Post #3 Learning Environments

           We have read an article about a classroom that had a morning team chat. They would sit on their rug and talk about whatever they wanted to share for that day. They became a team, and a loving community. The classroom that I sat in had little chants that they did that had uplifting meanings to them. At the end of the day they would form a circle and do one last chant that was positive self talk. In it they say that they can do anything, that they are smart. I love that she makes her classroom a safe environment, and you can tell that she really cares about her students.
            One way that you can tell that she really cares about her students is by the way that she encourages a positive community within her classroom. She does this by have a big chart on the wall with a clothespin with everyone's names. Everyday every student starts at the bottom of the chart and throughout the day, if they answer something that is hard for them, if they are a good friend, show an act of kindness, or anything positive then they get to 'pin up' and get to move their pin up throughout the day. The people who are at the top at the end of the day get a bead to go on their necklace! She makes the whole atmosphere a very exciting place to be for her students so they want to be there and want to be good.
             Another way that this teacher makes it an exciting place to be is by the way she changes from one subject to the next. Like I had mentioned before she has a lot of chants that she uses for her students. She does this to switch subjects. Another thing that makes it very clear is they have a workbook with a different color on the front so she can ask them to get the right color book out and start working on their worksheets. I think this is much nicer from when I was in elementary school. The teacher had to hand out the paper individually, but now this doesn't waste time and the students are in a way taught to self start.

Post #2 LEARNING PREFERENCES

I got to go and spend some time at the elementary school yesterday. I really enjoyed being in the classroom and seeing how a teacher can apply the things that we have been learning. The teacher that I worked with is very good at using a mixture of all learning preferences. She would writing things on the white board to give the students a visual. In this case, the subject was math, and she would have the students draw how many coins would add up 22. They had to do different options such as two dimes and two pennies. Next, she would tell the students a story problem for them to figure out. Example: Sally has 4 apples and Tommy has 6 apples, how many more apples does Tommy have than Sally? Lastly, she let the students work and figure out math problems by playing math games. I loved how without even realizing it each student was catered to with their individual learning preference.

As mentioned before this teacher in particular is really good about touching on each learning preference so all the students can grasp the idea in their own way. Once she lets the students begin on their own she walks around and give each student the help that they may possibly need. If they need additional help, then she had options for them to learn how they needed to. One girl in particular typically went to the resource room during math time, but the resource teach had been out for the day. So she obviously used visuals to help her, I could tell by the way she was using a chart to count as well as her fingers. I loved that I got to take the time to go out and see how to put the learning preferences to work in a classroom.