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If you took the classroom tour 2002-2003, you learned that we are a Maryland Meals for Achievement site, in which all students recess free breakfast. During arrival, students walk past the lunch count sign and place their name in the appropriate place, and take their backpacks straight to their desks. Their backbacks should be completely empty before they put them in the coat closet. That way, nothing is forgotten, and they aren't bringing non-school supply items in the building. After they put away their backpacks, they can get breakfast, or get started on the warm-up. Starting in the '03-'04 school year, students will begin entering the building at 7:30 a.m., which is fifteen minutes earlier than last year.
7:45-8:00 Morning Warm-Up
All breakfast must be cleaned up by 8:00. Students have an assignment on the wipe-off board (see above photo)- could be journaling, a math worksheet, or anything else I want them to practice independently and silently. During that time, I am finishing hall duty, responding to parent notes, taking attendance, and other morning tasks. Around 7:50, I let anyone who is finished study for their spelling test or practice their math facts with a partner, since some kids have already been in the room for nearly a half hour.
8:00-10:00 Language Arts:
8:00-8:10 Homework Review
The children check their partner's homework binder to make sure all assigments were completed. If anything is imcomplete, the child fills out a missing work form. Afterwards, they share their Choose-A-Charts with each other and are given a minute to trade charts for that night's homework.
8:10-8:20 Daily Language Practice (DLP)
I have written sentences on the overhead with spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. The students copy two setences each day, making all neccesary corrections. Later when we talk more aboiut editing, I will ask them to copy the sentences incorrectly and use editing marks to fix them. The sentences I use are in a story form and include kids' names to make things more interesting.
8:20-8:30 Familiar Reading with Partners
At this time, I assign a short text selection for the kids to read with a partner. Usually it is a story from our anthology, but sometimes it is social studies text or small group reading texts. The point is that the children have read it before with my guidance and should not encounter unfamiliar words or vocabulary. This is a time for them to practice fluency, reading with expression, and reading for meaning (comprehension). It is also a break for them after the warm-up work and DLP, which require students to write and concentrate quietly. It is especially important that they have this more relaxed time so that they are ready for my mini-lesson.
8:30-9:00 Whole Class Instruction (Mini-Lesson)
Whole-class time is usually done using an Anthology (like a basal but it is a collection of published books like "Miss Nelson Is Missing" bound together in hardcover form for the kids). It's too hard for some kids to read, and too easy for others, so they either read it in pairs or listen to it on tape so that I can be sure everyone understands the story. Grammar/ spelling instruction is often the focus but it could be decoding or comprehension (anything in the state content standards that the whole class needs to eventually master).
9:00-10:00 Small Group Instruction
Students rotate among several areas for 20 minutes in each place: guided reading intruction, centers, and indepedendent work. I used to do two 30 minute groups a day, so it might be two days before certain kids have small group again, but when they did, it was quality over quantity and they had time to really get into the lesson. At that time, I feel much less rushed that way. Below are explanations of each of the tasks students may complete: click here for strategies for managing reading group rotation time effectively.
Small group- done at the reading table with me, in ability-based groups, working on specific skills that that group of children need. We have short texts for this that are excellent, very motivating for the kids to read, called the WildCat series. We also have Watch Me Reads, which are individual stories that also come with little black and white versions for the kids to color and keep (these disposable copies were not ordered the past two years, though, due to budget cuts). Above grade level kids use the Junior Great Books series for one quarter, then the books are passed onto other county schools because we do not have enough. The rest of the year I am responsible for finding books appropriate for them (usually we do author or thematic studies). Small group time is supposed to include time for word work in addition to time for reading text and focusing on comprehension strategies. At least twice a week, small groups are also supposed to explicitly teach the writing process. Tall order, huh? :)
Independent Work- While some kids are in small groups, others do independent work. This is follow up on the whole class lesson. Could be workbook stuff, reading assignment, journaling, book responses, etc. I try to have one hard-hitting assignment so I can see what they can do, and one or more fun assignments to do when they finish.
D.E.A.R.- Drop Everything And Read. Kids choose their own books and read independently. Our new schedule has D.E.A.R. time this scheduled for for the end of the day, but it's still a great reading block option on occasion because the kids can do it independently.
Book Clubs- Used mostly with my on- and above-grade-level students. Students are given a book based on interest, or they can choose their own as a group sometimes. They read the book independently, in pairs or trios, or as a whole group, it's up to them, at a quiet spot in the back of the room. For lower-level groups and at the beginning of the year, I sit in with them and guide them through discussions. Later in the year, some of them can discuss without me, just using familiar prompts (i.e., pick a card from a bowl and answer the question on that card, such as "I still wonder..." or "The most interesting character..." and each child responds). When they are done with the book, they pick a group response to present to the class (comic strip, skit, and so on).
I don't have a lot of copies of each book in my room, so sometimes I will give the book club members a theme and tell them to go down to the library and each pick a book. They read it over the course of the week and report back to one another on Friday (usually) through some sort of presentation. For example, one group of five girls took the St. Patricks Day theme and each read a different book. For presentations, one girl demonstrated how to make a St. Paddy's craft she saw in her book, another made a poster, another wrote a poem telling about the holiday's history, and so on. I popped in and out of the presentation in between small groups. They graded one another using set criteria we had been using as a class all year. Of course, this was towards the end of the year with a pretty mature group of 3rd graders, and wouldn't work for all students. These 5 girls were the only ones who were ready for that level of independence. If you teach 4th grade or above, it might be a great strategy for most of your class.
Centers: A lot of this is discussed in the Classroom Tour '02-'03 and Management pages, along with photos. If you have specific questions or want more details, please sign the guestbook to let me know, and I will gladly add them. I have a list of center ideas here.
9:50-10:00 Handwriting
Occasionally, small groups end ten minutes early so we can practice handwriting. (Sometimes if D.E.A.R. time was done during the reading block, we will do handwriting at the end of the day during that time slot instead). We have NO curriculum for this, no materials, and it's not in our content standards, so cursive instruction really is not a big deal. I teach it because I think it's a good skill to have, including in the upper grades, but I actually focus more on reading cursive than writing. That's just as hard and often overlooked, but kids need to recognize cursive in all it's forms, the same way they did for manuscript letters in the lower grades, because they will be reading cursive constantly in their adult lives. (We even do cursive letter hunts to search for environmental print, just like I used to do with my PreK kids for manuscript- and both age groups loved it!).
To teach handwriting, I photocopy pages from Scholastic or internet sites (see the Links page). It's really boring, and I hate wasting copies on something that will be done in five minutes, so I will often give them assignments they can do on regular paper. After they have learned to write all letters in cursive, I'll tell them to write one person's name for each letter of the alphabet (which is practice writing uppercase cursive letters as they connect to words). They also like to brainstorm "one for each letter" categories, such as animals, colors, and places. This requires them to really think and takes a few days to complete. They might also copy poetry or write their own poems and tongue twisters.
Note: All of this is supposed to take place within a 120 minute (2 hour) block of time. I am pretty relaxed with the times and often go over what is alloted for one activity if needed. It's great to have that much time dedicated to L.A., but the problem is that afterwards I've got just over two hours to teach math (which *must* be 60 minutes), science, social studies, health, and art. Not possible. We are also not supposed to integrate the content areas into L.A. time but it's actually a great strategy. For example, why read some random book when studying the features of non-fiction texts when you could just use the social studies text and kill two birds with one stone? Sometimes I had to do this, and small groups suffered, but as a teacher you have to make choices. We have a great S.S. text and I really wanted my kids to be exposed to the material, plus I know they practice reading and writing (the foundation of L.A.) in every subject, so I thought it was pretty natural to squeeze in other subject areas where appropriate. In the "real world", I have not met any teachers who have been able to accomplish all this without overlapping occasionally, and there is a lot of research to support that technique. Now, I'll get off my soapbox and get on with the day... :-)
10:05-10:30 Specials
P.E. and music are twice a week, computer and library are once a week. I am ashamed to say that art is three times a YEAR. Budget cuts. * Sigh.*
10:30-11:00 Lunch
We have the first lunch shift this year, which seemed wayyy too early until we got used to it. It is specified in our union contract that teachers have a 30 minute duty-free lunch each day, so we take turns with lunch and recess duty to ensure everyone gets their break.
11:00- 11:30 Recess
There are 4 teachers on my grade level, and we used to alternate with recess duty (two days on, two days off) so that there are always two of us outside with the children. This was a great system because on our 'off' days, we got 45 consecutive minutes for lunch and planning. We are still working out the plan for this year. Recess used to be fifteen minutes, but because teachers must have a half hour break, it is thirty minutes this year. It's great for the kids!
11:30-12:45 Math
As the students come in the room from recess, they get a drink and start on the warm-up that is on the overhead. The lesson includes reviewing the warm-up, direct instruction in the day's concept or skills, guided practice, and independent pratice. I try to make at least one portion of each of my math lessons into a game when I can. Sometimes we do small groups if a large portion of children do not understand and the ones that do understand will do advanced problem-solving work or centers.
12:45-1:30 Social Studies/ Science/ Health
45 minutes is clearly not enough time for all three of these subjects, so I usually do one chapter at a time in S.S., then a chapter in science, then one in health, and so on. I also integrate these subjects into my L.A. and math lessons as often as possible.
1:30-1:35 Teacher Read Aloud
I save this for the end of the day because it's a good way to settle kids down and get them focused for independent reading. The purpose of teacher read-aloud is to expose students to text that is above their reading level but not above their comprehension level. It's wonderful for developing vocabulary and modeling voice expression and fluency.
1:35-1:55 D.E.A.R Time, Pack Up, Prepare for Dismissal
Students read while waiting for their buses to be called. See the management page for my pack-up board and procedures. Students are usually out of the building by 2:15, and our contract day ends at 2:45. Most days I can leave on time, or close to it, and I don't often take work home (unless you count teacher forums and this website, both of which I work on endlessly!). I do work very, very long hours in August and the beginning of September, usually thirteen hour days plus weekends, trying to get everything just right and trying to improve on the way I did things the year before. After Labor Day, when I have really analyzed and streamlined my classroom procedures, I am able to get just about everything done between 7:15 and 2:45. I consider it a myth that teachers must stay after school well into the evenings each day- I come to work in the morning much more well-rested and rejuvenated when I allow myself to relax the night before. |
