the Little Shepherd Preschool

    The name of the organization that I am working with for my internship is the Little Shepherd Preschool located on 565 Pontiac Avenue in Cranston, RI.  I have already been working there for two years, so it is really great that I am able to use my job as my internship. The overall mission of the Little Shepherd Preschool is that “through group experiences such as Story Time , Show & Tell, art activities, and more, we foster the understanding of many basic skills that will help prepare your child for kindergarten and beyond.  We promote healthy and positive attitudes toward self, family, school, and the world.  We help each child develop his or her personal potential to be a happy, well-adjusted individual, able to get along well with others and eager to learn (http://thelittleshepherd.org/?page_id=2).”  The ages of the youth  that the Little Shepherd Preschool serves are ages 3-6.  

    The name of my mentor is Mrs. Debbie Barber, director and pre-k thru k teacher.  

The hours I work at the Little Shepherd Preschool are Monday-Thursday and Monday-Friday when I don’t have class from 8:30 to 12:30 and most of the time I will go in earlier to prepare the classroom for the days activities.  

My duties at the Little Shepherd Preschool as a Teacher’s Assistant are to help prepare the classroom for activities, help the teacher to implement lesson plans, take over calendar time when the teacher is out of the room, prepare snack, facilitate Little Learners Lunch where the youth have lunch for an hour and do activities such as play bingo, use blocks, play with cars, draw in the art center, and play dress-up.  I am also working on a professional development binder that has a list of workshops that both teachers and assistants can go to so we can earn credit with the Center for Early Learning Professionals as both assistants and teachers need 20 hours of professional development a year.  At the Little Shepherd Preschool we are like a family and our communications and discussions flow with each of us giving each other feedback on certain situations.

The three tags that I would use to label this internship are: preschool, professional development, hands-on

Regina Figueroa

Youth Development Cohort 2

rfigueroa_3738@email.ric.edu or Reginelle15@aol.com