Initial Host Classroom Observation! 1st Graders!

 When I first entered the building I was worried about where my classroom was, who I was going to run into on my way to the main office/ classroom. The main office ended up being directly to the right after entering the building and I didn’t end up running into anyone when going to my teachers classroom.  That was a relief, but then came the anticipation and anxiety before entering the classroom.  Upon entering the classroom for the first time I had a little anxiety because I had no idea what to expect on my first day.  I was pretty nervous but at the same time so excited to meet my host teacher and my first graders.  I wasn’t sure if I was suppose to walk in and introduce myself to the class and teacher and have them stop what they were doing or come in and quietly and wait until I was introduced.  When I walked in, Mrs. Cross (my host teacher), was reading a story the class so I walked in and quietly took a seat.  Immediately all the kids grew interested in whom I was, what I was doing in their class and gave waves! After an hour being in my classroom, I met my teacher and all of the students and greeted with a warm welcome.  The feelings of anxiety and nervousness started to fade away and feelings of happiness and reassurance began to kick in.  After only an hour I was feeling great about the decision I made three years ago to become a teacher.  I felt like this was my calling and what I was meant to do in life.  I quickly caught on to the kids names and could identify who was potentially a trouble maker, who wouldn’t be a problem.  I ended up having a great first day of observation and became very comfortable with engaging and interacting with the students in the class.  I immediately jumped in to help with activities and loved every second of it.

Teacher Interaction:

  The teacher throughout the day was very engaged with the students.  During activities such as read alouds she was constantly asking guiding and interactive questions to get the students involved.  I noticed a pattern that after asking or posing a question to the class she would wait a good amount of time before calling on someone to give a response to a question.  When I came time for students to go back to their seats I noticed she would walk around and help students that were struggling with the task at hand.  A good deal of interaction between the teacher and certain students was discipline related.  I noticed there were a few students who were consistently being asked to sit on the reading carpet with their hineys on the group and hands in their laps.  Two students were asked to sit in the thinking chair which is her way of removing the distracting students away from the whole group and have them come up with a plan before entering the discussion again.  I was surprised by how much of the interaction between the teacher and the students were more geared to following the rules and discipline than compared to the teaching of academics.

When doing an activity after a read aloud two students were assigned to draw an illustration that reflected the themes in the book.  I noticed that each pair of students worked fairly efficiently and demonstrated good communication when trying to pick something to draw.  There was a good amount of collaboration done before the drawing began for the most part students worked well.  There were some groups that did get a little distracted and were giggling and laughing here and there but for the most part, interaction between students was very educational effective in completing the task at hand. After I asked one group a guided question to help them think of something to draw I got responses from students that demonstrated they understood and comprehended the themes in which the book was trying to articulate. I noticed in some groups that one child was more vocal over another.  I feel some of the more outgoing kids were quick to talk while those who seemed to have a more timid personality were shy to talk.  I feel a good way to get all students to talk is to ask engaging questions to both students and allow them enough time to each give a response.  I noticed regardless of personality all the kids had something they wanted to vocalize but some were just not given the opportunity or the time to talk.

                Some of the curricular content that was being discussed on my first day was on phonics and more specifically the focus on learning and understand vowels. In a group effort my teacher asked students to name the give different vowels.  In addition, Mrs. Cross had asked students to sound out each vowel.  For visual learners she incorporated a pretty cute sheet that linked a vowel to picture and the first sounds of that picture was the vowel that was chosen.  After the initial teaching of vowels students were asked to report back to their seats and highlight all of the vowels in each one of their classmates name a way of assessing their knowledge on vowels.  It seemed as if students had a better understanding of vowels when all together in a whole group.  Individually some students struggled to identify and list the five vowels in the alphabet.  However, there were some students who showed they did have a good understanding of the five vowels by finishing the work sheet pretty quickly and with ease. If I could teach this content, I would use the same idea of introducing the vowels to the students in a group but as far as assessment I would use differentiated instruction to accommodate students of all learning abilities.  This way the kids who were strong with vowels would be more challenged and not spend some time doing nothing while others were struggling.