I was very nervous for my first day of field experience. However, once I stepped into the school the staff were so friendly and welcoming! All of the teachers quickly noticed that there were three extra people following the teacher around and they stopped to chat and give us words of encouragement. I though I was going to be in a grade one classroom but it turns out it is actually a one-two split. This is better because it gives me experience with a broader range of students. It will also give me tips and tricks to teaching in a split classroom.

The grade 1/2’s are a very busy group and they love to chat. You can tell that the whole group of kids are good friends because no matter who they are beside they will find something to chat about. This aspect of the class makes it easy to get to know the kids and what some of their interests are.

The whole layout of the school just blows my mind. It is so colourful, open concept, and has lots of natural light. There are so many little hangouts or reading areas for students to go work which is such a good idea. Right now the school is in the process of adding portable classrooms onto the back of the school because there isn’t enough classrooms for all of the students enrolled. In the meantime, they set up some walls and made some makeshift classrooms in some of the open spaces. This is what the grade 1/2 classroom is like. It is cool to see how the school adapted to provide extra learning spaces to accommodate the extra students. The classroom is set up in “pods” (groups of four kids at each pod). The teacher said that she can’t have anymore than four kids at each pod because then they are too chatty. She also said that the layout will change frequently as she tried to figure out the best use of space in the “makeshift” classroom.

Even though the teacher has limited space to work with she still managed to create a welcoming learning environment. She did this by including a little carpet area and a special egg chair. The egg chair has a little curtain that pulls closed to give the student their own space. If a student is upset or overwhelmed she will let them go sit in the egg chair to calm down. I thought this was such a good idea and maybe something I could incorporate in my classroom one day!

You can find pictures from the first day here.