#2getherwearebetter Link Up - Schedules

I have not been a great blogger so far this year, but I'm excited to join in with the April 2nd link-up run by Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans and Angie from Lucky Little Learners. Link ups are probably my favourite type of blog posts to write, so this is awesome! 

 

 

They are doing a link up on the 2nd of each month about a particular topic, and this month is SCHEDULES!

I love reading about other teacher's schedules. It amazes me how many different versions there are, and the different types of specialist subjects, extra support, withdrawal programs, etc, that run all over the world.

My schedule is slightly different on each day of the week. I make up a visual schedule for my students at the beginning of each term so that they can look over it at home before the school day, or look over it when they talk about their day with their families. I find that it helps y 5-6 years olds share things that happened during their day. They get a schedule that looks like this:

But I will type it out so it's a bit easier to read.

I'll explain a bit about it.

Carpet time: Every morning we begin the day with a phonics song, take attendance, go through our visual schedule and do Brain Gym. It is a great routine to get started with our day.

Reading groups: We begin with a big book and a mini-lesson about our reading focus for the week. Students then go into their reading groups for silent reading and then a literacy activity. During the silent reading time I work with my low group to support their independent reading, and during our activity time I do guided reading with a different group each day.

Writing: During term 1 this hour was all about phonics, now we will squeeze more into the time to still cover our phonics focus, but also do some structured writing.

Maths: We don't follow a program, but have a school-developed scope and sequence with has lots of room to construct the right program for the group of kids in the class.

Inquiry: The rest of my school are doing a more integrated version of inquiry, where it is part of literacy and numeracy, but we are still teaching so many foundational skills in prep (first year of school) that we have allocated time for focussed Inquiry.

Sport, Music, PE, Art: These are our specialist classes, when I don't teach.

PMP: We are starting this in term 2, and it will be a Perceptual Motor Program to work on gross motor skills and coordination. This will be run with both of the prep class (42 kids all together), with 8-10 stations to rotate between.

RE: Religious Education is an 'opt-in' program at my school, so not all of the preps are doing it. This means one of the prep teachers will sit in the RE class while the other prep teacher takes the extra students for a non-curriculum-related activity.

Read aloud: We are doing a chapter book, and started George's Marvelous Medicine last term. We have two chapters left, then we will start Tashi.

Fun Friday: Every Friday we have a theme day, mostly based around our Inquiry work. They are not always big events, but there is always a theme running through the activities. For example, during term 1 we had Camping Day (we learnt about the things we need to survive), Cupcake Day (which was related to a maths assessment task using patty pans) and Water Day (learning about our water needs). Next term we are going to have Alphabet Day (once we've learnt all of the letters of the alphabet) and Silly Sock Day (which is all about sorting). These fun days give us the opportunity to be wild and creative, but still incorporate literacy and numeracy. It's great for applying skills in a new way, and for learning through experiences.

Facet: is a fancy way of saying the we do two alternating subjects in that hour with the two prep classes together. We have our wellbeing program called You Can Do It and our cybersafety program called eSmart.

Prep chat: At the end of Fun Friday we get together for a catch-up and reflection about the week.

Wow, we fit lots in! I can't wait to go back and look through all the bloggers who have linked up. I'm thinking about swapping my maths and Inquiry to the morning block, and putting reading and writing into the middle block because we always seem to have more time in the middle block. I'd love to find out if other people put maths in the morning, rather than literacy!