I NEED to jot the things I wanted to write about before I forget about them, so here is my first attempt at catching up and expanding on the list I wrote previously.
1. Daily Routines: The routines were truly what provided structure in the classroom. I genuinely liked the way my CT set up the daily routines, and it helped me, as a teacher, to start the day. In fact, it may be one of the favourite parts of the day for me because it allowed me to touch base with the students, and share with them what was happening that day.
What is more, I saw that the children really appreciated it too. Since it is a DAILY routine, once they knew what was part of it, every student felt safe to participate.
So now onto what the daily routine actually included (and this was how it was done in order from earliest to latest)-
- DEAR: "Drop Everything And Read"- students came into the classroom in the morning, put their things in their desks, picked a book from the front of the class, and literally, dropped everything and read. This was the time for silent reading, and as teachers, we had to emphasize to children to "read with our eyes, not with our lips". I took attendance while students read.
- Calendar: Up on the board, we had a calendar of the month. We always went over which month we were in (I added which month comes before and after too, after the first month of school), how many days are in that month, and counting the days together. We also went over which day of the week (which day comes before/after that day).
- Weather: Talking about weather came right after discussing which day of the week we were in. Students were to look outside, and offer opinions about what the weather was like that day- one student was chosen to put the applicable label on to the appropriate day of the week. We also started discussing temperatures- they learned about what C stands for (Celsius), and practiced reading out the whole temperature. Students were encouraged to check in the mornings through newspaper/internet/radio, the temperature of the day. I think this could also branch out to graphing temperatures/weathers.
- Morning Message: Everyday, I wrote a morning message that included a greeting, the date/month/year, and what special events awaited the students that day. Since the sentence structure was kept the same (at least for the first month), all the students were able to participate and read out loud. They truly enjoyed it when I started changing some words: e.g. "Have a great day!" to "Have a wonderful day!"- they easily spotted differences! The morning message is a great tool for teaching language components as well, and have infinite possibilities of what can be done: purposely making a mistake and letting students find & correct them...etc etc. It also brought a great teaching moment of how to read times 9:00 (9 o'clock) and symbols 9:00-10:30 (- means to).
-Kind Hand of the Day:This routine was born from a lesson that I taught on power of words. Students were taught the effects of words on people, and as a task, created a hand-shaped paper where they wrote 5 nice things to a classmate. All the 'hands' were collected, and one was drawn each day, from the box. The students who made the hand came up and read it out to the student who he/she made the hand for (this was predetermined so that every student received a hand). A video of this is available on the blog somewhere. It was a great exercise, because students looked forward to receiving a hand with nice words, and because it gave a chance for everyone to speak in front of the whole class- something that is sometimes daunting, but since this was something they made themselves, they felt pride and comfort in speaking up.
- Write in Agenda: Next came the agendas- students opened up their agendas to today's date, the teacher's assistant walked around and put a sticker on the date (so that all children knew where to write their homework), and after going over reading the homework, they wrote it in their agendas. In the beginning, extra care went in for teachers to check whether this was done properly. Also, emphasis was put on starting the sentences with a capital, and ending them with a period.
- Snack: Since the school I taught at was a region 1 school (poorest in the Montreal area), they received a Snack Program where snack was provided for the children together with the milk program. We often asked students what the snack was, which food group it belonged to (I also taught a lesson on it) and other interesting or nutritious facts it had. Then, the snacks were distributed, and they ate it while finishing their agenda writing.
That was basically the daily routine, and now that I have written them out, I realize that it is a lot! It did actually take up to 40 minutes to complete: we started with attendance and DEAR at 8, and finish snack around 8:30-40, and could proceed with the lesson.
Next to catch up: WEEKLY ROUTINES! pictures will be added later on this post too!
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