In preparation for the school to open on November 26th, I went to the school to help my mentor and the other TA set up the classroom. I volunteered to create the student tags, as well as the birthday calendar since the students love to express when their birthdays are. I went online and looked up different resources for the students' tags and selected a variety. The only constant I included was a black and white student tag, as I had though students would love the opprotunity to decorate their own student tag. I printed and cut the student tag in preparation for the students' first day of school. I did the same thing for the students' balloon. They can select whichever balloon they would like, and decorate it to their choosing, while displaying their birthday date. My mentor also had a list of things that she wanted to do in the classroom, so she assigned me do the the tasks one by one. First, I needed to put up a "Reading Corner" sign in the room, so students' know where they can read for fun. Then, I moved the "Key Vocabulary" sign to a more accessible place for the students to see new and different words for their writing. After that, I helped create the display board as a celebration wall to showcase the different students who had outstanding results in three different platforms: Timetables Rockstars, MyOn, and Mathletics. With the help of three adults, the classroom preparation finished really quickly and we were able to go hom before 3pm.

Before entering the school I was overjoyed. It would be my first time entering the school since the beginning of the practicum and I was excited to see the different resources/amenities the school has for the teachers. One of the places my mentor took me to was the staff and resource room. In both these rooms, teachers have access to different materials for their classes. If the teachers needed anything from the resource room that was not currently available, they can immediately place an order online to have that resource. Interestingly enough, access to the printer was limited as teachers do need to pay to use the printer. I was a little bit dissapointed, because I figured printing was one of the teacher's major resource. It seems like it would be such a costly expense. Therefore, while preparing the materials for the students' tags I tried to reduce as much printing paper I needed. In the beginning I felt really excited, but as the day went by I slowly began to discover that it got quite busy. It seemed like there was an endless list of things to do. There was always something to do, whenever I asked my mentor if she needed help with something. I could slowly feel my energy and enthusiasm begin to wane. I could just picture what my mentor was feeling, since she was the one who needed to evaluate every aspect of the classroom, and how it can contribute to carrying out an effective lesson. I also had limited access to the school resources, so I needed to rely alot on my mentor and her TA. Looking back, I realize it was a rushed event and that there was actually a lot of things to do, which might have been caused by the administration sudden announcement about school being able to resume in person.

What was good about the experience was that I was able to experience the chaos of setting up a classroom. Previously, my mentor said that the classroom had not been touched since the school announced its closure due to COVID-19 earlier in the year. So, there were a lot of stuff leftover from last years' students that needed cleaning up us well. She warned that it wasn't usually this hectic as, usually, before the previous school year would end, their would be a session for students to take back their classwork. Additionally, I was also able to see my mentor's reasoning for displaying certain items in the classrom. After that, I realized that not only does the decoration in the classroom looks fantastic, but it also serves a purpose. Nothing in the classroom was placed there simply because it looked nice. It's important that classrooms have displays within them because according to a study by the Univers of Salford, students had better learning outcomes when classrooms were filled with well-thought-out displays to support their work when they work independently in the classroom (Barrett et al., 2015). What went well during this experience was that previously, we discussed what needed to be done in the classroom, so we knew what needed to be done beforehand. Therefore, as soon as we reached the classrom, we were able to get started right away. The TA and my mentor also worked with each other last year, so they were very in tune with one another and knew what needed to be done. I also consistenly asked my mentor what help she needed to be done, so it was constantly productive. What didn't go so well was that the classroom still lacked som resources for the students such as their learning tools, but this was unavoidable as this was usually handled by administration and according to my mentor usually it takes time for things to be obtained. I think one reason it went so well was because there was such great synergy between all of us. We all had similar ideology regarding how to create a good classroom climate, so we didn't disagree with how to set up the classroom. We also asked the students for their opinion on what they would like to see in their classroom. In doing so, it helps to create a great classroom climate which can encourage the effectiveness of learning because according to Maslow, only when the students by pass their different needs, will they be able to reach self-actualization and achieve their full potential (Gao & Taormina, 2013). Also, when students are able to participate in the activities of the classroom, it provides students with a sense of ownership of the classroom and can empower them to drive their learning much further (Scalzetti, 2020).

What I learned from this situation is that classroom decoration is purposeful, and getting input from the different members of your classroom such as the TA and the students can help to make a much fore effective classroom. One of my interests in teaching stems from the ability to decorate a classroom to be as pretty as it could be. Looking back, I remember not one of my classrooms were not decorated and I just remember admiring the different displays and colours the teachers use to make the classroom lively. I only admired the aesthetic of it, but I don't think I put much thought into the practicality of it. There is only so much space in the classroom, so how you decorate it must be thoughout. Also, by creating displays and putting it throughout the classroom can definitely implicitly help the students to have a much more fruitful learning experience. For example, I really liked how my mentor created a "Key Vocabulary" wall in the classroom. For this particular class, I noticed that a lot of the students are still using easy adjectives like nice, hard, or happy, and my mentor also noticed this issue, so she decided to re-use her vocabulary wall, but instead placed it in a much more visible location so students can take a look at it to see al the different powerful adjectives they can use. Previously, I thought having a well-decorated classroom right at the start of the year was the most important, but I realized that it is okay to slowly add in more decorations in the classroom throughout the year. Therefore, in my future teaching practice, before I welcome the students back to school I will only decorate the classroom with the basic and important decorations for example their students tags, birthday calendar and even some display posters regarding english words and mathematical concepts. But then, when the students arrive I will ask for their opinions on what they would like to see in their classroom, so it would give them a sense of belonging and ownership in the classroom.