Today was fabulous! I was in the grade 5 class at a Catholic school in Regina. We were welcomed by the Vice Principal who showed us to the grade 5 classroom. The classroom was in a portable at the far end of the school.
In the classroom, I noticed many things! The first thing I noticed was there is not much shelving in the classroom. There were a few tubs of teaching supplies on the ground, two bookshelves, and a shelf for extra supplies. The desks were grouped in pairs. There were not many options for flexible setting, but there was a standing desk, a bean bag chair, and some mats to put anywhere on the floor. There was also a big long table for group work. One thing I thought was the most unusual was that there were no analog clocks in the classrooms; all the clocks were digital in this school. We found this unusual because they still learn how to tell the time in grade 5, but do not have a clock to relate their lessons to in their classroom. In the class, there were many different learning types. Our placement teacher had her seating plan set up to benefits the kids. The students that needed a little bit of extra help with instructions she put with more mature students who were willing to give up some of their work time to help their partner. In the grade 5 class, there was a wide range of maturity levels. Some students were very mature and some students were not, but they are working on their maturity. Our placement teacher told us at the end of the day that she has a very wide range of skill levels in her class, which we noticed as well. At the school, it is a tradition that every year the grade 5 class learns the Thriller dance by Michael Jackson as part of their arts education class. Once they have the dance down pat, the students go out into the community to perform a flash mob in a community center. I think this is a super great idea because it gets the students looking forward to an end result and is also connecting them with their community. We got to watch them practice for their public performance, and they were very impressive. There were a few boys in the front row that had done lots of practice at home. You could tell the students who were really willing to participate and practice. I had a fantastic day, and I can’t wait to go back next week! ~Karlee
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AuthorWeekly posts about my field experiences in the classroom. ArchivesPictures of the Classroom
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