Summation of the week

The classroom has fallen into a comfortable pattern, enabling the students to feel safe and excited for the day. This group of children are for the most part calm and respectful, doing their work willingly. They have been receiving many compliments. This is a system of reward in Ms.Price's class. When they earn the allotted amount of compliments, they get a gum ball party. I wasn't present for their first party, but I heard a lot about it from the excited kids.

This week was an exciting chapter in the story of my intern experience. The children participated in the first fire drill of the year. When the alarm first went off, the students were concerned, as many didn't know what was going on. While the fire drill was not communicated to the teachers in advance, Ms. Price promptly herded them together and out the door. I followed the end of the line to make sure everyone stayed together. When they arrived in the class's designated spot, Ms.Price told them to be very quite. She then explained it was just a practice fire drill, and nothing was really wrong. But it was important to act as if there was a fire so in the event of a real emergency they would know what to do. The kids behaved very maturely and when everything was over, they earned a compliment.

When we were back in the classroom, Ms.Price sat them down and explained everything about a fire drill and why it was important. They talked of what to do if you were in the bathroom when it went off and other possible scenarios. The students had a lot of questions. I left the room when there were still numerous hands in the air.

The next day was picture day. The kids were all dressed up and ready to be photographed. When they were told it was time to go to gym for the pictures, we had to line them up from tallest to shortest. The students found this a fun and enlightening experience. Once all their pictures were taken, they earned another compliment. They are a good group.

On uneventful days, i have observed the same pattern of activities, only really able to be hands on when they are in their centers. I make sure they are on task and sometimes even play with them. In the plato center, the girls found it very amusing to make little animals from cookie cutters and then squish them, continually amused as a pretended to mourn them. I thoroughly enjoy interacting with them.

I have started working on a poster for the classroom, and i find it's harder than it looks. I clearly need to improve my crating skills.

Here are some pictures I have taken of the classroom.

This is located in the writing center, where kids come to make a booklet, assigned to pick several words form the poster to copy into their notebooks.

The calendar they use for "Calendar Time" at the beginning of the day.

Colorful cats with the color names of them so students can connect the words with the colors. it's cute and educational.