Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Schedule (and getting my life together!!)

Is it just me, or is Debbie Diller a genius? I have absolutely LOVED her math workstations book, and it has completely transformed my math block. I posted a lot about that last summer and am feeling much better about how I do math. This summer, I sat down and wrote myself some goals on what I want to work on this summer. Reading has always been top of my list, specifically small groups. Enter this book:

Has anyone else ever wondered "What exactly am I suppose to be doing in small group?" or "How the eff do I differentiate for all these students and not go absolutely bananas?" or maybe even "Where have I put my small group books/lessons/word tiles/markers/small sticky note that has super important anecdotal notes about this child who I have a meeting on tomorrow? How have I lost them AGAIN? AHHHHH!" No? Maybe that's just a typical day in my life. I suck at organizing. Absolutely am a hot mess with a hot mess of a classroom. Every year I set goals to NOT be a hot mess.... so here's hoping this year is THE year!

So upon sitting down and trying to figure out my life, here were a few problem areas/goals I wanted to work on for next year:

  • Schedule - How in the world do I get everything in stick to it? And what is "EVERYTHING"?
  • How many groups can I really see in a day?
  • How can I infuse Daily 5/CAFE/Workstations altogether and make it work for me?
  • Can I do one on one conferring this year?
  • How do I hold them accountable for what they're working on in small group?
  • I NEED TO ORGANIZE AND STOP LOSING THINGS!!!
  • Readers Notebooks?!?! Say what?!?!

If I let it, I could probably keep this list going on and on and on some more. But basically, I came to the realization that I really needed to revamp my reading block and figure out what the eff I was doing. So this summer I am hoping to post about how I want to set up my entire English language arts block (writing included) and get some amazing feedback from y'all.

Now to tackle this huge enormous gigantic behemoth task, sitting down and figuring out a schedule was first on the list. So my teacher buddy came over yesterday and here is what her and I came up with:



CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE WHOLE THING

What are y'alls thoughts? I struggle so much with staying on time,  but I feel like breaking it down and making sure I cover all the components I need to will help me in the end. And of course flexibility will need to be remembered!! How do your schedules look?

Check back later in the week. Next up: Organizing Small Group

2 comments:

Lana said...

I can SO relate to your question "How do I hold them accountable for what they are working on in small group? This is my biggest problem for small groups!

The Math Spot said...

It's great to have the time in the summer to tackle these big picture issues because it's hard to change once the train starts. On another note... can you do a post on what the "Phonics Dance" is!?

Polka Dots & Teaching Tots