Circle Time Observation

In this case study, first year third grade teacher, Maggie Lindberg, is having trouble controlling her class. The children are well-behaved during their art period. However, when Ms. Lindberg is in charge, they are highly uncontrollable. They talk when they are not supposed to talk and they don’t listen to anything that Maggie says. There’s supposed to be a nature walk/field trip and Ms. Lindberg’s class has yet to complete the task.

I observed a sixth grade classroom (eleven to twelve years of age) at a middle school in Ringgold, Georgia. The classroom seemed to be fairly even in regards to how many children of each sex were in the classroom. The majority of the students were white with a few african american and hispanic children among the mix. The sixth grade classes did not have enough employees to only teach one subject therefore, the teacher that I observed taught language arts and mathematics. The first thing you notice when you walk into the classroom is the mathematical shapes all along the upper wall like a wallpaper border. These shapes were projects from her students in the years before. The next thing that you’ll notice is the way the desks were set up. They were set up in three separate groups. One group of around twelve desks faced the

At 1:00 p.m. I entered into Evoline C. West Elementary school on Thursday, July 12 2012 for an interview with Mrs. Yolanda Lawrence. As I entered the classroom, I was greeted by Mrs. Lawrence, the head teacher in this classroom. Mrs. Lawrence has no assistant at this present because of it being in the summer. After I entered into the classroom, the entire class welcomed me with “hello Ms. Flournoy”. It made my day to see all of those smiley faces greeting me. This was a 2nd grade classroom which consisted of 17 students of which 8 were girls and 9 were boys. This interview and observation was a total of 2

Setting: I observed this fourth grade student during his English Language Arts block for 45 minutes. The class consists of 22 fourth grade students in a student-centered classroom. During my observation, the students collaborated with other students while the teacher conducted a guided reading group. Students were on computers, writing and reading to respond in a journal. Three days a week this students is pulled out of the classroom for a 30 minute Fountas and Pinell Literacy Intervention due to the Tier 3 instructional level.

The date of my observation was April 27th, 2010. It was about 9:30 in the morning when I began my study. I went to Grossmont College’s Child Development Center. The first thing I began looking for was if the child-teacher ratio was correct. The child ratio was 2 teachers to about every 8 children. The ratio was good. As I entered there was one large room that almost looked as if it could be two rooms they way it was set up. One half consisted of a large bookshelf with numerous books on it with a couch in the front of it. The other half of the room was almost like a little kitchen. It had a table with chairs around it with a sink and cabinets behind it. There were “age appropriate” toys as well as books all over the

I learned the day before my visit, Miss Suzy threw a pizza party for the children. The day of my visit they were going to make their own individual pizzas (I did not get to view that part of the day). I noticed that during circle time, two children seemed uninterested had wandered off. Miss Suzy did not do anything about it, she just let them be. I thought that was wrong of her because the two children were not being involved. The children could of already known what they were speaking about. If that was the case she should of given them some work to do. When circle time was over, Miss Suzy asked each child which part of the room they wanted to play in. Students chose dramatic play, arts and crafts, reading, and playing on the computer. Miss Suzy walked around each group asking them questions, expanding their imaginations. Morrison states "that teachers work with gingival children, small groups" (2003, p.232). Watching Miss Suzy, you can see she really enjoys what she does. She never once ignored a student who went up to her. She seemed genuily interested when the children shared stories with her. She always welcomed them with a hug when walking into the room in the morning to begin their day, and the children would come in running to hug her.

I got the chance to see three grade levels during the observation. The first grade I got to see was third grade and they were at p.e. and I even though I only got to observe the third grades for 15 minutes, I learned that it’s important that the kids get up and move every day. Also, that by the kids playing they learn how to work with each other. Then when it was time for the kids to go the teacher blew a whistle and all the kids ran and got into two lines. When the teacher saw that everyone was in line, he started walking while the kids followed in an orderly manner to go to lunch. The second grade level I got to see was fourth grade. I only got to stay in the class for 20 minutes but during that time the kids were

I also realized that I needed to read more into classroom management. I noticed the teacher had withitness since she could conduct a reading group while watching and listening to the other 5 stations of students scattered across the room. She was able to read the book out loud to the class while noticing the students’ behavior such as a child who had put a rock in her mouth. The teacher calmly stopped reading and told the girl to spit the rock out and throw it away while exclaiming that rocks are not intended for our mouths or eating. Then she began to read again. I did not even see the rock from where I was

All of the children at the daycare were playing, waiting for their parents to arrive and pick them up. The teacher assistant was fairly new, and still getting used to the schedule and rules all the children and staff had to follow. Several of the kids’ parents seemed to come rather late, so the new assistant decided it would be fine for the kids to play with the daycare toys until they were ready leave. The youngest pupil was four, and the oldest had just turned seven, so all the children were undeniably messy and careless during almost all of their lives. The assistant’s excused themselves temporarily, the newbie could definitely handle the remaining children and if not it could help teach and improve her skills.

I observed in the preschool class for two hours, there were a total of 12 children in the class Most of the kids that are in the preschool class were four years old, but there was one five year old. When I first arrived at the preschool, the kids seemed very shy towards me and they did not seem like they were very sociable. I was a stranger to them, and I would have to guess that all of the children were experiencing a little bit of stranger anxiety. I talked to the teacher about how the children reacted to all “strangers” She said that the children often become very uneasy. As I sat down to observe the children, I noticed one thing right away. The boys in the group were very wild and rambunctious, and the girls seemed to be shy and

P.S. 369K is located within P.S. 133K in Brooklyn. Classes I observed were a 6:1, with an additional 2 paraprofessionals. The class was classified as autistic students with minimum verbal skills, ranging in age 7 to 8 ½. Students are considered having very significant needs, including academic, social and interpersonal development, physical development, and management needs. Many of the students identify as having severe difficulties with language and social skills as well. In the classroom, there was a class schedule posted with pictures for the day, as well as the week. A laminate daily schedules were also placed in front of each student’s binder. Desks were arranged in a circle rather than a row. Students were given cues of traffic lights

When a student would be disruptive or too loud, it made other students lose focus and want to be disruptive too. There was one student who was constantly disruptive and would not listen or follow along with the lesson. He was isolated from the round table, but continued to cause problems. He got his name wrote on the board, but he continued to misbehave. The

It is practical knowledge that children and young adults may often at times have trouble staying on task with the numerous sensations and events they experience when in the real world, or in this case, their school. At times easily

Circle time is when all the children come together and engage in learning. Yet J suffered she didn’t get much interaction from teacher. However, after circle time I had the opportunity to observe J and JA in different learning centers. These learning centers provided social interactions. The two learning centers I observed was dramatic play and blocks. The children where in different learning environments at separate times. J crawled to blocks at 9:13am, Which was located across from circle area.

There were two students using iPads with the volume up loud enough to hear as I entered as well. Three students were riffling through a bucket of plastic letters without being entirely successful in finding the letters they were seeking. Two students were using a drawer of foam letters and word cards to put the letters on the corresponding word. The final student was alone just looking at a book herself. The teacher was going back and forth between the groups who were working with letters trying to assist them in picking the correct letters. She would say the sound while feeling her throat and then tell them the letter they needed and find it for them in the box. She went to the group looking in the tub for letters and found letters for them as well. A cause for concern that we noticed was that she was asking the students to sound out the word “said” as well as having written on the board next to the sight words students were spelling that the vowel team ai =e (meaning short e sound). Mrs. Williams though it necessary to jump in at this point and make a correction since she was teaching something contrary to the curriculum and pointed out that sight words like “said” do not follow the rules of phonics always and need to be taught as a whole word. Also during this brief observation we noticed Mrs. M. having difficulty with the student who was alone. She was not engaging in any work after being asked to join the group and instead took a book and hid