Physical+Environment

8/31/11 The environment is very warm and inviting. Mrs. Self has many colorful letters and numbers on the wall. There are also sight words, alphabet strips, and color words on the walls as well.

9/6/11 There are two alphabet walls and a color wall. The shapes and numbers listed on the wall are great for the students to refer to when they are doing their work and they need reminded of what a particular shape, number, letter, or color is.

9/23/11 Mrs. Self plays educational YouTube videos and books on the projector.

__**Here are some pictures from a few of my favorite things around Mrs. Self's classroom:**__


 * This is "clipman" that is used for behavior management.**




 * These are the bins that Mrs. Self uses to organize activities, games, lessons, decorations, etc. for each month of the year.**


 * Here is the front of Mrs. Self's classroom where I taught calendar time. I absolutely loved her organization!**




 * These are Mrs. Self's classroom centers that the students get to enjoy everyday:**


 * This is the "Home and Blocks" center in the classroom:**


 * This is one of Mrs. Self's Morning Messages. Mrs. Self does a Morning Message with her students everyday during calendar time.**


 * These coins & coin descriptions are used during calendar time to review money with the students. I usually taught the students calendar time everyday!**


 * This is the calendar, place value chart, and estimation jar that is used during calendar time.**


 * Here is one of Mrs. Self's bulletin boards:**


 * This is part of Mrs. Self's Word Wall (with sight words):**

10/4/11 Mrs. Dickens' classroom is very warm and inviting! She has tons of books and a giant cute green frog stuffed animal (which is the first thing that stuck out to me)! She keeps the new spelling words on the white board each week, along with the date.

10/8/11 Mrs. Dickens has a desk, along with a big wrap around table in the corner of her room where she grades papers, plans lessons, and holds meetings with the other second grade teachers.

10/11/11 Mrs. Dickens has the question, "What are we learning about?" On the whiteboard. Under the question she has the subjects that are covered in second grade: reading, english, spelling, math, science, and social studies. Beside each subject, she writes what material is covered that week for each particular subject. I think that is a very organized way for the students to refer to the board if they want to remind themselves what they are learning about in each subject. There is also a hundreds number chart above the whiteboard, and two clocks with movable hands that are great for reviewing time! A classroom decoration that really stands out to me is a cute blue monster that is hanging on the wall. He is holding a sign that says, "Words that describe Mrs. Dickens' students." Around the cute monster holding the sign are bright, colorful words such as "amazing", "hooray", "super", "fantastic", and "creative kids"! I think that this decoration is very cute and cheerful! I believe it is also good to have such positive and encouraging words around the classroom.

10/12/11 There are spelling words, vocabulary words, and high frequency words all grouped separately on the left side of the whiteboard. The words are placed very neatly on the board, and it allows Mrs. Dickens to stay organized when referring to the spelling, vocabulary, and high frequency words that week (the words change weekly).

10/18/11 There is a small reading area where there is a colorful little square rug in the back corner of the room, and there is a book shelf with many different children's books, along with a friendly giant green frog stuffed animal sitting on the corner of the rug...very cute! There is also a giant paper clock that Mrs. Dickens has made and placed on the white board with magnets. She made the hands on the clock movable, and wrote out each number on the clock very bold, neat, and clear. I like how she also added the actual minute amount next to the numbers that represent the minutes (she put a number 5 next to the number 1, and number 10 next to the number 2, etc.). At the bottom of the clock, she wrote: 60 seconds=1 minute, 60 minutes=1 hour, adn 24 hours=1 day. I think that this clock will be very effective in teaching the students about time.

10/19/11 There is a erasable poster that looks like a large piece of notebook paper that she has hanging on the wall that has "Homework" written with a dry-erase marker. Here Mrs. Dickens writes the days of the week, and what homework the class has each day beside the correct day of the week. She also has an AR Points chart where she places a sticker next to a child's name if they earned some AR points.

10/20/11 Mrs. Dickens has set up a small table in the back of the room for me to work at with one or two students at a time. There is also a chart that shows number value; it has the thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones place written out in columns. Mrs. Dickens has this up on the white board, and she uses magnetic manipulatives to show which blocks (manipulatives) would belong in the thousands, hundreds, tens, or ones column. I think that the magnetic manipulatives are very creative! She also has a giant sheet of line paper hanging up with "Math Terms" written at the top. On this piece of paper, she has written terms such as place value, grater than, less than, and equal to. Beside each term, she drew the symbol that represents that certain term, rather than writing out the definition. For example, one term is equal to, so the symbol written beside it is: =. Another term is sum, and Mrs. Dickens wrote 3+3=6 as the example. This chart is very kid-friendly and useful during math time!

10/26/11 Mrs. Dickens has a //Word Problem "Clue"// poster on her wall. It has clues on it to help the students figure out math word problems. One of the clues is addition could mean in all, all together, sum, total, or plus (+). This is very helpful to the students while they are working on their math worksheet activities with word problems.


 * __Here are some pictures from some of my favorite things around Mrs. Dickens' classroom:__**


 * This is the behavior chart where Mrs. Dickens' students have to move their clip if they misbehave in class.**




 * This is where Mrs. Dickens' students make their lunch choice every morning; I think this idea is very organized!**


 * This wall decoration is my favorite because of the positive and encouraging "words that describe Mrs. Dickens' students".**


 * This is Mrs. Dickens' daily class schedule that she has posted on the wall for the students to see.**


 * This is where Mrs. Dickens posts what her class is learning about in every subject each week; I love how organized this is for the students!**