Over Christmas break I did a
little lot of reading up on reading and math workshop and how other teachers use it, so I wanted to share with you what I came up with.
I currently use Daily 5 but just feel like my kiddos have started to play more than have meaningful time at their choices. I decided to give my daily schedule a little makeover. I am going to attempt to have mainly small group lessons for reading and math and WAY less whole group. I'm going to combine Daily 5 with reading workshop.
I'm sure you have also read how reading or math workshop is set up but this is how I plan to do it in my room. I'm going to go straight through my schedule and explain each part of our day. My main reason behind doing this is that I want you to share what you think I could do better based on what you have read or what you have done for these parts of your day.
First off our day starts at 7:30 but kids come in early. By the time I check folders and get attendance ready it's about 7:45. So during this time they come straight in and get to work on their
morning work baskets. From 7:45-7:55 I plan to do my first reading mini lesson for the day. Click {
HERE} to get the mini lessons I plan to use and tweak just a bit to work for my 2nd grade class. Just go down until you see mini lessons and there is a set for the entire year based off of Debbie Miller's book Reading with Meaning. After this I am going to meet with one small group while the rest of the class is engaged in practicing the skill from our mini lesson or they will be in one of the Daily 5 choices. Now here is where I am stuck on making sure they are doing something meaningful. I usually just stick a list of spelling words in the Word Work area and they have different choices such as stamps, dry erase boards, etc. But I have decided to start putting my language centers here as well. For example, this week from my
Frost Smitten winter centers they have "Make it Plural" and "Winter ABC Order."
These both come with a recording sheet so I stuck them in my
SmartPal Sleeve and let them complete with a dry erase marker. Then once they finish this they can choose stamps, dry erase boards or whatever to work with their spelling words.
I'm not yet sure how I want to change up work on writing. I am currently using A Cupcake for the Teacher's
Writing Center Starter Kit.
From 8:15-8:35 I have my educational assistant so I plan to start having her roam the room and make sure students are on track and possibly sit and read with some. I will be meeting with my 2nd small group. I have decided to try doing my main phonics/language lessons during small groups on some days (not all). This way I can really differentiate for my students. I still have a time set aside in m schedule for language and phonics for whole group too since we won't have time to cover everything in small group.
Next, from 8:35-:8:50 I will allow students to share things they learned about themselves as readers that day or things they discovered while reading UNLESS they need to fill out a reader's response page which is where my read to self/someone accountability will come in. I found these forms for free {
HERE} There is one for fiction and nonfiction. They will not need to complete one of these every day just as needed so if they are not completing a response they are participating in share time. I laminated the response options front to back and they keep a copy in their Daily 5 book bag.
The next part of my day is called Cougar Power which is just our school-wide intervention time.
Ok I have noticed this post is going a tad bit on the long side and so in order not to bore you I am going to pause here and come back another day and continue the rest of my schedule which is where I will get into the math workshop part of our day.
One more thing before I go and that is I am having another
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