Blog4

This week I got an amazing and crazy opportunity to observe in a first grade classroom. Everything there was so small and I felt as though i had walked into a mini world. The kids, the desks, everything was six year old sized. While observing in the classroom this week I noticed that there were little things that the teacher was doing to engage the students with each other and with their community. This seemed to nourish a feeling of excitement and gratitude with the students and allowed them to see the world through a more giving and appreciative lense while also teaching them how to show excitement and selflessness for another student. One of the things that she did to encourage a classroom community was seat the students together in tables. This allowed the tables to talk amongst themselves. The teacher would often have the tables talk over problems together and in the morning she would have them all share what they thought about their morning warm up. This gave the children an opportunity to interact with one another and build bonds and relationships with their other table members. The children really liked to share stories of what had happened the day before and would even pull out papers of things that they were proud of to show off to their table mates. One of the girls presented a drawing of herself and her dog which her table mats ogled at. It made me happy to see that each kid there seemed to interact with the other students and i thought that this was a good way to encourage a community in the class without it seeming too overwhelming and making sure that each and every student would have the opportunity to share and react to their peers.

Another thing that the teacher did was with celebrating one of the students birthdays. During rug time they all sat down and wrote down a sentence together. The sentence read “happy birthday _________” they all wished him a happy birthday and the birthday boy got to come up and chose three friends to say something about him. He chose three of his friends and they all got to say something cool about him like “he can run fast” and “his favorite color is red”. After this all the students were given a piece of paper where they were supposed to write “happy birthday ______” and then got to write a sentence of their own or choose from one of the ones provided, and then they got to draw a picture for him. All of this was then stapled together for the boy to take home. This was a good way to allow the students to work as a team to make a classmate feel happy. They were all so excited for his birthday and they really put a lot of thought and energy into their pages. It also let the boy know that he was cared for and appreciated in the classroom.

The day before I came to observe the class had made applesauce. One of the students mothers came in and prepared and cooked the apples with the students. I thought that this an amazing opportunity because it engaged the children with an adult with a hands on project. At the end of it they were able to eat the apple sauce that they made. The day I was there the children all wrote a thank you letter to this parent, thanking them for their time and willingness. I liked this because not only was it letting the students interact with her but it also was a good way to show the kids how to express appreciation to those who had gone out of their way to help them.

All of the things that I saw in the class that day may be seen an mundane, but not only was it fun for the kids but it encouraged a feeling of unity and care in the classroom. Each student knew that they were cared about and that they could be open with their peers without scrutiny. It makes me happy to see that teachers are going out of their way to open these opportunities up to their students and that attention has been brought to this subject to encourage other teachers to do the same.