A Day in My Shoes Linky Party

I saw this linky party in a whole bunch of teacher blogs that I have been reading lately.  It’s been very interesting to see how similar and how very different some of our schedules are.  I haven’t blogged in a VERY long time.  That’s an understatement … I know! and I’m not going to make any promises about trying to do a better job because life is just crazy and I don’t know how the rest of you teacher's out there find time to blog, pin, and do everything else you do.

Anyhow …  If you’d like to read about other teachers’ days or just add your own follow the link below.

We’ll follow my typical Monday because its my only day without specials …so its busy, busy, busy …

6:00-6:20 or 6:30 My alarm goes off and I push snooze multiple times – until I get up sometime between 6:20 and 6:30

6:20 or 6:30 – 7:15 Get out of bed and make coffee, take a shower, get dressed, do hair, eat breakfast, brush teeth, do make-up

7:15-7:40 – Drive to school

7:40-8:15 – Say hi to my coworkers … end up chatting sometimes for a short time sometimes until almost 8:15 when I look up at the clock and say “I’ve got to go get things ready in my room.”  Put chairs down, get morning work ready, put things away that I left out after I rushed out Sunday night after making copies much too late.

8:15 – go to the gym to pick up students (when it’s too cold to be outside), greet each student with a hug, make sure everyone is in line and ready for prayer, pray as a school, wait for the little kids to leave so we can follow to go upstairs

8:30 – enter our classroom, students begin morning work – I tell the first one or two to get started to move their clip up (hoping that it will motivate the slow movers to get started), check folders for notes from parents &: put in homework, remind several students who went straight to morning work without unpacking to come back and put their folders in their cubbies, take attendance

8:40 – Call class together to clean up and line up for bathroom/drinks.  Send one student to Resource to get extra help during reading.

8:45-11:30 – Daily 5 Time – I alternate mini lessons and choice times.  During each of the mini lessons we either work on a phonics skill, review high frequency words, work on grammar, teach a writing mini lesson, do a making words lesson, take a spelling pretest, teach or review a reading strategy to add to our cafe menu, or whatever else might be needed.  We follow each mini lesson with a Daily 5 choice time.  I send the kids to their choices counting down from 5 for them to get started right away.  During each choice time I meet with a different group of kids.  I have 5 groups I meet with regularly.  One group is about a quarter behind where they should be.  I meet with this group every day.  Another group is right where they should be.  I meet with this group every day.  The third group is reading about a semester ahead and I meet with these guys Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  My fourth group is reading at a 3rd to 4th grade level.  I meet with these guys on Tuesday and Thursday.  My fifth group consists of a new immigrant and a child who is about a year behind in reading.  I meet with these two kiddos every day as well working on phonological awareness and beginning reading skills.  Just a side note … I differentiate spelling as well by only moving students onto the next list if they’ve mastered the spelling pattern.  At this point I’m reading 5 different spelling lists.  Around 9:30 we stop for a snack at which point my student returns from Resource.

11:30-11:40 – Read a Bible story and introduce our memory verse for the week.

11:40-12:10 – Take students to lunch and grab a tray for myself (we have hot lunch at our school only two days a week.  It’s donated by two different groups of church folk from partner churches.  And Monday’s lunches are always very tasty!)  Quick run around at 12:05 to make sure everything is ready for the afternoon … switch the rotation for math drawers because I ran out of time in the morning since I was chatting with coworkers.

12:10-12:40 – I have recess duty with the PreK3-1st

12:40-12:50 – Bring students up from recess

12:50-2:15 – Math – During math we alternate between whole group mini lessons and independent work time.  Our mini lessons consist of calendar work, place value – I do routines from teacher tipster, money, time, or whatever else the whole class might need.  We have four work times between the lessons.  Four different math groups … one group is still needing to use counters for addition, one group is beginning to work on subtraction, the third group is working through more quickly and is working on subtraction strategies, the fourth group came in to first grade ready to multiply.  I do a  lot of enrichment activities with this group as well as just work at a more quick pace.  While I am meeting with math groups, one group is doing their practice sheet from the curriculum.  The other two groups are working on math drawers playing math games from either the curriculum or centers that I get from blogs or TpT. 

2:15-2:40 – Science or Social Studies – right now we are learning about living long ago and students have been working on constructing log cabins out of popsicle sticks.  They have really enjoyed this activity and beg to do it any extra time they have.  They even ask to do it during their work on word time, which I then remind them of all the jobs they have to do during work on words during the week and they realize they don’t actually have extra time.

2:40-3:00 – Clean up, class jobs, pack up, hand out checked papers, if we have more smilies than frownies during the day give the class a star towards their goal, line up for dismissal.

3:00-3:20 – Go downstairs for dismissal.  Chat with my students while waiting for them all to be picked up or time for after care.  Listen to students ask to hold the walkie talkie or play a learning game on my phone.  Sometimes say yes almost always say no to playing a game on my phone.

3:20-4:00 – After all my kids have been dismissed I go back upstairs and many times end up talking teaching philosophy with another coworker before heading out.  On the first Monday of the month I have a teacher meeting and on the third Monday of the month I have a meeting for the education committee that lasts until 5.

6:00-7:00 – I am an assistant coach for the first / second grade basketball team so I go to the rec center and play with the kids coach basketball.

Afterwards I stop at the grocery store, grab something to take to my friends’ house for supper, get over there, cook together, eat, chat.  I head home around 10:00, get ready for bed, and slide in … reading from my Bible before falling asleep.

Like I said, Monday is by far the busiest day!