Early Childhood Classroom Observation

On September 18th, 2015 I visited the Waverly Avenue Elementary school in Holtsville, New York to perform an observation of a kindergarten class. The class consist of 27 students and one teacher (Mrs.Mergott) and one teacher's assistant (the teacher assistant was out sick for the day). The purpose of this observation is to observe and evaluate the school to see if the classroom uses developmentally appropriate practices in their early childhood classes.
Studies have shown that classroom environments play a role in the children’s ability to learn. A well planned out classroom can help the students feel comfortable and relaxed and it tends to make the children feel safer and secure. According to our text book it states that “Children develop

There is a blackboard, smart board, and rubber mats on the floor in the front of the classroom. There are two teacher desks which one was in the front upper right corner that belonged to Mrs.Mergott and the teacher assistant’s desk is in the back right corner near the emergency door. All of the children had their own personal cubby to place their backpacks and lunch in, this was located on the left side of the classroom when you first walk in. Along with the classroom bathroom, file cabinets and a sink in the back

So they knew what to expect when they walked into their classroom every morning. The day started with circle time (9:15am), during circle time the teacher reads a book. Today's choice of book was “Happy Birthday to you” by Dr. Seuss. This was followed by the children going back to their tables and they would practice writing a new letter for the day. Once the children completed writing the letter, the teacher would move on to math (counting activity where they would count out loud together 1-10 and a ditto that had squirrels on it. The child had to count how many and circle the correct number of squirrels that the ditto asked for.) Eventually this lead to lunch time (11:30am-12:00pm) and recess (depending on the weather it could be inside or outside and for only 15 minutes). Every day the child had to attend either music class, gym class, library or art class. Then it was snack time, followed by doing any unfinished class work and practicing writing and a little class project where the children had to cut out a flower and paste a picture of themselves in the center. Lastly this lead to dismissal time where all of the children went home for the