Ideal Classroom Reflection

If I were to dream up the perfect classroom it would start with a school close to home. Once I get to school it will be a beautiful, comfortable school. I would like to teach the second grade. My classroom would be large. You would walk in the room and there would be a reading center to your left. It would have a theme, like the reading hut. It would be a private place where students could use their rewarded free time reading. There would be book shelf full of books. There would be comfortable couches, chairs, or even bean bags and pillows. There could be big fake palm trees that books could hang from. It would be like picking fruit right from the tree. The scenery would be Hawaiian, with a sun and ocean back drop, like you are at an exotic paradise escape, relaxing reading a book. In the center of the room are the desks and they fit in the room nicely, not too crowded. I would like them place in tables of four so that the students can work together. In the front of the room will be a white board and just to the right of that my desk and work place. All along the walls will be examples of students work or bulletin boards of the latest topics we are working on.

My students would be angels of course! I would like to have a specialty like Spanish second language or house some special needs students. They would all be a pleasure to teach. Their parents would be caring but give their children some space. My colleagues would be helpful and nice. All the second grade teachers could work together and maybe just for certain centers or have combined activities. Everyday we would start out with a welcome, get the schedules understood. Then we would move from topic to topic using mostly a hands on technique. My classroom would be very technology friendly. We would have a couple computers for the children's use for free time or research. I would use a projector where you could see what I was doing if I was on the Internet or using a slide or video. I would try to teach basic curriculum with a twist. I would like to use a theme each year and base lessons on the theme. For example everything could be based on a historic event so they could be learning two things at once. I would also like to set up goals with the children at the beginning of the school year and we could all work toward them together. My ultimate goal is to teach the children respect and to have aspirations to be thriving society members because in the end isn't that what we are working towards?