Week+7+Experience


 * Oct. 11th, 2010 - Oct. 15th, 2010**

I am so happy to say that this week has really started off in a fantastic way! For being the first week that I am fully in charge of everything - lesson planning, delivery, transitions, you name it - Monday was fabulous. I was able to teach each and every lesson I had planned, complete with several extension activities and we all had a lot of fun. What's more, Mandy wasn't feeling too well, so she stayed home today. That meant that, aside from the watchful eyes and helpful hands of the paraprofessionals, I did it all by myself!

Managing behavior is still a tough issue to tackle, but one that I am taking on one step at a time. I have found both teacher and student modeling to be a strategy that works well for my students. Plus, it's something that they enjoy...and heaven knows, whenever you can make learning fun, you win!

After watching Mandy's classroom and being a part of its inner workings for so long now, I've come to some realizations about my future classroom design. If I have the opportunity to teach students with similar needs, ages, and grade levels, I want to place some sort of stickers or tape dots on the floor of our classroom by the doorways we use most. This would help everyone learn where to stand in our line, how to visualize and form a straight line, and hopefully give us all a more concrete image of how the line should look as we move down the hall.

I also think that in my future classroom, I would like to have assigned seats. Right now, Mandy allows the children to sit where ever they please, which can be fine at times. However, I have noticed that small arguments break out when one student moves to the seat of another who just got up to replace a book on the shelf or go potty. By having assigned seats, the students would not have the chance to argue over such things, thereby eliminating a bit of the behavior management to which I'd have to attend.

Also, I like the idea of taping name tags to each student's desk as a way to help them learn to recognize their name in print. To be honest, it has really surprised me to find that many of my students currently struggle with this skill, even though they are now in 3rd or 4th grade.

One more benefit of assigned seating at our table (or even separate student desks, if I had those in my future class), would be that it would give my students their own personal space in the classroom. Although I certainly want to feel as though the entire room belongs to them, I think it would be important for them to have their own area that they don't have to share with anyone else, too. During the beginning of the year, I'd explain that if they ever want a personal "time out", like if they feel frustrated and just want some alone time, they could place a small card on the corner of their desk and put their head down to collect themselves for a moment. Plus, each student having their own desk would allow me to better enforce personal responsibility because the class could elect a desk inspector to perform weekly desk checks to make sure we all keep our areas tidy and organized.