Carrie and I were going to observe a kindergarten classroom social studies class
that combined their lesson with a first grade class. We were scheduled to arrive at 2 PM.
When I arrived at 1:50 PM, Carrie was waiting outside the school and informed me that
she had already gone in and was told that there was going to be a fire drill in just a few
minutes. We waited for the fire drill to finish and then went into the class. The time was
about 2:10 at this point, so the teachers were running a little behind.
When we entered the room it was empty, we had obviously beat the students back
from the fire drill. This gave us time to look around. The kindergarten room was
brightly decorated with lots of posters and student's art work. The kids were working on
colors because there was a strip on top of the blackboard that had the colors and things
we might see in that color.
The student's desks were arranged in two rows, pushed
together and facing each other. There were about twelve seats in each group, so there
were about 24 students in the class. Apparently, the class had just been returning from a
trip to the school library when the fire drill went off, so when they came in they were
still carrying their library books. The students were asked to take their seats and they did
so quietly. Everyone's eyes were on Carrie and me. Mrs. Debolt asked us to introduce
ourselves, which we did. She told the class that we were learning to be teachers and
that we wanted to sit in on their social studies class. Each student sat at a little desk with
their name laminated on the top. The students had...