October 2, 2014
My morning started of in a two/three combo class where I was able to observe their morning routines. The kids came in and went straight to their seats, after putting their coats and bags away and handing in their planners. They took out a bag of words and worked on sorting them in to categories. This reminded me of activities we have done with sorting words. Later during the day they used these words as their spelling words. I thought that this was a great morning activity and perfect to help them get to know their spelling words.
The children are expected to greet their teacher and shake her hand as they come in in the morning. They are taught to stand up and greet any adults that come into the classroom, which was a very new concept for me. They are expected to put their hands up if they would like to talk or ask a question and to not disturb their neighbors. Their morning routine includes the special helper going through the days of the week, the month, day and year, the weather, as well as how many days they have had in school. They also stand up and sing O’ Canada, which I thought was a very important part of their education, it also seemed to bring them together. I really appreciated the respect that was present in this classroom and their knowledge for the class expectations and routine.
In the Grade one class there were no strict routines that I observed. One thing that they were really working on was taking their garbage home and sorting their recycling in order to reduce the amounts of waste. The kids also were respectful towards each other, for example while some kids were still eating others did puzzles quietly and didn’t distract the others.
One thing that I really appreciated was the amount of respect that the grade 6/7 students had. They treated the adults that came in to the room with respect, standing up and properly greeting them. They also treated each other respectfully by allowing everyone to have input in a conversation and not putting any one down. Respect is the number one thing that really stuck with me and set this school apart from others I have been in before.