Volunteering Reflection

I have been volunteering at my elementary school since 2010. I spent three days a week during my senior year of high school volunteering in classrooms that served 6 to 8 year olds. This was during the 2010 to 2011 academic year. I then started volunteering again in 2015. I worked with a preschool class, a kindergarten class, and a lower elementary class. I gained lots of experience during this time. The teachers in these classes would allow me to conduct lessons for the day. This led me to getting a job working for this school. I was a summer school teacher in 2015. I was required to make my own lesson plans each week. I had an average of seven students in my classroom each week. I would help students in areas they were struggling. During this time, I was able to really develop my teaching skills. I also had to learn how to be organized and plan ahead. When the summer program ended I continued to volunteer on Fridays, in the afternoon. I was accepted into the Early Childhood Studies program, where I started my clinical experience at a preschool. I learned so much from this first experience. When my clinicals were completed, I decided to volunteer at my clinical location on Friday, in the morning. I found that in was an invaluable experience and helped my developing skills.

I feel that this will definitely help me with creating fun and engaging lesson plans for young children. I also love music and enjoy all types of music. This will also aid me in the classroom. I will try to teach students to have to same love for music. Lastly, I really enjoy math. I feel that having a strong foundation in math, during elementary school, is key for enjoying and understanding math during later school years. I feel that if children viewed math as fun and understandable the will gain confidence and be able to achieve much more in