A look at our schedule…
By this second week of kindergarten, we are starting to settle into our routines, and it feels really good to see kids come into class and “own” the classroom! They enter quietly, put away backpacks and find a spot to begin their learning for the day. I thought I might share what our basic daily schedule looks like:
11:05 Students enter gate, line up on blue dot G-1.
11:10 Overlap: Class begins, we walk quietly into the classroom, put our things away and find a spot on the rug–Mrs. Kennedy’s class is usually listening to a story and we listen to it while I take roll on the computer. We do calendar, sing some good morning songs, sometimes hear the big book story of the day with both classes together.
11:30 Mrs. Kennedy’s class leaves for the day, we find our assigned spots on the rainbow carpet and our class begins Reading time, or English Language Arts, (ELA), our Reading Wonders Program.
- Building Background or Weekly theme : This week it is about families. We use the big book to explore print concepts, talk about what we already know, sharing ideas with others using complete sentences.
- Listening Comprehension: We listen to stories and investigate to find out more–thinking about the story, learning how answer questions based on evidence in the story and pictures.
- Word Work: This is our phonics lesson. At the beginning of the year, its letter names and then it grows to learning the 31 sounds, and then by about mid year we are blending words together. We also practice our sight or high frequency word of the week .
- Shared writing/reading: Some days we are learning how to write sentences and students come up to write a word or help read a sentence. We learn about using a word web to write, so that by 2nd trimester we are writing sentences on our own. Other days we might have a Shared Reading activity with one of our Big Books.
12:15 Workshop: Every day we all rotate in small assigned groups of 6 to different learning tables. One group is always the Go Math group, one is usually a writing activity, one is a theme related activity, and another might be a skill practice group. I usually teach Go Math and Mrs. Kennedy teaches the writing activity–but sometimes we switch. The other two groups need parent help to make sure that the tasks are getting done quietly and timely. Each group rotation is 15 minutes.
1:15 Snack/Recess: Weather allowing, we are outside having our snacks that we have brought from home, cleaning up and putting away our things, then setting off to play. We encourage students to use the bathroom and drink water during this time, so that when we return to class our time is focused back on learning activities.
1:45 Story time back in the classroom and then an activity that supports the day’s learning or theme. Currently, we are working on our “Color Books” at this time, but sometimes we spend time practicing our letter formation as well.
2:15 E.O.D. (End of Day) activities: We try to finish our day talking about what we did for the day, our favorite part, etc. We sing and do movement activities during this time as well. Students stack their chairs as we get close to 2:30.
2:30 Dismissal: We sing our goodbye song and walk out to be dismissed.
As you can see from our schedule, we are very busy all day long. So School Days or School Daze? It depends upon the day, of course!!
Reminders:
*All forms need to be in asap! In order for our class to visit the library and/or computer lab, permission slips must be signed and turned in.
*Thank you for all of the support with white folders, sight word rings and decodable books coming in!
*If you haven’t joined the PTA, please do! If you have a smart phone, there is a free Castello app–I added it to my phone and it has so many cool things–calendar, news from PTA, school information, a way to pay for lunches online through the app, much more!!
As always, thanks so much for your support at home.
