The Daily Schedule
What can you accomplish?
Hello Busy Bee Kindergarten community!
I am fortunate in that before leaving school at the end of May, I have my daily schedule for the following school year in place and in hand. Sure, it will probably be tweaked a little bit between now and when school starts, but for the most part I know what it looks like and can start planning based on that. If you are coming into a new position or if your school is going through some changes, you probably don’t yet know what your schedule will look like. Either way, you can spend time this summer deciding what activity blocks you’ll need in your daily schedule to incorporate the changes you want to make and meet the instructional goals you set for yourself. Thinking ahead and going in prepared will also help you advocate for yourself and your students.
The Value of a Daily Schedule
We all know there is never enough time to do everything that we want to do with our students, but if we have a quality schedule in place then we will find ourselves fretting about this truth less often. We must find a way for a daily schedule to include all of the necessary components needed for learning to happen (i.e., whole class instruction, small group instruction, time for independent work and application, time for less cognitively demanding activities and outdoor play, etc.). If a critical piece of this puzzle is missing, we will feel its effects daily until we change the schedule to make amends.
A daily schedule serves three main purposes. First, it establishes the space you need to teach what you need to teach. I know that I want to read at least two books to my students each day. I need at least 20 minutes for whole group phonics every day. I like a solid hour for centers and small group instruction. If at all possible, I want a chunk of time right after lunch for quiet time/rest time so everyone has a chance to use the bathroom and I am able to work with students one-on-one with “no” interruptions. I try to put writing time right before recess so off-task students have an opportunity to continue working while everyone else plays outside. I’m more flexible with math; I can divide it into smaller blocks of time if need be. And, I want time each day to address social-emotional needs as well as teach some skills in this area.
Second, there are many benefits to students knowing the schedule and expecting to go through the same steps every day. For one, they can predict what is going to happen first, next, and after that and can get themselves to the right place at the right time. When the day is predictable, students feel successful and in control. They do not have to expend energy figuring out new expectations and can instead put it all toward listening and learning. Also, if writing (as an example) is something you do every day after recess, then students will be more inclined to sit down and write for you because, well, that’s just what they do every day.
Every day. That’s another benefit of a solid daily schedule—it facilitates the consistency of your instruction. Though inherent in the concept of a daily schedule, some teachers stray—and stray too often—from this notion of every-dayness. “The weather is so lovely, I think we’ll take a little extra recess time instead of doing writing.” “I didn’t get those new slides ready for phonics today, so maybe we’ll just do a few extra brain breaks.” I usually build in a block of time called ‘“project” or “various” for special activities that allow for variety without cancelling any of the crucial instruction for the day or week. Build your schedule and then stick to it.
Busy Bee Kindergarten Daily Schedule
I will now share my schedule and my thinking behind it. Your schedule will, of course, be different, but you can still think through it in a similar manner. I build my schedule to incorporate the strands of Scarborough‘s Reading Rope, to include the goals I set last summer, and the new goals I am setting to improve my instruction this upcoming school year. I listed the goals I set for the past school year, but am not including my new goals since they are in the works and morphing a bit every time I read and summarize another article, video, webinar, or podcast.
8:45-9:00 Soft Start
Students trickle in during this time, wash hands, sign in, visit, and practice their current word list and number chart.
Goal #5 - I want to give students more opportunities for intentional talking and will find ways to fit this into each school day.
9:00 - 9:10 Morning Meeting
Announcements, lunch count, social-emotional learning
9:10 - 9:30 Whole Group Phonics/Phonemic Awareness Training, including The Name Game
We choose a special helper for the day and analyze their name, which works on phonemic awareness and phonics. Then we move into the more systematic and explicit whole group phonics instruction and phonemic awareness training.
Goal #1 - Instead of teaching common words in order of their frequency for appearing in the English language, I will group them and teach them based on spelling patterns. This goal comes with the realization that a large percentage of the high frequency words follow phonics rules and are fairly easy to decode once those phonics have been taught.
9:30 - 9:35 Brain Break
Students get up and get moving with a brain break that often goes with our weekly theme.
9:30 - 9:45 Read Aloud #1
Books are chosen based on the weekly theme or a focus lesson they present (characters, events, problem and solution, message from the author, onomatopoeia, dialogue, repeating words, etc.). Most books are physical, but sometimes we watch a story read online, pausing and discussing as we would if I were reading the book to the students myself.
Goal #4 - I will be more intentional with vocabulary development. I will find several words each week that are associated with our weekly themes and our read alouds and explicitly teach them and give the students opportunities to use them on a regular basis.
Goal #5 - I want to give students more opportunities for intentional talking and will find ways to fit this into each school day (turn and talk).
9:45 - 10:00 Daily Math Activities
We count the school days, do various calendar activities, and play a monthly collector game.
10:00 - 11:00 Centers and Small Group Instruction
Students rotate through four 15-minute centers. One center is reading independently or—when called—reading with me at the reading table. Another center is working with my aide, Miss Lori (math, literacy, or special projects). At the independent center, students work independently to the extent possible on a variety of activities which get progressively more academic in nature as the school year goes on. The fourth center is intentionally more physical in nature as students build, work on floor puzzles together, or, on some days, do seatwork.
Goal #1 - Instead of teaching common words in order of their frequency for appearing in the English language, I will group them and teach them based on spelling patterns. This goal comes with the realization that a large percentage of the high frequency words follow phonics rules and are fairly easy to decode once those phonics have been taught.
Goal #2 - Irregularly spelled high frequency words should not be grouped with those that follow phonics rules. I will separate them out and call them heart words and teach them more explicitly and systematically.
Goal #3 - I will have students work on blending sounds and decoding words earlier in the school year than I typically do. I will then use more decodable text to reinforce the skills. I do not, however, plan on abandoning all leveled books. I still see value in them and will learn how to balance the use of them with decodable text.
Goal #5 - I want to give students more opportunities for intentional talking and will find ways to fit this into each school day.
11:05 - 11:30 Lunch
11:30 - 11:50 Lunch Recess
11:55 - 12:30 Quiet Time/Interventions
For the first two or three months of the school year, the students rest quietly on the floor while I work with red zone students on letter names. As they learn their usernames and passwords, students start Lexia, Dreambox, and PebbleGo on their Chromebooks and continue that for the rest of the school year during this time. Every day, I work with 8-10 students one-on-one. My aide takes her lunch break during this time, but an intervention teacher comes in to help manage the rest of the class and field all their questions related to logging in and moving through their programs. This allows me to stay focused on my interventions. Students also use the bathroom and wash their hands during this time.
Goal #1 - Instead of teaching common words in order of their frequency for appearing in the English language, I will group them and teach them based on spelling patterns. This goal comes with the realization that a large percentage of the high frequency words follow phonics rules and are fairly easy to decode once those phonics have been taught.
Goal #3 - I will have students work on blending sounds and decoding words earlier in the school year than I typically do. I will then use more decodable text to reinforce the skills. I do not, however, plan on abandoning all leveled books. I still see value in them and will learn how to balance the use of them with decodable text.
12:30- 12:45 Read Aloud #2
Books are chosen based on the weekly theme or a focus lesson they present (characters, events, problem and solution, message from the author, onomatopoeia, dialogue, repeating words, etc.). Most books are physical, but sometimes we watch a story read online, pausing and discussing as we would if I were reading the book to the students myself.
Goal #4 - I will be more intentional with vocabulary development. I will find several words each week that are associated with our weekly themes and our read alouds and explicitly teach them and give the students opportunities to use them on a regular basis.
Goal #5 - I want to give students more opportunities for intentional talking and will find ways to fit this into each school day (turn and talk).
12:45 - 1:45 Specials/Planning Time
1:20 - 1:55 Project (Friday only)
1:55 - 2:20 Writing (Monday through Thursday)
After returning from specials, it is writing time. For the first six weeks, we draw and label together. After that, the students write “independently” while I circulate and teach.
Goal #1 - Instead of teaching common words in order of their frequency for appearing in the English language, I will group them and teach them based on spelling patterns. This goal comes with the realization that a large percentage of the high frequency words follow phonics rules and are fairly easy to decode once those phonics have been taught.
Goal #2 - Irregularly spelled high frequency words should not be grouped with those that follow phonics rules. I will separate them out and call them heart words and teach them more explicitly and systematically.
2:20 - 2:45 Recess (Monday through Thursday)
2:50 - 3:40 Math (Monday through Thursday)
3:40 - 3:55 Social Emotional Learning/WordStudy/Various (Monday through Thursday)
Goal #2 - Irregularly spelled high frequency words should not be grouped with those that follow phonics rules. I will separate them out and call them heart words and teach them more explicitly and systematically.
Goal #5 - I want to give students more opportunities for intentional talking and will find ways to fit this into each school day.
I’ve been told I have a long school day compared to most teachers (9:00 - 4:00) and that does make it easier to squeeze in everything that needs to be taught. On the flip side, we only have 168 student contact days. While we all have limitations, do your best to build a quality daily schedule. Then fill that schedule with intentional lesson plans that you stick to day after day after day. Beginning in August, there will be many posts about filling the schedule with systematic, high quality learning activities and instruction.
Thanks for making Busy Bee Kindergarten a part of your inbox, time, and attention. It wouldn’t be happening without YOU!
Randee
I read this post earlier this summer, but realize I didn't leave a comment. I cannot agree more with you on the importance of "every day" - I have found that when I keep our schedule predictable, everything is better; behavior, student engagement, and learning in general. When holidays come around and I am excited to do seasonal activities that take us off our routine, it never fails - we go off the rails! Last year I scaled way back on making as many changes, and things went much better. Lesson learned!
Kids love when they know the routine and everything is predictable. They ooze confidence. They can put all of their brain energy into learning instead of trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Plus, if you do stick with your schedule every day, the few days that you do plan something different are so much easier for them to handle. When we do special projects, I try to just fit them into our already existing blocks of time. And I try to keep our schedule in place up to the last day of school so that things don’t get so crazy.