Classroom Visit to Elementary School

During the classroom visit, the halls around the school were very small and easily made me feel like a giant compared to them. The posters on the wall stating Trustworthy, Courageous, and Smile made me feel like the main character in a story and truly did inspire me to fully appreciate the opportunity I had to sit in and enjoy the classroom experience.

The main focus that I worked on observing was the communication and collaboration that many of the children exemplified. The constant feedback and building of ideas showed me that they are much more mature than I had expected. The use of details in combination with references to the book via quotes showed me the nature of the students and how they were excited and engaged in the activity. I was very impressed when they each voiced their opinions and ideas as to how different parts of the story felt for them. They would take into account the feelings that Edward Tulane would go through and elaborate on how certain things made him and or others feel.

They also shared a lot of symbols that they had found within the book and they showed me their own drawings of the symbols. A certain aspect that I had wished we would have done ourselves. The engagement with the text showed me that they were very happy to have read and understood a book through its entirety and with being a children’s book still having that deep meaning that many books strive to achieve.

What I witnessed was a PBL environment in practice and being executed to the tee which showed me that they were not little kids, they were young adults having a productive conversation about the book and what it meant to them. The various approaches to reading and classroom behavior made me see the type of classroom more teachers should emulate.