Primary School Observations Journal One Classroom Climate In Mrs.

Andersens third grade classroom the students have cubbies and lockers with their names on them. The desks are in rows of three to four students and there are about four rows. The seating is boy/girl for the first few months of school then Mrs. Andersen changes it. She has magnets with students names on them for when they have hot and cold lunch or if they need to leave the room. Mrs. Andersens desk is in the back of the room and she has two tables in one of the corners of the room fro reading groups and AR testing. She also has two bookshelves, about medium sized, filled with books. She has one white board in the front of the room and one in the back of the room. Mrs. Andersen also has a projector and a sink with a water fountain attached to it. There are lots of cupboards and filing cabinets, and bins labeled differently depending on the subject it is used for. Every day she writes on the board in the front of the classroom the daily schedule, date, and activities for the day. She has many decorations around her classroom; fun decorations and informational decorations. Mrs. Andersen describes herself as a seasonal teacher meaning she decorates her room depending on the month and season. Something Mrs. Andersen does to make the students feel welcome is that she has a daily helper who gets to lead the line wherever the class goes and also gets to help pass out papers to their classmates. Also if it is a students birthday, he or she gets to be the helper for that day.

Mrs. Andersen has a supply of band-aids in her room so the students only go to the nurses office if they really need to, instead of going for every little thing. She also does not believe in the do not smile till Christmas policy because she thinks it is a silly rule partially because she was not told that rule when she first started to teach. Journal Two Classroom Management The students in Mr. Andersens third grade class tend to follow the same basic schedule from day to day except for specials, which change order every day. The studentsare involved in discussions although they are generally teacher led discussions. The expectations for the students are that they pay attention and do what they are supposed to be doing. The students generally listen to rules well and are pretty good at raising their hands when they need something, have a question, or want to talk. If the students are being loud and not paying attention then Mrs. Andersen will turn off the lights which tells the class to be quiet, then after they calm down and are quiet then she turns the lights back on. If the students do something very against the rules (if the entire class does it), Mrs. Andersen will shut the lights off and have the students put their heads down in their desks. Students also have consequences such as no recess that day. An example of something that had a consequence was when one of the students was cheating on a spelling test, so to deal with it Mrs. Andersen took his test and what he used to cheat with, and made him start over.

The classroom has a daily helper, which I think helps the students with wanting to do things and can look at being a helper as a reward for good behavior. Something else that I believe helps with the classroom management is that Mrs. Andersen does not believe the do not smile till Christmas rule. Journal Three Differentiated Learning Mrs. Andersen, like every other teacher, needs to meet the various learning needs of her students. In order to meet these needs Mrs. Andersen does group work, reading groups, in class work, one-on-one work, independent work, homework, and independent reading. For group and in-class work she tends to use her projector to help her students get started, and she also uses the white board to show her students what to do and helps them more if they needed it. For one-on-one work she pulls students aside individually and helps them in the areas they need it. An example of one-on-one work would be when I work oneon-one with girl A, we work on her phrases and sentences, because she needs extra help with that. For reading groups Mrs. Andersen has three to six students at a time, at her back table, taking turns reading a page in the book. An example would be when I work with some of the groups and I get to listen to them read and discuss the book. An example would be when I work with some of the groups and I get to listen to them read and work alone because generally some students need to, in order to learn, work by themselves. Every child is different and needs a different learning style, used on them. There are eight different learning styles; Kinesthetic aka body smart, Linguistic aka word smart, Logical aka number smart, Interpersonal aka people smart,

Intrapersonal aka self smart, Musical aka music smart, Visual/Spatial aka picture smart, and Naturalistic aka nature smart, every child has these although some learning styles are stronger than others and no two children are alike. Journal Four Exceptional Learners Girl B is a special education student, in Mrs. Andersens class, also known as an exceptional learning. She is a third grader and is nine years old. Girl B is not in the classroom full time during the day. The only times she is in the classroom is for about fifty minutes in the morning before specials, and sometimes for keyboarding, math, and reading group. For the times she is not in the classroom she is in Mr. Whites room, a special education teacher. Mr. White has associates assigned to Girl B for the times she is in Mrs. Andersens classroom. When Girl B takes tests, she has more time to take them and they are altered to make it easier. The way Girl B learns how to do her work is by playing games to teach her lessons, and she doesnt always realize that she is actually learning. Girl B also uses work-books. Girl Bs in-class work and homework is sometimes altered to make it easier for her to do, and she usually does her homework in Mr. Whites room. Girl B really does not like to do her work, but she loves to procrastinate and be in charge, which usually does not happen. When Girl B is upset or does not understand something, she hits herself in the head and yells at her associate other times she just screams. An example of one of her outbursts would be when I was trying to get her to do her math facts, she got upset and locked herself in the restroom and just screamed. Another example would be when she was refusing to read she just sat there and stared at her paper.

Although Girl B can be stubborn she can also be a very sweet girl, and if you give her time she will eventually do her work. Journal Five Technology in the Classroom When it comes to technology in the classroom Mrs. Andersen uses a few different things. She uses her laptop, projector, AR testers, computers, and a CD player. Mrs. Andresen usually hooks up her laptop to the projector, which shows the image from the laptop onto the white board. Other times when not using the projector for videos, Mrs. Andersen puts assignments on the projector and that way the students cam all see what she is doing. When the assignment is on the projector, it means that Mrs. Andersen is going to go over the assignment or to help the students begin their assignment. Mrs. Andersen has a CD player in her room that she uses to help the students with their counting. The CDs in the player count by ones, twos, fives, and tens. Another form of technology the students use would be, computers in the computer lab, for keyboarding. Sometimes she shows videos to the class about reading and math but generally reading. After watching the videos, the students usually read their AR books. The students do AR tests after reading their AR books. To take the tests, instead of using computers, the students have these things that look like keyboards with a tiny screen on them, so they look like miniature computers except with no mouse and a very small screen. As you can see even as third graders the students and teachers use quite a bit of technology while in the classroom.