Oh how I love
routine! The beginning of the school year is full of joy, anticipation and
excitement. Meeting new students and building the foundations of relationships
is one of my favorite parts of teaching but I have to say… I do look forward, from day one, to starting routines.
For the past 5
years I have taught a blended classroom, serving regular education students and
students with special needs. Our morning routines were crucial for starting our
day on the right foot! I may have been structured to the point of neurosis but… it worked! Some students had a visual schedule on boardmaker
so they wouldn’t forget, that was very helpful too! Our routines goes as
follows:
1. Say good morning to Mrs. Mathias with a High Five, Hand Shake or Hug! (I once had a student that cried lining up for lunch saying that
no one had even said her name that day - heartbreaking! So I make a point to greet each child by name
in the mornings and some type of physical touch... they choose if they want a high five, hand shake or hug)
2. Hang up coat and backpack on hook
3. Take out folder and check for notes from home
4. Put folder in mailbox
5. Take down chair
6. Complete morning work on desk (I set out the differentiated morning work on each child's desk... see below for specifics)
7. Place morning work into "Completed Work Bin"
8. Read a book of choice, quietly, in the classroom library
Finding a good
set of morning work was difficult for me, so I decided to write my own! It is
aligned to the common core, reviewing elements of ELA and Math that we often
don’t have time to review during guided reading, writing block and guided math
groups!
There are two
different versions of each page of morning work to meet the needs of all our
learners. In the top right corner a D1 stands for the easier version and D2
stands for the enriched version. Concepts
like long and short vowel sounds are differentiated by circling the correct
pattern versus writing out the pattern. Every day there is a sentence with spelling or
grammatical errors that need to be corrected!
Math concepts such
as telling time, solving story problems, skip counting, money, comparing <,
> , = and mental math are all included. Again, I made sure to differentiate
different ability levels because this work is meant to be completed independently. I found it to be a great
quick check to see areas that I needed to re-teach as a whole group lesson or
to pull small groups during centers to specific concepts that kids were
lacking. It also served as a great home-school connection for parents to see
how kids were keeping up on old skills and concepts taught in class!
My colleagues at
work seemed to like the 2nd grade morning work too, so I decided to
make a version for 3rd grade as well! When I taught 3rd grade I always felt so much pressure because the 3rd grade NYS
test was approaching at the end of the year and I never knew if my kids were
retaining all the information they needed to know (without simply teaching to the test)!!! This serves as another
great way to check to make sure they’re staying afloat with all the content before
that DREADED TEST!
(Aligned to 3rd
Grade Common Core Standards)
Thanks for
stopping by! Hope your school year is off to a great start!