Personal Narrative: My Visit To The Waverly Avenue Elementary Classroom

On September 18th, 2015 I visited the Waverly Avenue Elementary school to perform an observation of a kindergarten class. Which consist of 27 students and one teacher and one teacher's assistant (the teacher assistant was out sick for the day). The purpose of this observation is to observe and evaluate the school’s program approach to and use of music, movement and language arts, and to see if this program uses developmentally appropriate practices with regard to subject areas.

Music is a significant portion of early childhood classrooms. Music lets students to develop knowledge naturally and offers information as fragments and as wholes. A simple melody provides children with an opportunity to decrease the information into portions however,

She needs more of an updated radio/CD/iPod music playing device. Which can provide the teacher with more of a variety of different types of music and an unlimited amount of read along books from iTunes. The teacher didn’t really interact and engage with the children when they sang songs, she let the radio do the job for her. Music was played for the children during transitions of activities and while working on class work and the music was played selectively. There was no type of instruments in the class, which I feel there should have been some, such as the cowbell, triangle or a tambourine. So that the children could have more of a hands on experience and being able to create their own music. I am aware that the school district is in a major finical crisis right now. So I’m sure that plays a role in the lack of music supplies and quality within the classroom but overall the children sang songs together such as the Hokie Pokey, stop and go, and educational songs teaching them to count. In my personal opinion music time was the best part out of the day for the children, they we able to let loose, laugh, enjoy and express themselves through