Week 11.10.14

     Recently at my mentorship, Kid's Cove Weekday Daycare, I've been helping with the one to two year-olds. Everyday we go to carpool to get the kids out of their cars, and then come back to our rooms. Usually there is some group playtime, and then we split the one to two year-olds into two classes: one in the butterfly room and the other in the snail room. I help with the snail room most often, so I have 5 main kids that I work with. My responsibilities include putting up their bags, getting their diapers ready to be changed, and getting snacks ready for after their playtime. Then I help feed the kids their snacks and clean up. We just celebrated Halloween with a big Noah's Arc where all the kids and teachers dressed up as animals. Now we are preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The other day I had to trace the kids hands for their hand-turkeys, and boy, was that an experience. In case you didn't know, some one year-olds don't want their hands traced, and they will scream and cry until it's over. (: Anyway, lately we're getting Thanksgiving coloring pages ready for them to paint. 

     Last year I took AP Psychology, and I think that's been a huge help for me in my mentorship this year. We did a section all about kids and their stages of development. This is perfect for my internship at the daycare because I get to watch one group of kids grow and pass through different stages of development. For example, one stage of development includes the idea of object permeance. This is where when an object is not visible to a small child, they believe that it no longer exists (like a ball hidden behind a book). I saw this at my mentorship just today when one of the little boys kept grabbing a wipe and putting it in his mouth. I took it and hid it behind a chair, but he kept trying to grab it. Even though it wasn't visible to him, he still knew it was there and was reaching for it. I knew then that one year-olds are past the object permeance stage, because the boy still knew that wipe existed even though it was hidden. I was really excited when I caught myself making this connection at my mentorship to my psychology class last year.