If you’re like me, you get curious about what happens in other classrooms throughout the day. I saw this linky party hosted by Where the Wild Things Learn & had to stop by and check things out.
9:00 – 9:40 Morning Routine, Corrections, Math Facts
As part of our daily routine, students complete a Daily Math Review page. Our second grade team identifies 5 skills that second graders should be practicing or reviewing. There are two problems for each skill. On Fridays students take a quiz. We calculate the scores & share them weekly. If 90% of all second graders have the skill we either increase the difficulty or change a skill out (the book where we got the idea from suggests 80%, but we have high expectations). Here is what a typical page looks like this week:
9:40 – 10:00 Calendar Folders & X-Tra Math
I call them Calendar Folders, but I use this fabulous pack from Jen Ross. At this time, some students go to the computers 1 or 2 days a week for X-Tra Math (online fact fluency progress).
We adopted a new math curriculum this year with very little training. We are trying to teach the program with fidelity, but struggling to maintain the appropriate pace for two reasons. First, we didn’t officially adopt the program until after we were a month into school. Second, we didn’t receive the training until almost 2 months into the school year. Because we know we will not finish the program this year, we are very happy that this pack, along with the Daily Math Review (mentioned above) are introducing and providing practice on needed skills that we may not get to this year.
10:00 – 10:50 Math
We adopted the enVision Math, Common Core version.
10:50 – 11:05 Recess
11:05 – 11:40 STAR Groups
Several years ago our school said goodbye to our Title I program because we no longer qualified. We had to get very creative with meeting the needs of our diverse population of students. We do grade level intervention (sometimes enrichment) blocks during this time 4 days a week. Intervention groups are usually based on the Daily Math Review skills (mentioned above).
11:40 – 12:15 Lunch & Recess
12:15 – 12:45 Writing
I started the year teaching Friendly Letters. My class is pen pals with another second grade classroom in the school. The kids are enjoying receiving letters. I enjoy that they receive continuous practice with friendly letter format and asking/answering questions. I did get some great ideas and resources from this pack:
This trimester we are adding paragraph writing to the mix. Students are learning about topic sentences, details, conclusion sentences, and using transition words. I don’t use a special program or curriculum for this.
This spring we will begin our Opinion Writing unit. I had some great success with bits and pieces of these packs last year. Most of them are geared towards 1st grade, but I was able to take the materials and differentiate for my students:
12:45 – 1:00 Word Study
Nothing fancy here. Just daily practice on our word patterns for the week.
1:00 – 2:00 Reading
I am very fortunate to have a para educator in my room during my literacy block. I am especially fortunate that she is willing to work with any reading group. Between the two of us, we can meet with all 5 groups every single day. We rotate which teacher is meeting with which groups every 1-2 weeks so I am meeting with all of my readers regularly.
2:00 – 2:15 Recess
2:20 – 3:00 Activity
Students go to Library, Music, or P.E. If you look carefully, we have a 5 min. period to get off the playground and to the correctly room for activity.
3:00 – 3:30 Content Area & RAZ-Kids
We use this block of time to learn about Science, Social Studies, and Health. Some kids go to the computers 1 or 2 days a week during this block of time to do RAZ-Kids online.
We have been using Daily Geography by Evan-Moor for Map Skills since the beginning of the year.
We are now using this pack to learn to make effective predictions in Science.
Later this spring we will do one of my favorite units, Air & Weather using the FOSS Science Kits.
3:30 – 3:40 End of Day Routines & Dismissal
Head on over to Where the Wild Things Learn to take a peek into another teacher’s day!
It is so much fun to see how other teachers have their days planned. I wish our school started at 9. I'm not a morning person so that sounds great! I'll have to check out RAZ kids. Thanks for sharing your very busy day.
Chrissy
First Grade Found Me
I am so happy to see you have been able to use my opinion pack! Looks like you guys have a FULL day! =)
Jennifer
First Grade Blue Skies
I absolutely loved reading about your day! I love that you have an intervention block built in! I am definitely going to check out that geography book. My students always need extra geography work!
Thanks for linking up 🙂
Amelia
wherethewildthingslearn