A pond is an active place. It is bursting with activity, noise and life.
Our little learning pond is much the same. It is bustling with activity as children make new discoveries about the themselves
and the world around them.
The central hub of the learning pad is the watering hole (carpet area). Here we hold our class meetings, group lessons,
listen to stories, and share together.
Our day begins with morning greetings and morning work. The children come in, greet their friends (just as we do when
we get to work) and then take care of morning routine work such as signing in, lunch count, frog binders, and then complete
an assigned morning task or book shop.
First off on our agenda is specials. We have gym and music right away in the morning M-Th.
Upon returning from specials each day we move into explorations
(RTI time). During this time children receive needs based instruction or work on building skills through work stations.
Work Stations allow the kids to relax a bit and have
fun as they explore a variety of work areas in the room. It gives them a chance to interact and learn with their friends.
Work stations cover a variety of skills and integrate reading and writing with math, science and social studies.
Our morning continues with our morning meeting. Our
morning meeting is very routine. We do calendar math, sing songs, and have fun learning through poems, games and puppets.
Following our morning meeting we dive into our math workshop next. We really FLIP over math. We start with a math meeting and group lesson. FLIP rotations
follow the group lesson. FLIP is an acronym for Facts and practice, Learning concepts, Independent Investigations, and
Partnerships in learning. Children complete tasks in each area.
By this time we are famished and ready for lunch and recess!
Reader's workshop is next. It begins with
a read aloud and a group lesson, often focusing on a particular reading strategy I want the kids to try out. During reader's
workshop children dive into reading as they work on their personal learning targets. Kids can choose to read alone, with a
friend, in a book club or digitally (ipod, laptop, etc.). They read from just right books of their choice to better their
reading skills. During this time I confer with children helping them develop reading skills and strategies at their instructional
level. The room is a busy place during reader's workshop. We end reader's workshop with a sharing circle where we share our
learning.
Word Work is next. Here we study word patterns,
spelling rules, do word building and have fun exploring the written language.
After reader's workshop we gather for writer's workshop. This is one of our favorite times of the day. Each workshop begins with a mini lesson that teaches us something
about becoming great writers and authors. After the mini lesson, kids have the opportunity to try out the things we have been
learning as they write from self selected topics. Writer's workshop ends with a share time in which young authors share their
work with their classmates.
Twice
a week we end our day with art class so writer's workshop is cut a little short on those days.
On Fridays we start our day with an hour of science fun.
Our day is full of fun and learning!
