Chapter 2: Classroom Setup

This week was week 1 of my first in-situ experience in EDCI 402. I was invited to observe and participate in a grade 6 classroom at the local elementary school. I really enjoyed how every piece of this teachers classroom was carefully considered and used to enhance the students learning.

The Classroom Library

The classroom teacher organized her books using large plastic bins labeled with homemade tags and sorted by genre. The bins were placed on the bottom 2 levels of her shelving around the front and right side of her classroom. The classroom teacher was kind enough to share the pros and cautions of her set up with me:

Paragraphing:

There is a series of poster’s on one wall of the classroom that teaches students paragraphing. This poster can be used to teach students to form a united paragraph.

BC Curriculum Links: Grade 6 ELA

Content:

• Paragraphing: developing paragraphs that are characterized by unity, development, and coherence
• Text features: how text and visuals are displayed

Curricular Competencies:

• Use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create engaging and meaningful literary and informational texts for a variety of purposes and audiences
• Select and use appropriate features, forms, and genres according to audience, purpose, and message

Writing Process:

There is a series of posters on another wall in the classroom that teach writing process. This poster can be used to teach the writing process and teach students how to edit and revise.

BC Curriculum Links: Grade 6 ELA

Content:

• writing processes
• conventions: common practices in all standard punctuation use, in capitalization, and in Canadian spelling

Curricular Competencies:

• Use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create engaging and meaningful literary and informational texts for a variety of purposes and audiences
• Assess and refine texts to improve their clarity, effectiveness, and impact according to purpose, audience, and message
• Use an increasing repertoire of conventions of Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Word Wall:

This classroom had a ice cream word all of words to use to strengthen student writing. The word on the bottom was a simple word and then each ice cream scoop was a word from the thesaurus that students could use instead. Take a look:

BC Curriculum Links: Grade 6 ELA

Content:

• language varieties: regional dialects and varieties of English, standard Canadian English versus American English, formal versus informal registers, and situational varieties
• sentence structure and grammar: varied sentence structure, pronoun use, subject-verb agreement, use of transitional words, awareness of run-on sentences and sentence fragments

Curricular Competencies:

• Assess and refine texts to improve their clarity, effectiveness, and impact according to purpose, audience, and message

Brainstorming Time:

Something I noticed the classroom teacher did to promote literacy is brainstorm as a class prior to asking students to create work. For this example the students were working on writing a persuasive ad to sell a product they created.

Benefits:

• The white board can easily be erased and added to as students increase their vocabulary
• Students will produce higher quality work because the teacher took the time to get the ball rolling on student work
• Students will be more willing to risk using new words if the teacher introduces the word
• The students feel ownership over this work because they created it with the teacher

My Classroom: Grades 1-4

When I have my own classroom something I really want to include is a space for the students to read that is not their desk. I believe a change in scenery can be very beneficial in promoting reading.

I would want to include lots of pillows that students could sit on. Using portable pillows allows students to move to a setting they choose. This choice allows students some autonomy over their own learning.

I would implement the pillows with a procedure that says 1 student per pillow. Pillows are used only for independent reading time. Pillows can be moved anywhere in the classroom but they need to be put back.

Having a special material only for reading time will add excitement and student choice.