Personal Narrative: Early Childhood Children

My whole life I felt love, but never like the love I experienced three years when I walked in the Lawrence County Developmental Center. The LCDC is the special needs program for the student of East Lawrence and I was chosen to be an aide my sophomore year. Most of the kids could not speak, if they could speak they still had problems communicating. I felt like I had walked into a totally different world, and that made me want to spend every free moment in the LCDC. My three years with those kids taught me the most incredible lesson: your life is what you make it.

I remember that day as if it were yesterday, the day I had to testify against my real father. There I was, so young and scared, all eyes were on me making me even more nervous than I already was. I just wanted to back down and run away, but I knew that was not the right thing to do. I had to be strong and face my fears because that is the only way things will get better. I made sure to keep in the back of my mind that this would be the biggest thing I would ever have to do. If I did, everything else would be like a little bump in the road, nothing I can't handle. This event was one that started my transition from childhood to adulthood.

In August of 2008, I went to Eureka Community Nursery School. The very first day of school for me, now it would be as easy as counting to three.

Maybe I was too little, or maybe I was too short, but either way I did not make the jump. In the second grade I was your average eight year old, who always wore her hair in ponytails, and enjoyed playing tag at recess. One day I saw the fifth graders on the monkey bars at recess doing something I had never seen before, they were jumping to the fourth bar. I waited untill Kids Inc. that day to try the jump, but it was no use I was acting like a scared baby.

My experiences working with children officially began in 2012 when I started working for One of A Kind Progressive Early Education. I worked with children of all ages, primarily toddlers and preschoolers. While working at One of A Kind, I assisted the lead teachers as much as possible. I helped develop daily routines of activities, lesson plans, nap, and toilet-training times that seemed most effective for the students. I worked with parents during pick up and drop off times to make sure they were happy with the schedule and care their child was receiving. I was in charge of maintaining a safe environment for the students at One of A Kind.

In this essay I will be discussing about the observation of a nine month old baby girl called Sarah, who lives with her mother and father in a private home in East London. Her two parents are from different races but were both born in United Kingdom.

When I was just 4 years old I went to Funtastik Preschool and Daycare. I went there for an entire year. It was a very fun school. Usually in the mornings I would get dropped off with all the other kids and all the kids would get to play inside with toys. Then we would have breakfast. After breakfast we went outside and played on the playground. After the playground we went inside to have a nap. Most of the time after a nap we would go and watch a movie on the carpet. Then we would go outside once again. At the end of the day we would go back on the carpet and watch another movie and wait for our parents to arrive to pick us up.

The Middle Tyger Community Center’s volunteer coordinator, Donna Dawkins, was very excited about my interest to volunteer with their This is My Child early education program. She was able to work me into the agency’s busy schedule and was also super understanding of my packed agenda and limited time. My first volunteer experience I spent in the one year old classroom. The teachers have a routine based schedule that is performed every day. Each student is to be dropped off, find their assign seat, eat breakfast, throw away their OWN trash, and then wait their turn for their health check. When their name is called, each of the children know what they are expected to do. He or she comes to the sink, brushes their teeth, and climbs up to the changing

Like many people everyone wants to find their calling and figure out where they belong. My parents moved to the United States risking their lives on a boat from Haiti but soon separated while in america . My mom did a great job raising four kids on her own and I being the second child took part in raising my two younger siblings. In elementary school I struggled in many subjects but excelled in art, when I finally learned to read and went to middle school my grades were high enough to have honors reading and social study classes and even apa classes in highschool. I continued to excel in a lot of my classes, turns out I was smarter than I thought and all I need to do was learn to read and have people who took the time to teach me.

I adore working with children. I devote a lot of my time to helping entertain and teach kids. My local church runs a summer program named ‘Sidewalk Kids Hours’ (SWKH). Through the past few years I have volunteered more than 150 hours to this program, as well as my local boy-scouts program. The majority of the time is spent preparing lessons, and creating props, instead of the two days a week we run the program. However, the majority of people who work with this programs are teens, so even though I am not working with children every day, I still enjoy every day I go in.

Since I was a kid, I had a ton of responsibilities, cleaning up after myself, doing chores, managing to not fight with my brother, although we fought all day everyday, but you know, it happens. One thing that I didn't know wasn't normal was parenting your parent. I go to school do all my class work and during recess and lunch I listened to all the other kids talk about going to the park after school and eating dinner together with their parents. When I got home from school, I had to do my homework and then take care of my mother. Bring her things she needed such as food, water, help her with many other simple everyday activities. Of course I wasn't the only one who was her “little helper” as she put it, my dad helped her and my older brother by two years,

When decorating my friend's nursery, I would want to focus on nurturing the growing senses of the newborn. Although a newborn’s vision is not at full capacity, their visual acuity starts improving soon after. By 2-3 months, infants are able to recognize patterns and faces; and are able to discriminate colors by around 4 months. This would inspire me to paint an accent wall with a pattern of the mother's preference, in bold colors that shade to a lighter color. I would add faces of animals and add pictures of the parents, possibly other siblings as accents in picture frames. A mobile is a must, as infants enjoy watching movement.

I have been a preschool teacher, teaching mixed age children from 18 months to 5 years, for over 10 years. I started as a work study employee, while attending the Community College of Philadelphia in 2006, to a part-time teaching assistant while attending Temple University in 2010. This led me to a lead-teacher position after graduation and then to a program coordinator. I have developed effective working relationships with children in the past years. This position has helped me improve my teamwork and interpersonal skills by cooperating with other teachers in planning teaching materials according to the Reggio Emilia approach and by sharing teaching resources. I decided that working with children, understanding and assisting in their education,

Little by little, children finish their meals and get ready for naptime. The children dump the remainder of their milk in the same sink where they wash their hands. Slowly children go lie down on their own. One of the TSS’s turns off the lights on that side of the room. Kayla puts on a rest time cd and goes to start cleaning up the kitchen. I ask what kind of music is playing but Kayla is not sure. Alyssa gets blankets for any children who need them. Kayla tells her the children only get their blanket if they are settled down. Seeing the children start to fall asleep I get ready to leave. Saying goodbye to Kayla and Alyssa, thanking them for their time.

During the second trimester is when my mother Donna, found out that she was pregnant with me. One morning she got out of the bed doing her normal routine and went to use the restroom where she then passed out on the bathroom floor. My father Patrick, rushed her to Florida memorial hospital in Miami dade county. She said that she woke up and Dr. Joeseph walked into the room, and told her that she was dehydrated and not getting taking in enough iron. Dr. Joseph then proceeded to include, as he handed her an ultra sound picture that she was thirteen weeks pregnant with me. She was in shock, because she said that she always knew when she was pregnant from having two pregancies prior to me there was always a sign but this time it wasn't because she was still having a menstral cycle.