Alondra Cruz

Education 201

Observation Packet

Due December 7, 2017

things on the walls which were done nicely, or example she has a birthday board which has

pretty lettering. She also had a toy section and the toys were separated into bins. They had a lot

of book and all of the books were either in bins of on a shelf. There was not trash on the floors or

on the desks. She has a section where she has wipes, hand sanitizer, etc. The classroom is very

inviting, it seems like a happy place. Everything is colorful and looks fun. All of the things on

the walls had different colors. It seemed like the kids enjoyed their classroom because they had

space to move around and things to look at.

The class has about 19-20 kids. More than half of the class is male students. There was

always absent kids when I was there. Most of the kids in that class are hispanic. There was only

about 3 African American kids. There was two boy students who didn't speak fluent english.

Their classmates and the teacher would help them out. There was two boy students who didn’t

do their work a lot and didn't pay much attention, they would go to another teacher for extra

help. Most of the girls in the class did their work and didn’t misbehave. It was mostly the boys

who did.

The rules posted are; Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Follow Directions and Listen To

Others, Be Kind Everyday, Do Your BEST!. There was also the Golden Rule which is; Ask 3

Before Me.
 One example that I saw about these rules being enforced was that, the whole class was

playing in groups and there was a student who hit another student. That student was asked to sit

at their desk and work alone. I didn’t see any other time the rules were enforced. Most of the

time she just called them out and asked them to stop what they were doing. They didn’t receive

any rewards for following the rules. There didn’t seem to be any other consequences to not

following the rules.

The teacher has some computers in the back which are used everyday. She has a big table

next to her desk where she gives the students lessons, when they are in reading groups. She also

has another table which is used for another teacher who comes in to test the children. She has an

empty floor area which she uses to read for the students or so they could work in. Everything she

has in the classroom she uses.

The classroom isn’t small compared to the other classrooms they have in that school. I

really like how she had her classroom. The kids had a lot of room to move around. There isn’t

much that she could do with her classroom because of all of the stuff she had.

7:48, Morning bell

8:00, Breakfast

8:10, Reading

8:55, Reading groups

9:55, Writing
 10:55, Recess/lunch

11:25, Specials

12:20, Math

1:34, Tier III

2:10, Clean-up

2:11, Dismissal bell

Instructions are delivered in whole group. There are times where she works with a

smaller group. When they do reading stations she calls the students by groups and they work

with her. In whole group they get to ask her questions and participate. When they are in smaller

groups, she likes to focus on the students she is working with. The other students can’t be

constantly asking her for help.

The teacher gives the children a lot of freedom. She lets them be independent. For

example, she has a door holder, a trash manager, and someone to pass out papers. She lets them

participate a lot. She is really nice and kind towards them. She tells them what to do but also lets

them have fun. She makes learning fun and comes up with fun activities for them to do. For

example, for reading stations she lets the student read with a “reading buddy,” which is a stuffed

animal and the kids really seem to enjoy that.

Mrs. Urias uses her hand signals a lot when she is talking. For example, the kids were

doing a map which was bird's eye view, she showed them with her hands what she mean by
raising her hand and putting it down. She points at important words when they are reading. Also

sometimes she raises her voice or changes her tone when she is reading an important word.

Most of the students seem engaged in the lesson. There are maybe 2 or 3 that aren't

paying a whole lot of attention to the lesson. When the teachers asks them a question, almost all

of their hands go flying up. Since her lesson require a lot of the students participation they pay

attention.

On the first day I went into the class there was a girl who was separated from her group.

She was of to the side. The next day I went back she was back with her group. I'm assuming she

got in trouble and got removed from her group. Other than that day I didn’t see any other student

isolated from the rest of the class.

The was she transitions from subject to subject is by telling them to put away whatever

they were working on and get the new papers they need out. She reminds them what they were

working on the previous class. She says, “ Last class we were working on…” She makes sure the

students know what they are about to start working on and gets their attention.

Some of the “ attention getting” commands she uses were, “ eyes on me” and the students

would repeat. She said this if they were getting off track and not paying attention to her. Another

thing hs would say was, “waterfalls” the kids would repeat and they would be quite. The children
already know what these phrases mean and when she said them they would give her their

attention. The phrases seemed to work a lot with them.

The teacher has to deal with students not wanting to do their work. It was mostly 2 or 3

specific students. With those students she didn’t do what they were supposed too, she would tell

them to do their work and she would check on them. There was one student who liked to wander

around the classroom, she constantly told him to sit down. There was a couple of times where a

student would hit another student. When this happened she would separate them and make sure

they didn’t do it again.

When she asks the students to put their papers in folders she would encounter problems.

A lot of the time they students would put them in the wrong place and she would have to fix their

papers. For example, if a paper had to go home and a student put it in the wrong place she would

have to reorganize all of their papers. That took a lot of time because almost all of the students

would do it.

The school's main building is really small. It is separated from other classrooms. There is

a main building, then there is another building that has more classroom and there is also several

portables. There is a school right next to this school. They are building two more buildings, one

for each school. It seems that there is always noise because of the construction. Their parking is

also very small. It's hard to find a parking spot. There is fence all around the schools. They have
crosswalks everywhere so it is safe for the children. There is a lot of traffic when they are going

and leaving school. There is streets behind,beside and in front of both schools.

The halls are very dull. The whole inside of the school has little decorations. All they

have is bulletin boards which have some work. The doors are open to go into the other building

and portables. There is two different doors to go into the school. Only one door is unlocked. The

school need more decorations because it is very dull and boring.

The school mascot is the cubs. I found no motto or mission statement. The only thing that

said they were the cubs was a rug. They need more school spirit because I found nothing else

besides, that they are the cubs.

The staff is really nice. When the students go into the office to ask for something, they

help them out and get them whatever they need. The parent that go into the main office get help

from the people there. There was a lady who spoke both english and spanish, she was the one

talking to the spanish speaking parents. I didn’t once see a student getting yelled at or a teacher

being rude to the students. Everyone seems to get along. They say goodmorning and goodbye.

They were laughing together.

When the children were at recess they were mostly hanging out in the playground and the

basketball court. I didn’t see any fighting while they were out there. They seem to be playing
nice and getting along. Since the school isn't big there wasn't any other place the kids could hang

out besides those two places.

The first thing you see once you go into the school is the main office and then there is a

couple hallways. There is doors in the cafeteria which lead to the portables and the other

buildings. It is really small so it's hard to get lost. I didn’t see the library. The classrooms are all

pretty small.

I did not see any schools achievements. The only thing I saw was that they had a board

which showed who ran the fastest for each grade. The school was very dull and there was

nothing else that I found.

The teacher expects the student's to do their work. If they don’t finish it they get extra

time the next day. Although she wants them to finish everything the same day she understands

that some children have more trouble than others. She keeps track on how many words they are

reading a week and if they score lower than the week prior she reminds them to read at home.

She tells them they did a good job and understand that every child is on different levels.

Most of the kids like to participate. They all like to answer questions. Everyone gets

excited when it's their turn to answer, even if they don’t know the answer. The whole class gets

involved and likes to participate and help each other out. If one student isn’t doing great then

another student helps them out.

them freedom and lets them help out a lot. The teach have little jobs they have to do, which they

enjoy doing. When it's their turn to do a job they get up and go do whatever they need to do. She

talks to them in a kind matter even if they’ve misbehaved. For example, two students kicked

each other and she asked them, “why did you do it?” and “ what could you have done instead?.”

She is making sure every child is doing their work and helps them out individually if they need

it. When the students want to share something with her she listens. For Example, sometimes the

kids want to tell her what they did over the weekend and she says, “ oh really awesome.” She

always acknowledges their comments.

He is always moving or touching something. While they were doing a math lesson, he wasn’t

paying attention. He doesn’t seem to care about what the teacher is saying. He gets bored and

starts playing with something at his desk. Almost every class, he sat there and didn’t want to do

anything. The teacher had to check on him and constantly remind him to do his work. There is a

teacher that comes in and help out the student, and one of the days I was there she noticed that he

wasn’t doing his work and asked him to sit at the back table so she could help him, his answer

was, “ I don't need help today.” Another day he sat there for ten minutes and didn’t do anything

on the worksheet while everyone else did their work. When the teacher asks for them to answer a

question, he shouts out. They have little boxes with crayon and scissor, he was biting the box and

was asked to stop by the teacher. He was falling asleep while the teacher was giving a lesson. His

classmates help him out. They were working on a writing paper and he hadn’t done his work,

one of his classmates help him copy. On another day he waiting until the teacher put the

answered up and he wrote them down. He gets extra help from another teacher. Mrs.Urias has an

alarm at 8:50 and it tells her to send him to the other teacher to complete the work he hasn’t

finished. I think he needs extra attention and probably works best with one on one instructions.

He can’t sit still so I think that's what stops him from doing his work.

One thing I realized about the school was that making the school colorful and fun makes

the school more interesting. I didn’t like how there was no school spirit or any awards in the

hallways. I realized that although teachers try to make sure that everyone is doing their work and

on task, it can be really hard. Being a teacher is hard but the main reason why it's worth it is the
students. Sometimes they may be hard to handle but seeing them learn is amazing. When they

were doing reading tests on the students, there was a student who scored higher and got super

excited and happy. I saw that sometimes the students had to be pushed to do their work. I learned

that teaching can be more amazing than I thought. Although I only spent 10 hours with the

children, they all had an effect on me and I saw why teachers push hard to help these students

achieve their goals. Al lot of the things we read in our books I saw in the classroom. For

example, the different ways to incorporate sound and vision into lessons, to help them better

understand. A lot of the things we read about teaching styles and different ways children learn, I

saw. The ways that we presented our lessons plans, made me think how I could present to 2nd

graders. Also how the teacher let them be a little independent and how they knew what was

expected of them. I really liked how she let the students have more freedom than other teachers

do. I will be sure to include that in my class. I think it helps the students grow and think for

themselves.