Leapfrogs
Two children wonder what the temperature of the water is and use a thermometer to find out. They also measure how tall the water is in the container.
Lead Teacher: Andromahi Harrison
Assistant Teacher: Kara Ellenberg
Andromahi (Mahi) and Kara are the teachers in the Leapfrog room, a classroom of sixteen three, four, and five year olds. All of the classrooms in our center use the Creative Curriculum. The Creative Curriculum focuses on seven domains which include Social-Emotional, Language, Cognitive, Literacy, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, the Arts, and Physical development.
With the help of SAU student employees, Breianna O'day, Katie Sexton, Jillian Stumpf and Chelsea Ebert, we strive to make your child's experience in the room an experience where they can learn, thrive, build relationships, feel comfortable and respected through out their time with us. We feel it important for everyone who enters our room to have a meaningful learning experience including our parents and univeristy students. Please scroll down to the bottom of the page for more information about the teachers.
As part of our center's philosophy, we each have goals to help us continue to grow as teachers. We feel this is important to enhance our teaching and teach to the individual child. One of our goals was to keep a blog to be able to share what we are doing in the classroom and share more of what we have learned in the coming years. Please follow us on www.sauchildrenscampus.wordpress.com and enjoy our current happenings..
Feel free to stop in at any time with any questions!
Latest Project:
We are currently in the middle of the second phase of our Theatre project. After visiting the Galvin Fine Arts Theatre at the main campus of St. Ambrose University for the play Alice in Wonderland, the children were very interested in the actors, actresses, scenary, ticket box, and puppeteers. Upon returning back to school, children began to ask more questions and began to re-enact what they had seen. After we began to see this play in the classroom, we created webs of what we know and what we want to know.
As we begin to learn more about the theatre, we have been using the children's favorite books to create plays in the classroom. We added a stage in our room and started creating scenary for the first book, Llama Llama misses Mama. The children spent several weeks creating lists of the materials we needed, creating scenary, discussing characters, lighting, and ticket prices, and then recreating the play.
We believe sketching is an asset to our project work for many reasons. We encourage children to sketch during the entire project to see their progression of understanding during the duration of the project. At the beginning of a project, children's sketches have little elaboration and detail. As the children learn more vocabulary words, manipulate hands on materials, and continue to learn through their play, their sketches become more detailed. Our older children begin labeling using the correct terminology. Our younger ones add more detail often times verbally labeling.
We will begin to make connections with our experts and bring more props into the classroom for the children to explore, use, and manipulate in their play schemes to get a better understanding about the theatre and all that happens behind the scenes.
Stay tuned as we continue our investigations!
Andromahi Harrison
Andromahi has been a part of the Children's Campus since she began her field experience in August 2004. She began to work shortly after starting her field experience and during her time at St. Ambrose University working on her Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood and an endorsement in Special Education, she was able to be in each and every classroom. In August 2007, she left to student teach and ended up landing a teaching position in the Leapfrogs in December 2007. Andromahi lives in Davenport with her husband and daughter.
Kara Ellenberg
Kara started at the Children's Campus in June 2007 in the Honeybee room as the part-time assistant teacher. In June 2008, the opportunity came open in the Leapfrog room and she began our full-time assistant. Kara has an associate's degree in liberal arts with several credit hours in Early Childhood. Kara is a proud Army wife and is enjoying the time with her husband who just returned from deployment. She also lives in Davenport with her two dogs and her son.
Daily Schedule–Pre-school age 3,4, and 5
Andromahi Harrison 7:30-4:00
Kara Ellenberg 8:00-4:30
7:30-8:45 Learning Centers
8:45-9:15 Snack
9:15-10:30 Learning Centers (small group/project work/gross motor activity)
10:30- 11:15 Indoor/Outdoor Gross Motor Movement
11:15-11:30 Group time
11:30-11:45 Preparation for Lunch/Nap
11:45-12:30 Lunch
12:30-2:30 Rest time
2:30-2:45 Waking up/Bathroom Breaks
2:45- 3:15 Snack
3:15-3:30 Group
3:30-4:15 Outdoor /Indoor Gross Motor Movement
4:15-5:30 Learning Centers
Learning Centers Include:
(Child initiated, teacher supported)
Dramatic Play
Blocks
Library
Science/math
Music/listening
Computer
Writing
Small manipulatives
Sand and/or water
Art
Small Group/Project Work
(Teacher initiated)
Group time
Stories/flannel boards
Songs/music
Class discussion
Community building
Activities
Finger plays/puppets
Outdoor /Indoor Gross Motor Movement
Child selected and/or Teacher directed Activity
*Indoor Gross Movement -when weather prohibits outdoor gross motor movement
