Since I was virtual, I did not have a chance to decorate the room or collaborate with my mentor teacher on how my room would look. However, I always imagined my classroom would be set up like the picture on the left. I like collaborative work more because I realized that everything in the world is collaborating with people. If we instill that at a young age, I think we can impact children. I got a long-term second grade place sub position. I am setting up the classroom; each of the table names will be named after a Michigan sports team (I hope you got the theme of the portfolio.) If you did not, it is the colors of the Michigan sports teams that I root for. I will have all Michigan sports teams' banners hanging on the four walls of the classroom.  I will have a wall in my class that students can put up their best work from any class. I am also more focused on projects than I am on tests. This is because you can study your tail off for a test and still fail it, which happened a lot to me, so I am not a test guy. However, I will give them out because I see an importance in various ways to assess. I will have pictures of my future classroom in a week when I set up the second grade classroom. 

Below you can see an example of a project that I assigned in social studies. We finished the unit on the 13 colonies. For the project, they choose a region and make an advertisement or billboard on that region. The group I chose below did theirs on the southern colonies. 

I sent a welcome email to all the parents; if you would like to see it, you can click on the button below.  
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Example of Student work 

So you aren't confused on what is shown I will tell you. The first picture on the left is an informational writing piece on the transcontinental railroad. The middle picture is an example of math work. The last picture is we read Bud, Not Buddy,  and the students had to create their own suitcase with the five items they would take in that suitcase. 

How is my classroom going to look? 
These pictures hopefully reflect the room I want to create. The first one is a rough outline of what I want my room to look like. I would have my groups in tables instead of rows like the picture above has. Also, instead of having the reading table in the back corner like most classrooms, I will have it in the middle of the classroom like the picture has it. Along with that I am hoping to make these posters and bulletin boards and put them around the classroom probably with my bitmoji on them like you see on the top of this page welcoming you. 
I reach my students in the small groups that I see them for reading or math getting to know them as individuals. At the same time getting to know them as a class and how they work with each other or by themselves. I was a special needs student and those in my class will be treated with respect and I will connect with them by getting interested in the same things as they are, wheater it is Barbies or sports I have it covered and that is the same approach I will take when getting to know my other students. But remember my goal is to mainstream those special education kids or have them mostly mainstreamed if not all the way. And that happens if you include them when they come in the classroom from what ever service they came from and you get them involved into the work that the class is doing. 

This school year I was virtual so everything I did included technology. So I am thinking from now on I will make all their assignments online or at least their homework but it depends on the district and the grade level. I will also make use of a smartboard if it is available in my classroom because I love exploring new technology and figuring it out. Some of the technology tools we have tried are: Kahoot, Flipgrid, breakout rooms, Survey Monkey, virtual fieldtrips, Epic, Prodigy, Readworks, Flipity,  PowerPoint, WebQuests, Teams and Schoology. 

One of the teaching strategies I am planning to implant is to have more discussion instead of me lecturing or showing  something. Another one that I mentioned is project based learning and this is where you spend more than a week on a project and scaffold the project along the way. The last one is modeled teaching it is where I show the students what I want them in smaller steps that helps students complete the task. 

My classroom management skills on virtual is going to be completely different from face to face learning because there is no mute all button when the students get out of hand. With the second grade class that I am going to take there are few classroom management skills that I am going to try the first one is if I want to get their attention I sometimes count down from 5.  I want to try just standing in the front of the room with my palm up to see how long it would take them to recognize I am waiting. I have also established with the students an individual bases management where they move their number over and if that happens one of two things happen: the first is they will lose 5 minutes of recess or I call home I let the child choosewhat they want me to make. If that problem persists everyday then I would call home and not give the student the option. They can always earn back recess time lost if they are good. ​

I also created a classroom management system based on the three branches of government if you want to check that out click on the button that says three branches of government classroom management.  

Below if you click on the buttons it will take you to my lessons plan for each of the subjects.