When I first started my student teaching this semester, I walked into this second grade classroom at this beautiful new school and was amazed at how clean and new everything looked and felt. The school was built five years ago and still has that brand new feeling which I love. The school that I substitute at regularly is a lot older and isn't equipped with all the brand new bells and whistles that this school has. It felt nice to be somewhere that was new and clean and I was excited that these children had such a wonderful opportunity to learn in this beautiful environment.
At first I thought the classroom was clean but very bare. There wasn't much on the walls or around the classroom. There are 5 tables formed as group pods that seat four kids each facing each other at a rectangular table and one large table that seats eight. The group pods promote collaborative learning and still give enough space at the tables for children to work independently when they have to. The chairs all have seat sacks behind them for easy access to their notebooks, dry erase boards and book baggies. The rest of their classroom work is stored in folders on a shelf by the window. The meeting area is in the front of the classroom facing the smart board and the teachers desk. There is a rug for kids to sit on and some kids also have a bench that they sit on in the meeting area. The word wall with the flow of the day is behind the teachers desk. I don't like the placement of the word wall and flow of the day chart because it is not easily accessible for the students to view. Sometimes, students asked me how to spell a word even though they knew that the word was on the word wall. When I told them to try tapping it out and if they really needed help to look at the word wall they expressed to me that the word wall was hard to see. In addition to the word wall being in an awkward spot the words are written very small and the children have a hard time reading them. As far as the setup, the class seems to flow effortlessly and because it is rather bare there is no clutter for it to feel stuffy. The students all have mailboxes where the they drop off their homework and then they pick up their books and any notes to be brought home at the end of the day.
As the weeks went on the teacher started to add more and more anchor charts on the walls and the windows based on what the children were learning at the time. Children often referred to the math chart when they forgot how to split up numbers in addition. They also went to the science wall to refresh their memories about landforms. Although these charts seemed to be helpful, they were still very minimal with no pictures of landforms and in fact not too many pictures in the classroom at all. Materials are tucked away neatly and the read aloud's are not on display. The library doesn't have any forward facing books to catch the children's interest. I wish that books would be displayed so that the students could see ones they have read or are going to read in the future. Areas of the classroom are not labeled except for the "break chair" that I don't agree with. These kids are very good kids, I'm never quite sure what it is that they are doing that's so horrible that warrants them to go sit in a chair in the corner of the room.
There are absolutely no pictures of families or the children themselves in the classroom. There is nothing celebrating the different cultures of the children in the classroom. There is a bulletin board outside the classroom that at this moment has their book talk project hanging, but other than that no other work from the students are displayed in the actual classroom.
While I like the clean, minimal feel of the classroom I believe that it lacks life and vibrancy. Children should be able to see their work on display and feel proud of it. They should be able to view another students work as well to learn from them. The children have been in the same class as September and there isn't one single piece of their work hanging inside the classroom. I'm not sure if this is the choice of this specific teacher or if the entire school does the same. I have walked into other classrooms briefly to ask a teacher for something but I didn't stay long enough to notice how their classroom was set up. While there are some aspects of this classroom environment that I appreciate and I will use for my own classroom when the time comes, there is a lot I would do to this classroom to improve it and make it a friendlier and more supportive environment.
At first I thought the classroom was clean but very bare. There wasn't much on the walls or around the classroom. There are 5 tables formed as group pods that seat four kids each facing each other at a rectangular table and one large table that seats eight. The group pods promote collaborative learning and still give enough space at the tables for children to work independently when they have to. The chairs all have seat sacks behind them for easy access to their notebooks, dry erase boards and book baggies. The rest of their classroom work is stored in folders on a shelf by the window. The meeting area is in the front of the classroom facing the smart board and the teachers desk. There is a rug for kids to sit on and some kids also have a bench that they sit on in the meeting area. The word wall with the flow of the day is behind the teachers desk. I don't like the placement of the word wall and flow of the day chart because it is not easily accessible for the students to view. Sometimes, students asked me how to spell a word even though they knew that the word was on the word wall. When I told them to try tapping it out and if they really needed help to look at the word wall they expressed to me that the word wall was hard to see. In addition to the word wall being in an awkward spot the words are written very small and the children have a hard time reading them. As far as the setup, the class seems to flow effortlessly and because it is rather bare there is no clutter for it to feel stuffy. The students all have mailboxes where the they drop off their homework and then they pick up their books and any notes to be brought home at the end of the day.
As the weeks went on the teacher started to add more and more anchor charts on the walls and the windows based on what the children were learning at the time. Children often referred to the math chart when they forgot how to split up numbers in addition. They also went to the science wall to refresh their memories about landforms. Although these charts seemed to be helpful, they were still very minimal with no pictures of landforms and in fact not too many pictures in the classroom at all. Materials are tucked away neatly and the read aloud's are not on display. The library doesn't have any forward facing books to catch the children's interest. I wish that books would be displayed so that the students could see ones they have read or are going to read in the future. Areas of the classroom are not labeled except for the "break chair" that I don't agree with. These kids are very good kids, I'm never quite sure what it is that they are doing that's so horrible that warrants them to go sit in a chair in the corner of the room.
There are absolutely no pictures of families or the children themselves in the classroom. There is nothing celebrating the different cultures of the children in the classroom. There is a bulletin board outside the classroom that at this moment has their book talk project hanging, but other than that no other work from the students are displayed in the actual classroom.
While I like the clean, minimal feel of the classroom I believe that it lacks life and vibrancy. Children should be able to see their work on display and feel proud of it. They should be able to view another students work as well to learn from them. The children have been in the same class as September and there isn't one single piece of their work hanging inside the classroom. I'm not sure if this is the choice of this specific teacher or if the entire school does the same. I have walked into other classrooms briefly to ask a teacher for something but I didn't stay long enough to notice how their classroom was set up. While there are some aspects of this classroom environment that I appreciate and I will use for my own classroom when the time comes, there is a lot I would do to this classroom to improve it and make it a friendlier and more supportive environment.
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