Marin Haffey

4-3-13
EN 456 Field Work Paper
This field experience was very eye opening for me. I observed 10 hours
in Mrs. Lakes combined first and second grade class at St. Thomas the
apostle. This was a very interesting experience from a management
perspective. I was not sure what to expect exactly from this particular
classroom. I had done many observations at St. Thomas so I know how the
classrooms work. When I was looking for a teacher I saw that Holly Lake
thought first and second grade. I did not think anything of it. When I got to
the classroom and saw that it was a combined first and second grade class I
knew I was in for a big time lesson in classroom management. I have never
focused simply on management in any observation so my goals going into
this classroom were to do just that. To critique different types of the teachers
management. from general rules to smaller episodes I wanted to look deeper
into the teachers management strategies. I got a lot of ideas from observing
this classroom. These ideas however are both positive and negative.
Observing this class was definitely interesting. I am going to overview both
days in the remainder of this paper focusing on management, episodes, and
personal reflection.
May, 15, 2013: Observation day 1
The classroom definitely had structure. The students know what to do
and most of them get straight to their morning work. For classroom
discipline Mrs. Lake had a pin moving chart. Each student had a clothes pin
with their name that could be moved up or down with certain behaviors.

They all start at Ready to learn. Students can move up to showing pride, role
model, or saint but can also be moved down to think about it pray, reflection
time, and call parents. I liked how this chart worked as there were different
levels to the positive side as well as negative. It was not fully effective in that
students were given a punishment that was not on the chart. Their names
were moved to think about it and they had to stay in for recess and write
about what they had done. I did not think that this was very consistent. I
liked the way that the class utilized the smart board for attendance,
calendar, and whether It was great for class interaction but there were
definitely some flaws. I was fully into the whole calendar on the smart board
idea until I realized that they were behind and had not done calendar in 27
days! These methods work best if they are consistent and done every day. If
not, they seem like a waste of time.
After calendar and morning announcements/prayer, the first graders
had read to self time while the second graders took their weekly spelling
test. The wonderful thing about these spelling tests though is that every
student creates their own list of words they need to work on. The teacher
tells every student what their first word is and a sentence then moves on to
the second word and so on. This is definitely more time consuming but in the
long run is beneficial for the students. The first graders were not all
interested in read to self time so I went around along with the Para pro to get
them focused on their reading.
From the moment I the first bell rang I could tell that something was
going on in teacher world. Mrs. Lake had to go to the office numerous times

and teachers came in to speak with her. This left Mrs. Fabur, the Para-pro and
main first grade instructor, to lead the class. At one point she was at a loss
for what to do so one of the students asked if she could read the book she
wrote and published to the class. This worked very well and it kept the kids
occupied even as the teachers talked about their issues off to the side. Being
the curious college student observer I am, I decided to be a little nosey and
find out what was going on. I found out that one of the students in the class
had gotten suspended and was to come back into the classroom that
morning. The child had always been a troublemaker but when he was
unprovoked and stabbed a student with a pencil and broke skin something
had to be done. Mrs. Lake mentioned that she had a parent teacher
conference the night before. Also the student was currently in a separate
classroom doing some work until the student could enter the class without
causing a major distraction. I was very impressed. With all of this going on
behind the scenes both teachers did not talk about it to the students and
tried to continue their lessons as normal.
Being the Friday before St. Patricks day Mrs. Lake had fun lessons
planned. The first graders did a craft. They cut out a story about a
leprechaun and placed it in order on a long strip of paper with a pot of gold
at the end. Once the story was all in order they all had did a choral reading
of the story together then colored the pictures. On the other side second
graders were hard at work with their lucky charms cereal math. They were all
given a small plastic bag with cereal and a worksheet. They were to estimate
the number of cereal pieces and marshmallows, separate pieces into

different groups ( 3, 7, 10, 12) and remainders, they also had to chart the
different types of marshmallows they had. Some students were very good at
this and enjoyed the activity. Others struggled because they were pressed for
time before going to mass. As the second graders headed off to mass Mrs.
Lake reminded them about their goals: to pay more attention to the pastor
and to participate more. The first graders had a variation of the cereal
assignment as well. They had to count the cereal pieces and marshmallows
separately, sort by shape, chart the most and least marshmallows, they also
had to add the different cereal shapes together. After the cereal students
created leprechaun puppets out of small paper bags and a cut out template.
Students enjoyed both of these activities.
In general it was a good day as far as management goes there were a
few incidents but nothing too major. One interesting technique I found is that
when a student forgot to put their name on their paper they had to say My
name is ___ and write it on the paper. It was a good way to get students to
remember to put their names on their papers first so they may not have to
be embarrassed later. I noticed that Mrs. Lake was strict with discipline.
Making statements in a harsh tone such as Im not sure why you are out of
your seat. And at one point she shushed a student. I guess these strategies
work for her but I would take a different approach. All in all though, the first
day was an interesting learning experience.
May, 22, 2013: Observation day 2
The second day of observation was much different than the first.
Without the outside distractions I noticed that Mrs. Lake greeted most of the
students at the door. Again students came in ready to work. Today they had

math sheets to do which took a while. When completed students had Mrs.
Lake check their work. Some students she simply told that they need to go
back and fix their problems and others she explained why the answers were
wrong. She was not the best at helping those who needed it and I think there
would have been more positive ways to do so. Two of the students were
copying each others wrong answers and cheating off of each other. They
had to stay in for recess and write sentences about why cheating is wrong. I
agree with this punishment however they never did get the right answers to
the math problems. I would have taken this into consideration as the teacher
to make sure the students learn and understand the material. After morning
work and announcements/prayer the classes split up to work on their reading
and science in the kids edition of National Geographic. Mrs. Lake took the
second graders into the hallway while I stayed with Mrs. Fabur and the first
graders. This ran very smoothly as students raised their hands to read. The
teacher would interject with questions and call on students to answer and
this pattern continued. When they finished the reading Mrs. Fabur noticed
that she had not made enough copies of the magazine quiz for the whole
class. As all good classroom managers should, she thought quick on her feet
and decided to give the quiz out loud and call on students for answers. This
was a great idea and it got the whole class involved and engaged. She then
had the students draw an animal in their habitat and write about it.
While the second graders went to mass the first grade played a
variation of bingo with theory spelling words. Students choose words from
the word wall and filled in spaces on a board. If the word was called they

cover the space until they make a row. Great concept but I did find one
portion if this quite humorous. Mrs. Fabur would call out a word, use it in a
sentence then say the word again. Students would ask her to spell the word
and she did!. Personally I think that this is against the point of the game and
if they are being read the word then they are not having the practice finding
it and learning it themselves.
For being a combined first and second grade classroom they are split
up very often. It is rare that both classes are in the room together. They
worked on religion work separately as well. I stayed in the room with the first
graders again and everything seemed to go very smoothly. It worked as the
previous national geographic lesson had.
The second day I learned some more things about the classroom. Mrs.
Lake had created a lunch chart, which is a great idea. Students had
clothespin tags and pinned their name on close to the lunch option they
wanted. From there lunch orders could be recorded and sent to the office. I
would use this idea in a future classroom. Surprised we didnt think of it
before. In the classroom I noticed the two separate first and second grade
word walls. It is good that there is a distinction between the two. I notice this
last time but it really hit me today how unconventional the back seat folder
holder is. The first graders sit at tables and they each have a chair with a
paper holder on the back. I find this to be very unorganized for the students
because they spend so much time sorting through everything. There should
be a better way to utilize these compartments. One thing that bothered me

was that the teacher was talking over the announcements asking whose
paper was on her desk. I think she really could have waited.
Again a very productive day at St. Thomas.