2nd Grade Observations

2nd Grade Observations

When I went to observe in the 2nd grade classroom at Chicora Elementary school, the atmosphere did not seem all too different from that of the first 1st classroom (the grade I am currently interning in). The major difference would be instead of reading to the students the students do read for themselves (and more frequently) but other than that, there wasn't much of a difference to observe. The class day began with the classroom "morning meeting", which consisted of the teacher reviewing the date and going over the "morning math problem" (there 10 squares on a quilt, and 5 different colors if each color is used once, how many times is the color blue used in the quilt). The students were a bit talkative (because they had just arrived at school) but because this was not a part of curriculum and more of a morning sharing activity (the students who wished were allowed to share answers with each other). After a few minutes when it appeared as if every student had solved the problem the teacher used her SmartBoard to solve the problem drawing a 10 squared quilt and filling in each square with a different color in order (red, yellow, blue, green, purple, red, yellow, blue, green, purple) and then counting the blue squares. The students who answered the question correctly got a sticker on their sheet and had the students put away their sheets to take home to show to their parents.

Next came the reading unit. The students were reading a book “Bread and Jam for Francis”. The teacher would call on each student to read a short passage on each page of the book for the first half of the book (15 pages). After wards the teacher had a question and answer session with the students asking if “bread and jam make a healthy meal”, “what do you need to make a healthy meal”, “what will happen if you only eat the same thing/unhealthy foods all the time”? During this time many of the students were very eager to answer and the ones who remained quiet the teacher did begin calling on for responses, and aiding their answering process if they did not know the answers on their own. This activity continued until the students began to get restless and more talkative/less focused, which is when the teacher had the students clear their desks of their books for their spelling test. The change of activity did re-focus the students, as they remained quiet as the teacher passed out their spelling tests. The students who finished their tests early were allowed to read quietly at their desks (books they had gotten form the library, their literature books, “Bread and Jam for Francis” or a book for the classroom bookshelf).

Next the students were called to the carpet again where they were allowed to participate in a math activity with the SmartBoard. Each round the player of the game was given a net with a number on it and were tasked to catch “addition” butterflies with two numbers on its wings that were to be added together. The player was to take their net and click/touch only the butterflies whose wings added up to the number on the net. The students were familiar with this game, and knew that if they wanted a turn they were not to talk aloud and at first they were able to contain themselves, however, after one student completed their first round, the students would proceed to call out the correct “answer” butterflies to the student playing the game. This was allowed however because it did aide both the students who knew and the students who did not know the different addition formulas (as long as the students were not screaming and kept the volume at a manageable level.

The second grade classroom had a more independent feel than the younger classrooms and the students perform and absorb more. Behavior and classroom management did have the same issued present (focusing on the task at hand, managing volume and movement about the classroom) however these older students were able to control themselves for longer periods of time, when they lost this control it was much more boisterous and rambunctious, and more enforcement was needed on the teacher’s behalf to regain control (with more mature students came more mature classroom control).