I thought would join Angie from Lucky Little Learners and Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd in their monthly link up! This month they are discussing schedules. I am happy to explain my schedule.
Now I will say I am not self contained! I teach in a school that has the teachers in departments. Yep, you read right departments. I teach K-2 writing. If you want to get a better understanding as to how the clusters work, click HERE and read a post that I wrote all about the pros and cons for this way of teaching.
First, let me show you my daily schedule.
I a special class or planning period everyday except for Monday. Monday is always my longest day of teaching. Especially when lunch is all you have to stop to go to the bathroom.
Now the bathroom break usually happens in my room because I have a bathroom.
Now let me explain a typical day in my classroom.
My day starts with me picking up my 2nd grade homeroom. Our school has common areas that have white boards and bleachers in them so that if you want to teach multiple classes then you can do that. The 2nd graders come in and follow my morning routine. Then they head to their table and get out their Minute to Win It paper and card from my table basket. If you want to read about my table basket just click HERE!
I purchased Deedee Wills Handwriting set just for the Minute to Win It game. My kids look forward to it everyday. They LOVE Friday the best because if you pass your letter level then you get CANDY!!!!! Who doesn't love a treat at the end of the week. The purpose of the game is to write neat but quick. My district has us do Handwriting Without Tears so I look for the strokes starting at the top. HWT is a great program and has an assessment that goes with it. It helps to know what problems you students have when forming letters which help in your classroom. Just click on HWT to check it out.
After the game, we come to the I do their Writing lesson. This month we are writing opinion pieces. I am super excited because we are going to the take the story The Jolly Postman and change it. I can't wait for them to write their own version. I do play to put a copy plan in my TPT store for you guys to check out.
Once the writing lesson is over, we do a little grammar and we are out the door. Now I don't always make grammar separate only because I want my students to apply it in their writing. So it really depends on what I see in the previous days lesson. Most of the time I can do a quick warm up and that gives extra time for my writers to write.
Now with my 1st grade class, they have a lunch in between so after lunch I read to them. With the kinders, I do my Writer's Eye paper. I created a Daily Fix it product that has been helpful to my kinders. At the beginning of the year we do HWT Sentence School! I helps so much and gets kiddos thinking about proper sentences. Click HERE to see my Daily Fix It UP and HERE for Sentence School. ONce the kinders finish their Writer's Eye then we move on to build a sentence. Click HERE to see what we use.
At around 1:15, my 2nd graders return to me and we do daily Close Reading. I am helping my reading teammate with this since she wasnt quite for sure about it. My kids have baskets that have a folder and close reading tool kit baggies in them. The baggies have post it notes, index cards, pencil, highlighters, and close reading symbol sheet.
Once close reading is over, we go ahead and do our classroom jobs, flip chairs, put our backpacks on our chairs, and buy from my snack shop. We do all of this because they have specials at the end of the day and I want to make sure they are read to head out the door. Dismissal is so much better for me since I started doing this last year.
We then head outside for recess! After their special I pick them up and we head to our dismissal areas.
So as you can see I have a very packed day! I hope that you have enjoyed reading about a life in my Writing classroom.
