Peek At My Plans: Daily Schedule Breakdown

Hi! I am linking up with Mrs. Willis  to share my lesson plans for the week. We are still two weeks out from school starting, so I do not want to share my plans for that just yet. I switched schools, and I have not planned with my team yet so everything is kind of "temporary" until I finalize things with them so we are all on the same stage. I will say that the day after I got my new job, way back in June, I may have wrote out plans for the first two weeks of school from excitement :)

Here is a breakdown of my day:

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Schedule Breakdown:

Arrival/Morning Meeting

Students at my school will begin arriving after breakfast, so I am thinking they should mostly be in my room by 8:00 and settled (crossing my fingers and knocking on wood here). We will begin our day with the morning meeting routing (group greeting, shared activity, morning message) and wrap up with announcements from the principal. This is a great part of the day to make sure every student feels welcome and part of the group. I will use the shared activity to review skills or just have fun. Sometimes we might put ourselves in tens frames, hold up words and move around students to unscramble a sentence, or just do a fun, silly Just Dance Kids dance (definitely the last part on Fridays). For morning message, we will practice and review skills (reading left to right, popcorn words, letters, punctuation, etc). We will preview our learning for the day and review math, phonics, and science/social studies skills. 

Mr. Greg is my all-time favorite source for morning meeting ideas and advice. I read his blog before I read the book, very helpful! 

Writing

Writing is my very-favorite, first-thing in the morning activity! I think it sets a great calm atmosphere for the rest of the day (knock on wood). I always start writing with a focused mini-lesson with lots of modeling. The kids assist me with my story, brainstorm ideas, and they go back to their seat to work. We wrap up with sharing under the document-camera (hoping to make an Author's Chair this year) or sometimes we share with a partner. At the beginning of the year we will use pictures to tell stories, move onto sentence frames, and finish the year with sentences that they conceive and write on their own. I love the growth they make in writing from beginning to end!

I am using this pack I got from Kreative in Kinder the day she posted it for sale. I read her blog post and was hooked. I read it through the first day and am pumped to use it. If you are looking for help with teaching writing to Kindergartners, I highly recommend it! She gives tons of  anchor charts, student samples, and tons of book suggestions in this pack. 

Phonics

We are using Letter Land for phonics at my new school, and I am super excited about it. I do not know a lot about the program, but I have always, always, always, loved what I have read about it. I will post more as I use it. 

Guided Reading

This is my FAVORITE part of the day! I was so, so bad at teaching Guided Reading when I was a newbie teacher. Luckily, I have had lots of professional development, read some books, and pinned ideas from great teachers. I feel like last year my kids grew by leaps and bounds in reading. Whenever I was filmed teaching a lesson, the one comment that I heard the most was about students using their strategies and reading independently without teacher prompting. I am hoping to start strong with it this year and finish the year with strong readers! During this time, I will pull ability groups for on-level instruction. My assistant (and whoever else may join us) will pull one to three students at a time for any needed literacy interventions. The students not being pulled will be in mixed-ability literacy centers. At the beginning of the year, our centers will be: computer, phonological awareness, listen to reading, learning names, alphabet basic (recognizing the letters/putting the alphabet back in order), and reading (the pictures and retelling). We will slowly add in centers for initial sounds, word work, sight words, and writing. 

I will be using my anecdotal records for level A heavily at this point in the year :)

Math

We use Investigations. I modify it a bit to fit our needs. I usually start with a QUICK math review and their suggested classroom routine. I teach a short, focused mini-lesson and the kids split into ability groups. I usually have three rotating groups. They have an independent activity, a review activity with the assistant, and a new activity/lesson with me. I have taught Investigations every year of my career, and I am the most happy with math when I follow this routine (and the kids get a lot out of our math time). We always wrap-up with a problem solving activity as a group, a quick review, or sharing our learning. 

Science/Social Studies

The activities really vary based on what we are learning. I usually tie in literature, a craft, writing response, or experiments based on whatever we are learning at that point in the curriculum. These are almost always whole group lessons that split into independent or group activities. Sometimes, if I can get my hands on guided reading books based on our topic of study, I will even pull our guided reading groups for a quick read. 

Intervention/Enrichment

This is a time where students can be pulled-out by specialists for extra support. My assistant and I will be working with the kids in our room on any interventions they need for success, and also pushing kids for more who are on level. This will most likely target and phonics/writing/reading/math skills they need help with or need a challenge with. I have usually had this time meshed with my Guided Reading time so I am very excited for this extra time of differentiated instruction. 

That's a wrap! I will be linking up again next week to share my first week plans with visuals to help others (like new teachers) get their thoughts together.