Who Am I?

My name is Hope Pittman and I am extrememly excited to be apart of the first grade team at Chinquapin Elementary. I am a fourth year teacher who graduated from UNCW within the Spring of 2019. I have grown up in the Chinquapin area and am excited to say that I am going to be able to teach within Duplin County. The love that I have for this area has driven me to create my classroom to promote STEAMA as much as I can. My main goal as a teacher is to build a strong relationship with each of my students as well as help them grow within their excitment of learning. I want my room to be a big family allowing us to succeed as a group. 

My Classroom

When walking into my classroom, the first thing that would be seen is tables instead of desks. I am a firm believer in allowing students to talk respectivly with their peers about a variety of topics that they are learning! Having tables instead of desks will allow students to have a larger and more open area to talk as well as partake in hands on activities with their peers. Another major factor in my classroom is the promotion of flexible seating. Within my classroom centers, I have bouncy ball seats, wobble seats, and a fun reading nook. People seem to acknowledge that students all learn differently; however, many do not seem to understand that children might have a "favorite spot" to do this learning. I want children to be able to sit where they feel they can be the most productive. This is why I give the option of using a flexible seating arrangment or the use of a simple chair. Lastly, I am excited to announce that our classroom will be getting a pet beta fish. I wanted to give the children something to look forward to when coming to the room, and I feel that this will be something to get them excited.

Behavioral Managment

I am making the bold move in not having a clipchart within my classroom. I will be keeping a personal record using a tally sheet of any children that may not be doing exactly what is needed at a specfic time. If a child reaches 3 tallies by lunch or recess, I will be pulling them to the side for a few minutes to go over the expectations and consequences. If the child reaches 5 tallies, a note will be sent home explaining the behavior. I understand that children have bad moments; however, I do not want them to catergorize it as a bad day. This is why I am trying to remove the clipchart. Something to promote positive behavior, which is the main area I am focused, is the use of the book called "How Full is Your Bucket." This book shows how kindness towards others as well as the classroom enviroment makes others as well as the indvidual happy. When seeing a child do something positive, I will ask them to put a popsickle stick in their indvidual bucket cubby. At the end of the week, a certain number of popsickle sticks can be given back to the teacher for certain things. If a child chooses to keep their popsickle sticks to add to the following week, that is acceptable too. I want children to see the value of postivity!    

Homework

I am not planning on giving a lot of homework. I feel that it should be used as a refresher of what we covered that day. This means it should not be overwhelming for the child or parent. I want the kids to be able to enjoy coming home, seeing their family, and being involved in outside activities.