Combo class

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Combo class
By RM

I also have a 2/3 combination. I teach mostly small groups except for Science and Social Studies. What I do is this. Each student has a daily plan of activites from which to choose. There are 5 must do's and then choices.
The students must plan which activities to do first, second, third, fourth and fifth. Their choice of order but all the must do's must be done before choices. The 5 must do's are. 1.Writing in their draft book (which includes many steps of the learning process so each student may not be at the same point) 2. D.O.L (students copy sentences from the board and we correct as a whole group later)

3. Box box (students have level appropriate books, books used from guided reading and their own published pieces) 4. Spelling 5.Handwriting
Choices are.. 1st choice is always Workshop Way, which has many activites to choose from. Then the students can choose after that other choices they wish to go to. All of the other choices are centers, mostly literacy based. Writing, Making Words, Language, Poetry, Chart, SRA, Listening, Science, Social Studies, Geo-Safari,Computer and Book Nook. These activities always are in the morning block which is 3 hours. I do not open the Math center until the Math block after lunch (90min block)where I repeat the process of must do's and choices.The choices during this time are all math based.
I do not understand why your students go to music at different times. Are all specials like that? My class all go together to music, art and gym. If not, I would go crazy because this is my plan time. Don't you get planning time?
I hope this helps some in giving you some ideas on how to manage two levels.