Friday, March 15, 2013

Morning Calendar

I am very interested in hearing how your classrooms come in each morning.  Here is our routine:

Rather than sit and watch a show while the buses unload or wait in a bus line waiting for classes to be dismissed, my partner teacher and I began something new this year.  While the teachers on campus all start their teaching day at 7:30 (when kids are released from the gym), we go in early at 7:15 and keep our PreK students in the computer lab.  We began teaching them from the first day of school how to use a mouse, the keyboard, and navigating through the site we assigned them.  It took some time, but they are such pros at it now!

Our PreK had never had computer time before, so I am excited that they are getting a full 30 minutes each day.

We are a Title 1 school, so after computers we go directly to the cafeteria for breakfast.  All kids on our campus get a free breakfast!  We eat in the cafeteria, while the rest of the campus eats in their classrooms.

Then it is off to the class.  We come in and go straight to the carpet.  I use a SmartBoard in my room for Calendar Time.  It includes color songs, days of the week song, months of the year song, counting to 100, shapes songs, Zoo Phonics song, and several other activities.  My calendar presentation has gradually changed over the course of the year and we now have words to spell and sound out. 

We then go into our story and activity before eventually dismissing to centers.  What does your morning look like?

2 comments:

  1. How nice that your kids get that 30 minutes of computer time! 715 is very early! I don't even have to be at school until 8! Depending on when they get dropped off and if they eat breakfast they come in between 8:25 and (when we start.)

    I stopped doing actual morning work because I felt it was not fair to the kids coming in at 8:55 because he rides the bus and gets breakfast. So I have morning tubs. The kids complete the activity on their desks, read books, or take AR tests until everyone arrives.

    What a fun topic!

    Carrie
    BuzzIntoKinder

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  2. I also use table tubs for the morning. My kids come in sporadically from 8:50 - 9:05. On holidays or special theme weeks I usually have a color-by-number or word search activity for them to complete. I use this time to complete my assessments, which are never-ending!

    Lori

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