and put goggley eyes, which they found to be very

silly.
8. Flexibility: While observing the activity, the teacher told the class that they had five more

minutes to finish the activity. When she walked around the classroom, she noticed that

some students would not finish in that time frame; therefore she allowed those who did

not finish more time when the five minutes were up to complete the task meanwhile

others moved on. Although some of the students finished their turkey, they would help

out other classmates either by cutting or coloring. If by any chance those tasks were

completed the children could add a background to their turkey.

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9. Individualization special needs and the typically developing: Within the classroom, there

are three students who need a bit of extra help and the reason is because one child needs

to practice his fine motor skills. By doing this activity, the child uses scissors to make his

turkey in which he slowly develops his skills by doing the hand over hand concept for

cutting. The other student is an ESL students in which the teacher provides visuals for the

students to gain the basic concept while she is giving the directions.
10. Gender inappropriate behaviors: Both genders seemed to have inappropriate behaviors

from time to time. The girls are very talkative when completing the activity as they

discussed things that did not relate to thanksgiving such as what they were going to do

after school. Meanwhile the boys were more competitive as they colored fast and would

start an argument is they did not use different colors. When they finished coloring, the

boys would show the teacher in which the teacher told them to go back to their seats

because she could see white spots.

11. Inappropriate behaviors, behavior management techniques: The inappropriate behaviors

that occur are children talking and getting too loud. Another inappropriate behavior is that

students tend to wander to another table to see their classmates turkey and stay there for

a while. The technique that the teacher uses is the behavior clips. If the issue is with a

specific students depending on their actions, she will ask if the student thinks their

actions are appropriate or give a warning, if it continues they have to change their clip to

yellow. When the actions include harming a child, she will tell the student to change their

clip to yellow or red as she explains what they did. Within this activity, she did not have

any major issues except telling the children to work on their turkey but throughout the

day she did. I do not agree with this action because it harms the childs self-esteem and

can make some children feel embarrassed.

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12. Ends group time: The way that the teacher ends group time is by bringing together the

knowledge taught to the students for a closure. Another way is by stating the objective

from the beginning to assess and make connection with the students. The teacher told the

students that on Thursday it would be thanksgiving; as she showed them on the calendar.
13. Activity follows: The activity that follows group time is a discussion on the floor over

what the children are thankful for. This was appropriate because the teacher got to assess

the children to see if the objective was complete. Many students were able to make a

connection to what the word thankful meant as they mentions their family, pets, video

games, etc.

Evaluation: Overall the activity needs major improvements if it is going to be used again because

it is not Developmentally Appropriate Practice (D.A.P.) D.A.P. is a philosophy is which it is the

nature of learners and one looks at how to develop the various abilities. As the learning process

comes to play it is supposed to be a creative/original piece of artwork in which makes a

connection with the world and makes something new from it. Through the activity, the children

did not have the option to explore nor be creative because the teacher had her example on the

board in which some students decided to look at it and create something similar to the turkey.

Whether or not the children looked at the turkey did not matter because in the end, all the turkeys

would look alike form wise. The only D.A.P. aspect of this activity was that the activity was

hands on where the children worked at their own pace as they decided when it was the time to

get scissors and get glue. Looking into the type of activities, I am not sure in which category it

would fall into due to the fact that it was not an exploratory, nor a problem solving activity. The

closest that fits the activity is the purposeful activity in which the teacher explained to the

children what it meant to be thankful.