Teacher Talk

Observation # 1

Mrs. Benton

Grade 4

Today I observed a fourth grade class. I was amazed at how smart some of the students were. Students were asking lots of good questions, and also answering questions that were given to them. I noticed, looking around the classroom, that Spanish was being taught to the students. I liked how they had posters with English on them, but underneath the English there was Spanish written. I thought that was a neat way to get the students learning more. Also, looking around the classroom I noticed posters with positive remarks, such as "think positive" and "its cool in school". That tries to catch the students' attention and get them thinking in more of a positive mode. I liked how the classroom was very big. Usually, a classroom is not as big as this one was. I think the bigger the classroom the more learning will take place. With a big classroom you can set up stations for the students to work at, and you can place more posters around the room for the students to learn from. Another thing that I noticed was how the teacher would get the students attention. Sometimes she would flick the lights off, which worked very well, and sometimes she would clap twice and the students would repeat the clap twice. I thought the clapping was a neat idea. The subject that was being taught was science. The students were learning about

Brown 2

longitude and latitude. They were learning how the sun sets in the west and rises in the east. There was a lot of movement going on at one time. The teacher had all the students stand up next to their chair and sing a song that was about the sun setting and rising. I really think that is something that will stick in their heads throughout the years. As far as working with the students goes, I thought