April 2015

Hey everyone!

I'm linking up with Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits!

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, I have have the same schedule. Wednesday is late start and we don't get the kids until 9:25, after our PD in the morning.

Teachers are expected to be at school at 7:20. That's my prep time until 7:50. Unless it's Monday and that's my morning PLC with 2nd and 3rd grade until 8:10.

7:55 second bell rings and the kids come in and put the backpacks away and do attendance. I greet all my students individually as they come in. It seriously changes their mood around!

Attendance using my IPEVO whiteboard system. You can tell this was from March :)

8:00-8:15 I teach my reading mini lesson. We use Lucy Calkins, but we occasionally have a unit with no lesson, like this current unit, poetry and drama.

This is our rhyming tree. We talked about rhymes in the reading lesson and this chart was completed during our writing lesson.

8:15-9:30 Reading Workshop. I meet with my reading groups, there are reading intervention groups, word work, and independent reading going on.

I also make sure that our anchor chart has been hung up so we can see it!

9:30-9:35 Brain Break. We GoNoodle and a kid usually picks 2 songs.

9:35-10:00 I teach my math lesson, but we start off with review from the day before. I also do a lot of inquiry questions and student led investigations. My school uses Engage NY but wants less direct instruction.

10:00-10:35 Math Centers. I have 4 centers that they go to once a week (no centers on Wednesday). 15 minutes each and when they aren't at a center, they're working on the lesson of the day's problem set. I'm meeting with kids during this time that need extra help. We also throw in snack here after the first center at 10:15.

This is how I first stored them for organization before they go in the center box. This is part of my Mad for Math 2 pack.

I share these with my 2 teammates. Part of our centers.

10:35-11:10 Specials (and my prep time!)

11:10-11:45 Social studies or science. Now we are starting economics. I teach a quick lesson and we do an activity. One of my kids' favorite time of the day. Especially when we did chemistry!

11:45-12:00 10 minute math I do some sort of fast fact fluency thing or sometimes a math game. Lately the kids have been asking me to do Plickers, which is pretty quick and easy!

A student running the game of High/Low. You make a t-chart and put "high" on one side and "low " on the other. They tell the class the range of numbers (1-100 or 1-300, etc.) and they have to guess. My goodness were they horrible when we started! But they've really learned how to narrow down numbers and they practice rounding while they're at it too!

12:00-12:45 Lunch/recess (duty free for me!)

12:45-1:30 Writing Lesson and writing. Again, we use Lucy Calkins. This was taken at the beginning of the year and it's changed since then!

1:30-1:45 Read aloud. I read aloud every day except Wednesday. Kids can sign up to read aloud on Wednesdays, but they have to pay tickets for it. No one wanted to at first and now everyone does!