A New Experience

Well, my first two days in the classroom have been great so far! I am at Stephens Elementary in a second grade classroom. When I first walked into the classroom I was a little surprised because there are no student desks. Instead, there is a big rug in the middle of the room that the students can sit on. My practicum teacher explained that her second grade class and one other second grade class are being taught Montessori style as opposed to the other second grade classrooms. Basically what this means is that the students are encouraged to learn new things by doing individual, hands-on activities for the majority of the day instead of being taught by the teacher all day long. For example, the first day I was in the classroom the teacher gave a "presentation" to the class for about ten minutes introducing one math concept, and then for the next hour and a half the students were on their own doing individual work. Each student has a weekly work plan that they carry with them. The work plan contains several subjects and different activities for the students to complete each day. The students are allowed to work on which ever activities they wish to at a given time, but they are required to finish all the work on their work plan by the end of the day. When I first saw this implemented I was a little worried about how I would be able to create a whole unit for math, science, and social studies, but I am sure it will be okay once I adjust to the new situation.
One thing that I really loved was the way each of the students were responsible for doing a certain job at the end of the day, and how well they all did at their jobs. Some of the jobs include: disinfecting the tables and chairs, folding the individual rugs available for students and putting them away, and straightening up the different centers around the room. Since the classroom contains many materials and manipulative's that promote individual learning, the students really have to take great care of their classroom, and this was evident at the end of the day when they were cleaning up. Plus, being responsible for certain jobs and knowing how to clean up after yourself are great skills that will help them later in life!!