Noise Level

Hello all,
I made it through my first observation and wow what an eye opener!!! One of the things that stood out to me the most was the fact that I have a higher tolerance of noise than my master teacher. I did not realize this until after the observation that the teacher was saying how loud some of the the students were tapping their pencils(we were drawing) along with the shuffling of pencils. When I was in front of the class I did not even really notice the noise. How do you all deal with the noise and do you need it to be really quiet or are you all right with some noise?I have always been one who likes a bit of noise even when doing homework and tests. But I do know that some need it to be quiet, maybe this is why I am able to tune out the noise.

Along with this issue the other problem was that some of the students could not hear the questions and answers. I did stop and tell the children that I could not hear the child and that worked once. What are some other ideas that I could use to make sure that all of the children can be heard? Some of the suggestions that were made was to repeat what the child said but then I feel as if the child is not really heard it is the teacher if that makes sense! Another suggestion was to ask a child that was at a different table. I thought that was a good suggestion but was just wondering about any others that people had used at all in the classroom or elsewhere.