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Aurora Quinonez

Alyce Gray

ECE 251

October 11, 2017

Environment Observation

1. School: CSN Early Childhood Education Lab Telephone: 702-799-8140 Ext 4083

2. Teacher: Palwasha Salam Age/grade level: 3-5 yrs.

3. Number children enrolled in the class: 16

4. Centers:

- Safe area: 2

- Writing center: 2

- House area: 7-8

- Theater area: 4

- Music area: 4

- Block area: 4

- Art area: 6-8

- Science area: 2

- Math area: 2

- Snack table: 6-8

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5. Arrangement of Physical Space

1. Is it difficult for teachers to supervise: Teachers can adequately supervise all

children visually most of the time.

2. Are quiet and noisy areas separated: Quiet and noisy play areas are all separated

from one another, not just by furniture but by physical space.

3. Does the room allow children privacy: Children are allowed to play alone or with a

friend, without interfering with other children. Staff also suggest children to move

materials to the designated space for privacy when the child wants to work alone.

4. Enough space for children and staff to circulate freely: Ample indoor space that

allow children and staff to circulate freely, enough space for mealtimes group times.

5. Are cubbies and routine furniture accessible without leaving the room: Ample

furniture for storing personal possessions without leaving the room.

6. Adequate space or gross motor play: Not present

7. Does gross motor area have less than four minor hazards and no major hazards?

Not present.

6. Learning Materials, Equipment and Furniture

8. Classroom has enough furniture: Ample furniture is convenient to use and easy

accessible without leaving the room. Materials are not crowed on shelves/cubbies and

allow children space to store toys, books and other materials.

9. Furniture is multi-purpose: Only two pieces of furniture are used for different

activities. The art table and is combined with the snack table during lunch time.

10. Furniture in good condition: All furniture was clean and in good repair without any

tears or exposer of padding. No major hazards that would cause injury or illness.
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11. Is there soft furniture: Two or more furnishings provide a substantial amount of

softness.

12. Is the furniture made child size: Many items (restroom, chairs, tables, water

fountains) throughout the classroom were child size.

13. Does play area have a rug to reduce noise: Multiple rugs are found thought out the

room however no play area is present inside classroom.

14. Gross motor space has 1 hard and 1 soft surface: Not present

15. Is Gross motor equipment used: Not present

16. Is there enough equipment to interest all children: Not present

17. Enough safety helmets for all the children: Not present

7. Storage of Material and Equipment

18. Possessions stored without touching items of the other students: Children can

store items without touching those of another child.

19. Are play materials organized for Children: Everything in the classroom was

organized and placed in their designated areas.

20. Is the classroom properly labeled for children: Everything was labeled to allow the

children’s independent use.

8. Other Elements of Physical Environment

21. Clean environment: Space is clean with no sticky or dirty floors.

22. Adequate light: Adequate lighting provided from ceiling lights.

23. Space is well maintained: Mostly all indoor surfaces are easy maintained and no soil

build up around baseboards or furniture.

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24. Children’s artwork displayed: There was a section on the wall where the children’s

artwork was displayed.

25. Does the staff talk about display materials: Staff did reference the display materials

at least two different times and also had photos of children displayed.

26. Is the material appropriate: More than half of the displayed material is age

appropriate and made it easy to identify what the children’s interest were in that

specific area.

27. Direct natural Light: 2 windows were present to allow natural light into the room.

28. Ventilation can be controlled: Vents in ceiling can be closed, thermostat is located

inside room to control temperature and if needed windows could be opened to allow

air to flow in.

29. Staff interact positively with children who play alone: Staff protect children using

the space for privacy by making children aware of rules for privacy. Also staff stop

and prevent any interruptions.

30. How long do they use gross motor space: Not present

31. Is the gross motor equipment age appropriate: Not present

9. Diversity: Various pictures displaying people of all races, ethnicities, and culture were

displayed in the classroom. In addition, there were several dolls in the classroom for the

children to play with, and the ethnic/racial make-up of the dolls were diverse (white-

colored dolls, black-colored dolls, brown-colored dolls). There were also a few cultural

artifacts in the classroom (e.g. costumes, decorations) that represented diverse cultures.

10. Classroom in action: After the morning greeting children were assigned their jobs. The

children were allowed to pick what centers they wanted to start their day with. Some
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chose the snack table and ate their wheat bread with jelly. Another group went straight to

the art center where they would paint a mask that the parents has brought for the class.

They were 6 options; owl, robot, lion, pumpkin, pirate and a butterfly. They would color

these mask with either crayons or markers. When that group at the art table was done

they went to the block center while the group that was at the snack table rotated to the art

table. In the block center they would build ramps for cars and animals.

11. Evaluation: From what I saw while observing the classroom many of the children started

with areas where they all can participate. As the day progressed they moved in a clock

wise rotation for the most part until they reached the book/safe area. Some of the children

would leave the group they originally started with too move to areas that interested them

at the time. Some would try to convince the rest of the group to move to the area they

wanted to go next. They would share for the most part due to the fact that there is more

than enough material/supplies for each of them to use. The teacher would also move

chairs to accommodate if more children wanted to have a snack or pain by adding more

chairs to the snack and art tables.

12. Rating: 4

13. Strength & Weaknesses:

Strength:

-They have the alphabet all over the walls in the book and writing centers, also animal

alphabet.

-Variety of books.

-Pictures on how children need to act in each center.

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-They have a daily routine, classroom rules and jobs for each child.

Weaknesses:

-Teacher has a tough time when it was story time, kids kept moving around and couldn’t

keep still, she had to stop a few times.

14. Improvements: There was only a few things I would want to change. First would be to

maybe have the children understand the rules during story. Another thing is having more

artwork from the children. My reason for that is that our book state that a good rating

would be if at least 1/3 of the material on the wall is the children’s artwork. Finally, I

would like to incorporate a plan for the staff if weather conditions don’t allow children

gross motor play outside that they can do something inside.