Reading for September 30th

Something that stood out to me in this reading was the importance of having a good classroom environment.   It's not just having a "cutesy" room and being creative and making it look nice but it's about having the students make the classroom their own.  I think its so important to involve my students in creating the classroom.  I want to show their work so it has a purpose.  I have done so many projects throughout my schooling and once it was graded it just gets thrown out because nobody really cares anymore.  When kids see their work displayed it makes them feel important and I think it really empowers them to have pride in their work.  

I also want to have humor in my class but I think that sometimes teachers go too far with it and make kids feel stupid.   In the chapter it talks about how humor should be used to make us better, not to make us hurt.  Positive humor is the key and I think that it is necessary.  Kids love to laugh and love to tell jokes so I believe that as a teacher we need to make time for our students to laugh and let loose once in awhile.  

I LOVE the idea of windshield checks.  It is sooo creative and it makes sense.  I can see kids really going with it and being honest with their answer.   It's also nice because we all know that windshields can be cleaned.  It's alright if their is mud on it now but we can fix that... we can go over it again and wipe away the mud.  We can always go through the car wash and get it all cleared away and start from scratch.  This is something that I want to implement in my classroom... the poster on the wall would be real cute too I bet...

I also think that it is important to involve students in scheduling decisions... they are the ones that are going to be learning after all!  If you have some flexibility in plans then ask your class what they would rather do, either which activity or what day to do the activity.  They will feel involved and will be more excited for it.  Most of the time we could probably guide them towards what we want them to do anyway which makes it a win/win for us!