Fly On The Wall

Today I'm linking up with Jodi's GENIUS linky party "Be a Fly on My Wall".  I'm going to quickly run through our typical Tuesday.  (I teach at a smaller K-8 school, so special scheduling is quite interesting ... they are at the most RANDOM times, and different each day!)

 

I let my kids in starting at 7:45, but the bell doesn't ring until 8:00.   After they get unpacked and turn in homework, they work in their Challenge Notebooks.  They keep these notebooks in the desk throughout the week, and work on them during the day whenever they finish an assignment early.

  At 8:00 (okay, sometimes it's more like 8:05) the kids come to the carpet for our Chit-Chat morning meeting (An idea adapted from Deanna Jump, maybe you've heard of her?)  We start the meeting with prayer and the pledge, and then one of my students leads the class in our 5 rules (Whole Brain Teaching style)  The Chit-Chat activity changes daily, but always includes a speaking/listening component with the kids getting eye-eye/knee-knee to discuss a question or topic.  Today we were reading our poem of the week (from Jodi's March Fluency Packet)  

After this we have our reading block.  8:15-8:30 we are doing spelling/grammar.  We did a workbook page from our series ... no pictures of that (BORING hehe)  We are currently in the middle of our Fairy Tale, Folktale, and Fables unit.  Today we read "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs" and compared it to the original.  The kids responded by answering interview questions from the Wolf's perspective.  Next week they will be using the Toontastic iPad app to animate these interviews!

 

The kids go to music at 9:00.  When they get back we start our literacy stations.  My kids work in pairs at 10 different stations over the course of the week.  My lowest spend several rotations with our Academic Support teacher, and the others come to me from small group guided reading or phonics instruction.  The student in the picture above is using the Meerkat Math app (even though it's in the Math Tub folder, NOT the reading centers folder .. but I'll ignore that!)  If you haven't heard of this app you should check it out ... it's FREE and so much fun for practicing math facts!

We have snack after stations at 10:45 - I do my Calendar Routine while they snack, and read from our chapter book.  They have Art at 11:00 (don't you love my CHOPPY schedule?!)

Our Math Block is 11:45-12:45 on Tuesdays.  Today we worked on a project to go along with our Earthday/Rainforest unit.  We reviewed symmetry and equal parts, and the kids made Rainforest butterflies.  I totally spaced on getting pictures because I was running around like mad person managing all my little creative minds.  I'll update with pictures tomorrow.  We do Math Tubs from 12:20-12:45.  Most of the centers they're working on above are from Lory's April Math Stations pack.  

We have Lunch/Recess from 12:45-1:30.

We have our Theme Studies (Science/Social Studies) from 1:30-2:00.  This month we're going full into our "We Love the Earth" unit.  I'm tying the Rainforest and conservation into this :)  We watched the Brainpop Jr. video on the Rainforest habitats as an introduction, and then created a Rainforest Layers anchor chart today.  Later in the week we'll read "The Great Kapok Tree" and discuss how each animal in the story relies on the tree for survival.  They will be making some fun rainforest critters to decorate our room!

2:00-2:30 is typically Writer's Workshop, but we had a special project today.  First Grade is leading our school Mass tomorrow, and we needed to practice ... please pray for my 6 year old who will be reading about "Barnabas" and "Antioch" tomorrow!

Thanks for taking a peek into my room!  I can't WAIT to be a fly on the wall in some other awesome rooms!!