A Day in the Life

I just stumbled upon this awesome linky party from Where the Wild Things Learn!  I love finding new fourth grade teachers like Amelia in the blogging world.

Here is what the schedule outside my door says.

Now, I think we all know that these times are not exact by any means! Our bathroom breaks and snack time are not in my schedule, nor are the minutes we take to walk to and from each part of our day.

So school officially starts at 7:40.  Students are let in the building at 7:00 Teachers are supposed to be at school by 7:15. We open our doors at 7:25.  These fifteen minutes before school starts, the kids are trickling in and working on their morning work.  

My day starts with our intervention groups which we call Renaissance Round Up.  We have 11 different groups going during this time.  Some are intervention (tiers 2 and 3) and others are enrichment.  I currently have a group of 3 tier 3 math students that I am working with during this time.

I teach with a partner teacher this year.  She teaches all of literacy including reading and writing workshop, words their way, and grammar. I teach math and science or social studies depending on the quarter.  I teach social studies the 1st and 3rd quarters and science the 2nd and 4th quarters.  We keep our homeroom classes for the morning block and switch for the afternoon block. 

Our mornings are quite a bit longer than our afternoons, which I'm not a huge fan of.  I am constantly trying to find ways to balance instructional time.  My math lessons are my main focus and I spend a smaller amount of time on science/social studies. I really wish we had a way to give more specific time for science and social studies by incorporating literacy.  I'm hoping our schedule next year might change so our blocks are more equitable.  

We also don't have recess until the end of the day.  On the days I don't have duty, I really like it because I can get a few things done before the end of the day and leave a little earlier. When I have duty, it feels like the day never ends!  I wish we had recess right after lunch, but no such luck here!

That's what my day looks like.  What about you?