schedule for first weeks

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schedule for first weeks
By Cathy-Dee

This year our first day will be a 1/2 day which will be so nice.

Usually my schedule for the first few weeks is something like this.

First day - students arrive - I have nursery rhyme colouring, cut and paste sheets on
their desks - I have them colour only. While they are doing this I and hopefully a few parents get all their materials sorted out. I put all the extra materials into ziplock bags which will be on each students desk. I also have a note on the overhead telling parents what to put into the desks and what to put into the bags.
This takes about 30 minutes - and also allows me to greet

any new students - I always have 2-3 empty desks in my room for the first week just in case.

Then we settle into some of our morning routines and I thank the parents for coming and more or less get them moving out of the room. Usually I do this by telling them when school will be finished for the day if they were planning to come back to pick up their child - they usually get the hint.
Then the class moves to the rug and we have a discussion time - I tell them about myself and some of the things we will be doing. I ask them what do they want to learn, it's fun. We learn everyone's names and play a few name games and get to know you games. Then we do a quick tour of the school so that the kids know where the bathrooms are, doors, where to put their shoes, etc., usually this takes us to our first recess.
We come back and they draw a picture of something they did during the summer that I will display in the hallway for the first couple of weeks.

If we have time I will also do the calendar and weather charts.

After recess - I make sure everyone has put their shoes away properly and has used the bathroom.

I read a story and then I have them do a printing activity where they print their name - I keep this for their portfolio. We learn 3 sight words, the, is, I and read a poem together. Then we use unifix cubes to make patterns. Then I have them draw a picture of something we did today at school as they love to take something home especially on the first day. This usually takes us to lunch (80 minutes classtime) and this year they will head home at lunch.

In the following days my schedule will be a bit more structured.

First 80 minutes
- journal writing - they will mainly be drawing pictures at the beginning of the year
- Find the letter book - I wrote stories featuring the letters and the kids have to find and circle the letter we are working on. I do these in order from A to Z
- Printing book - learning to print the letters properly - again in order from A to Z
- sight word drills
- Phonics/Companion Reading - programs or workbooks that work on letter sounds - these I teach out of order.
- Phonic songs - to go with the letters we are printing and learning - also reviewing the sound
- reading from our readers
(We may not do everything each day - usually I do one letter per week, or at least one letter and perhaps introducing the next letter by the end of the week).

Recess

next 80 minutes - math - the first 40 minutes we do hands-on activities, lessons and worksheets. We start with patterns and numbers to 20. I also work on number words. The second 40 minutes is usually math centers and often I use this time for initial one-to-one testing.

Lunch - all our kids remain at school for lunch

After lunch recess

first 1/2 hour - centers - again I do one-to-one testing - after Christmas this first 1/2 hour will become a silent reading time for the students as I wean them off of "fun" centers. From this point on all my centers are learning related and specific to the subject area.

Next 40 minutes - I will start my science unit on colours or my social studies unit on our school.

We have one more recess and another 80 minutes.
I do these classes during the afternoons, gym, music, art, health, social studies and science, computers, library. So I just vary these throughout the week and of course some are scheduled because others may be teaching them.