Daily Classroom Practice

I found this article to be very helpful in making the checklist for all the important "must haves." This article was more detailed than the previous one, and I found it to be very thorough. When creating the environment, this clearly requires planning and organization. Proper room arrangement is critical in developing the type of environment that will be conducive to their learning. I know I will need to keep an open space to comfortably accomodate 20 students on the floor/rug area to effectively execute Calendar Math everyday. I also planned to arrange the students' desks in groups of four so as to foster pair shares and small group work and activities. I will also need significant wall space in order to properly display and organize all of the materials and resources for Calendar Math. This will be a major math activity that I will engage the students in on a daily basis. Therefore, I will need to put a lot of thought and planning into its organization. I will also need an area in the room where I could place a large table to be able to work with students in small groups. Dividing the room into sections for centers is a great idea as I want to implement center activities at least once a week. In addition, I will need a clear system to organize supplies and their proper distribution. I want to have a designated "table leader" who will be in charge of passing out and collecting any supplies and materials used for that day. I need to create a space to properly store these materials for easy access by my students in an organized fashion. Next, students' addresses and phone numbers and parent contact information is absolutely necessary. At Rocketship those will be provided on the clipboard;however, I will make sure I have this information for all 80 students transferred into a notebook or binder at school and another set of copies at home to have at my disposal in case I need to make contact with families from my home. I like the suggestion of creating this list by alphabetical order according to their first name instead of their last names. It seems more logical to do that. At Rocketship the students are grouped and named after colleges, so it will be convenient to access and organize that information accordingly. However, I will not need to keep track of busing information like bus tags or bus routes etc because children at Rocketship will not be bused. I see the usefulness of keeping such information in a school where children are bused especially for the really young children like kindergarteners or first graders. The students at Rocketship will go to the after school program after school, so I do not see this as a big issue. Nevertheless, having emergency numbers or other alternate contact information is useful in case a situation arises where you may need that information. I know I will need to create name tags on desks and name tags for their bodies so that I may learn their names quickly. Again this will be a challenge because I will have to do this for 80 students instead of only for 20 or 40 like I am used to. I need that visual display to help me and I think it is helpful for other children to learn names and see those of their classmates written. I definately need a calendar and strong routine to implemet calendar math daily. A classroom library focused on math is another essential must have that I would love to build in my classroom. Indeed a lesson plan book and/or agenda to record deadlines, appointments, duties, meetings, etc is an essential tool for every teacher to have. I would like to generate my lesson plans using technology and make a hard copy for me to file inside of a binder as to have them neatly organized and maintained. I would submit copies to my principal and keep a copy for my own reference. Folders and a filing system is also important to have from day one in addition to a homework policy and routine for distribution and collection. Bulletin boards serve a very important purpose as well. Showing their work on bulletin boards allows for students to take ownership of their work which I believe is very powerful. Due to the number of students I have this year clearing enough wall space to provide for 80 pieces of work will be challenging, but I understand its importance and will be creative in finding a solution so everyone's work is displayed. A behavior policy is another must have. This translates to having a behavior chart, flip cards or some system of managing and tracking behavior and consequences. Finally, the last few pages of the article listed all the operational details/information that every teacher must know in case of emergencies or just for prep work. I liked this article because it helped me go through the checklist and pull out all of the must haves. I knew I needed all of these because of having experience already in the classroom.