5:40 am
Alarm goes off. Groan and stumble out of bed into the shower. Stumble around to get dressed, make coffee, grab lunch out of the fridge and make coffee to drink in the car. Spray gel in hair and cross fingers that frizz hasn't taken over.
6:20
Leave house. Run back inside to grab whichever one of my 6 schoolbags I have forgotten. Drive to work.
7:00
Arrive at work if there was no traffic. Sign in, do photocopying before there is a line. Clean classroom, take down chairs, set up centers, write morning message, set out read aloud books and do whatever other things are on top of the mountain of paperwork otherwise known as my desk. Check school & personal emails if I have time. At 8 I set up breakfast at the lunch table in the hallway right outside my classroom.
8:15
Little ones arrive! We sit around and read books until most of the kids have arrived. I LOVE this time of day... they are so sweet all in the library together reading.
8:30
Breakfast & bathrooms. I sit and eat with the kids and make conversation with them (this is part of our NAEYC accreditation).
8:55
Morning meeting. We have a daily greeting, then read the morning message and fill in the blanks, fix any "mistakes" or fill in a graphic organizer on the white board. Next, the "star of the day" does our calendar. We quickly talk about the day, week, month & year, then sing a song about the day of the week. The star of the day picks which language we will count in before singing. So far we can count to at least 5 in French, Spanish, Vietnamese, Polish and Cape Verdean Creole. Love this! This is when we introduce any new centers and activities that reinforce our theme. At the end of morning meeting I pass out each child's picture so that they can pick there center. See {HERE} for more on our center board... my favorite classroom management tool ever!
9:15
Center time. I LOVE this time of day. Ms. C and I circulate around the classroom, do activities with the kids, help with any he's hitting me! she's not sharing! social issues, develop oral language and help set out additional materials as necessary.
10:15
Small groups. Ms. C and I each take a group to do a guided activity that relates to our theme. It could be anything from science to math to art, although usually it is literacy related.
10:30
Read aloud. My other favorite time of day. The book is usually one that our curriculum suggests, although I will also pull in other books if they are high quality and relate to our theme. One of the most important goals in read alouds in our classroom is to develop vocabulary since almost all of the kids are ELL.
10:45
Sing, dance, set up for nap time and get ready to go outside.
10:50
Recess. We love to go outside to play, but if it is too snowy, rainy, cold or icy we have a variety of indoor recess activities.
11:20
Lunch! I check my email (again!) and escape upstairs to the teacher's room for a few minutes of grown up time.
Lunch! I check my email (again!) and escape upstairs to the teacher's room for a few minutes of grown up time.
12:00
Nap. I am SO LUCKY to have this time to prepare activities, test kids who are awake or fill out paperwork. I try not to move around very much so that they can rest without being distracted. I also usually have to go yell at nicely ask the big kids to quiet down and stop waking the little ones up.
12:30
Wake up, clean up, bathrooms
12:47
Specials! We have art, science, computers or phys ed depending on the day. I use this time for prep or planning, and once a week we have a team meeting.
1:33
Pick up the kids, do a quick math mini lesson and break into math centers.
2:05
Clean up, pack up and say goodbye to each other.
2:15
Dismissal. I either bring the little kindergartners out to the busses, or dismiss the walkers (we rotate dismissal duties every month).
2:45
Tutor third graders after school.
4:00
Go home, go to the gym or go to my other tutoring job. I have class on Thursdays and a few Wednesdays a month. Yuck!
6:00
Make dinner, tidy up the house, pick out clothes for tomorrow.
7:30
Collapse on the couch completely exhausted, watch trashy tv if there are no yucky sports games on, plan, blog stalk, do little projects for school, check email compulsively, blog stalk some more, pin about a million things.
10:00
Get in bed, read for awhile and pass out! Wake up & repeat : )
1 comment
I love to read about other K teachers days! Your kiddos actually sleep?? We have quiet time and they are supposed to read or rest (and it is very important because I do interventions and assessments during this time, not to mention that they need the break) but they do anything but stay still! I can get them to stay still if and only if I am walking around giving them an evil look. Any tips???? I feel like I've tried everything. The Kindergarten Chick
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