Sarah Hartwell

Educ-302/303
November 8, 2016
Unit Plan: Aiding School Context
My placement is in a second grade classroom in Dutton Christian Elementary
School located in Caledonia, Michigan. There are three second grade classes in the
school; in my classroom there are twenty students. Of those twenty students nine are girls
and eleven of those are males. There is one girl that I know of who was adopted from
Poland; the other students appear to be Caucasian. The socioeconomic backgrounds of
most of these students appear to be middle class. The students have their own supplies
and come to school well dressed and prepared for the weather. English is all but one
students native language; the girl who is from Poland knows Polish. From what I have
observed the students have good English proficiency, including the one from Poland. I
had the opportunity to grade each students memory verse when they recited it to me. For
the most part I would say that they have good memories, the memory verse was only a
couple of sentences. The faith development in this class is a strong one. Each day they
start off with devotions and then end it with prayer. Mrs. Culver (a pseudonym), my
teacher, tries to incorporate a Christian perspective into all aspects of the curriculum;
with this the students have a good opportunity to grow in their faith.
The classroom is situated with rows and columns for the students desks. In the
back is Mrs. Culvers desk as well as a carpeted area that the students sit on at times.
While sitting in the carpeted area the students are supposed to sit in rows and should not
be distracting to those around them. There are a couple routines involving bathroom
usage, pencil sharpening, water bottle filling, and talking. If a student has to go to the

bathroom they are allowed to go, but if two students of the same gender both have to go
then they have to wait until the other student comes back. Each student is allowed to have
two pencils in their desk, if a pencil breaks then they can go put it in a bucket labeled
unsharpened and grab another sharpened pencil. The student whose job is to sharpen the
pencils sharpens all of them at the end of the day; this is so that its not a distraction
throughout the daily routine. There are different jobs that students are assigned for the
week. If a student doesnt have a job to do they are allowed to sit in the special chairs or
couch during reading time. The jobs include pencil sharpening, passing out papers, a mail
person, and a cleaner. If a water bottle needs to be filled they are allowed to go fill it, if
the bottle gets spilled the student who spilled has to clean it up. If the students have a
question or something to say they raise their hands to speak unless noted otherwise.
Dutton Christian Elementary is a Christian kindergarten through fourth grade
school. There are also pre-school classes that meet at the school and a Christian middle
school located down the road as well. From what I can tell, the socioeconomic status of
this school is middle to upper class. They are continuing to expand and have high
enrollment. They are proposing on building more classrooms soon. Curriculum wise, the
three second grade classes build on the reading, writing, and arithmetic skills that were
learned in first grade. Students in second grade are becoming independent and
responsible in their studies. (http://www.duttonchristianschool.org/elementary/2ndgrade/) Their curriculum involves the Daily 5 and the CAF model for reading, the 6
Traits framework for writing, and Battle Creek Science for their science lessons. For
math the second graders learn about numbers and numerations, operations and
computations, data and chance, measurement and reference, as well as geometry. I am not

there when my class does math and science; therefore I am unable to observe what they
do during that time to see if they do follow this type of curriculum.
The local community is mostly a small town type of area, with plenty of small
business just down the road from the school. According to Crimemapping.com there was
no recent criminal activity near the Dutton Christian Elementary School. There is a nice
neighborhood directly across from the school; not many of the students come from the
local neighborhoods. I would say that the school is regional, due to the fact that most of
the children either take a bus or are driven by car to the school. Next to the school, as
well as across, there are two churches. One of the churches has a gym located inside of it
that the school uses for gym class for when the weather is not nice. I could use the idea of
the churches to bring up the aspect that the Pilgrims left England in hopes to find
religious freedom. Behind the school there is a cornfield, this could be useful while
teaching a lesson about the Pilgrims lifestyle. I could bring up the point that the Pilgrims
and Native Americans used corn in their meals and most likely had it during the first
Thanksgiving.

Sources:
Crime Mapping: http://www.crimemapping.com/map/location/6980%20Hanna%20Lake
%20Ave%20SE,%20Caledonia,%20Michigan,%20USA?
id=GST7YMc0AM9UOsE3GY8tIS9GOghnYnwZIip_GQypG1c915EXYbx711AXYbx7
Y1AXYbx7ZocpOh9bZgKZQoc3YSyaagDIZhkZUBwHQN4CHgDMHo4PHgn0BN44
HgA0ObSF
Dutton Christian Website:
http://www.duttonchristianschool.org/elementary/2nd-grade/