What did you learn about yourself and your abilities to be a teacher of young children, and how you worked as part of a teaching team? As I take this class, I see my teacher skills build every day when I come to the lab. I see patience in all the teachers and also in me. When I have to convince the children to make good choices, solve problems, and deal with challenging behaviors. As a teacher, I’m a role model and a friend to the children. When I set up an activity, I think about how I can challenge the children to do things that I think they will learn from that activity. For example, I want the children to do math patterns, balance with one leg, or walk on the beam without helping hands. The children need to practice and build on their knowledge, and they learn the skills through all the activities that they are engaged in in the class. As a teaching team member, communication is the most important thing. Teachers need to keep track of the ratio throughout the day. They must communicate with other teachers in the room when they take the children to the restroom. Announcing the change in the routine to ensure the children know what will happen differently that day and let coworkers expect what to do. Never let down your guard when you are with the children. What did you learn most about planning emergent curriculum for young children? I learned that an emergent curriculum is a program that plans lessons based on the children's interests. Planning needs a lot of experience, and teachers must decide what is important for the children to learn. The activity setup layout needs to be welcoming, and the color and materials must be related. The material and objects need to stand out to catch the children’s eyes. I need to support diversity, math, or literacy in the activity. The teacher creates intentional teaching material that encourages the children to build on what they already know. What did you find challenging and rewarding about your lead days? The lead day sounded scary to me in the middle of the semester. Lead day practice takes place over two days, and these two days are helpful for me in learning the routine and keeping track of time. It is important to be flexible about what is happening in the environment and make sure to make the transition at the right time. When I ask other teachers to do something, I find myself being weird, especially if they are the teachers and already know what needs to be done. The lead days taught me how important communication is with team members.