1. Cluttered Classroom Environment Ciara Piñero February 22, 2014 Classroom Design 1st Grade

2. Security and Shelter Security and Shelter are represented in my practicum classroom in the reading and math centers. The reading center (to the right) is a place where students have the freedom to pick their own books, and the math center allows the students easy access to whatever math supplies and projects they would like. The math center is also somewhat sectioned off by the bookshelves, and serves as a quiet space for students to go if they need some alone time. I feel that the reading center could do with a little more organization, or something that would make the students more comfortable, like a bean bag chair.

3. Social Contact Social Contact is addressed through the students’ seating arrangements and the rug time. While whole class instruction, the teacher has the students sit together on the rug. During most other parts of the day, the students sit at their desks in clusters of 6 and 7.

4. Symbolic Identification My practicum teacher has a mixture of symbolic identification. For example, the months of the year are represented by student drawings, but different types of habitats are represented through store bought posters.

5. Task Instrumentality Cubbies are provided on the side of the classroom for the students’ belongings and bins are piled on top of them for storage. The computers are put in the back of the classroom away from everything else, and classwork is filed in each individuals separate cubbies.

6. Attractiveness Although the classroom is brightly colored and there is technically a place for everything, I feel that it is very unorganized. Nothing is ever put away neatly or properly, and cubbies and bins that are labeled to hold items are always in disarray.

7. Growth Behind the teacher’s kidney desk is a place with many materials for the students to manipulate and work on. Also in the math center as shown previously, there are supplies for the students to just pick up and work on to further their understandings of math.