Importance Of A Selfroom Classroom

My host site for a self-contained classroom was in an early learning center for preschool children. The school uses the High-Scope curriculum with some influence from Reggio-Emilia, encompassing a “hands-on” learning experience that puts families first. The center contains a variety of types of classrooms, bilingual, special education, general education, and their own special services diagnostics team. The self-contained classroom was a very different environment for me to experience. The classroom was well organized with defined zones, routines, and current concentrations. There were four adults in the classroom with the eight children: one head teacher, Ms. Ashley Smith, two assistants, and one who was only taking children for assessments. The children were very compliant in my observation and did well following the course of the routine. The self-contained classroom I

I think this is because they knew their routine and where they needed to be. There were consistent reminders for the children to “clean up and move to the rug” but I felt that these where just guiding instructions to keep the children from too many side distractions. In the music that was used for the clean-up time, I noted the calmness of the tones and steady beats. It made me aware of the overall tone of the room. My experiences with special education students must have been in more over stimulated moments. While the classroom did have a couple of meltdowns and out bursts, the moment was quickly returned to the calmer level where everyone could be productive again and the child was addressed by the teacher without interruption by another student. The teachers worked well with each other in interacting with each child in turn when necessary and, again, offering an extension with the type of play they