When Thursday: B2S with Blog Hoppin'

If you teach first grade you know 2 things:

1. They can't sit for more than 10-15 minutes without losing their attention

2. Teaching reading takes up the majority of your day

That's why I absolutely love, adore, admire our schedule.

It worked wonders last year and I'm hoping the same goes for this year.

Live through a day in first grade with a deeper look into our schedule:

When our day starts, the first thing we jump into is writer's workshop. Here's a breakdown:

1. Mini-lesson

2. Silent Writing Time

3. Conferences

I find writing first thing is the perfect way to wake up their brains and get the juices flowing for the day.

It leads to a calm environment and sets the tone for our day.

After their little brains have a chance to wake up, we enter into our Phonics lesson.

1. Mini-Lesson (whole group)

2. Practice (whole group)

3. Independent Practice

This is our biggest and most needed chunk of time throughout the day. It houses whole group instruction, small group instruction, independent practice and centers.

1. Whole group mini-lesson (or activity) on comprehension strategy using a read aloud

2. Small group instruction 

3. Center rotations with independent practice and reading

Our team meets once a week to sit down and plan for the upcoming week together while our kiddos are at specials. If we aren't planning as a team, we are prepping charts, gathering activities, or compiling plans. 

My room may look like this during planning: 

But it always finds a way to look like this by the end of the week:

After coming back from specials (a much needed break for a first grader) we have our math block.

This encompasses calendar, whole group instruction, small group instruction and math tubs.

1. Calendar

2. Whole group lesson

3. Practice time 

4. Math Tubs (teacher meets with small groups) 

Leaving science and social studies until the end of the day can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on our day. On good days, we make it through everything and actually have time to complete our activity but as you know there are times when everything just doesn't get squeezed in and we neglect to make it to our lesson. This means integrate, integrate, integrate which I try to do as much as possible!