Skip to main content

Morning Tasks

What a day!
I had absolutely no breaks all day long.
The two prep periods I had were devoted to meetings - one with a parent and another one to discuss our next PYP unit - the Exhibition of Learning!
And, as if that weren't enough, I had recess and lunch supervision.
Finally, there was a leadership meeting after school.

Phew!

Despite the fact that it was an action-packed day, with no breaks for me, I loved the energy that my students and I created throughout the day. We laughed and were serious. We were loud and quiet all at once. Each part of our day today could be a separate blog post. I'm going to write about the conversation we had about our morning routines. At a later time, I plan to write about other things we're doing in the classroom.

Every morning my students have 15 minutes for morning tasks which include checking email and Edmodo, as well as finishing assignments. They can also read, write, work on a project, or do a classroom job. It has been a constant struggle this year to get some students to realize the value of this time for getting organized and transitioning into the school day. So, today we had a conversation about how 15 minutes can add up to a significant amount of time over the course of a week (75 minutes), month (300 minutes or 5 hours), school year (45 hours) and adding up to about 8 school days or about 40% of the total allotment of absences permitted by the Ministry of Education before a student is in danger of repeating the year. 

I probably talked more than necessary, but I feel it was an eye-opener for some kids to put our "morning tasks" time into perspective. Nevertheless, there are a couple of kids that need a specific assignment because they are not ready to take on this challenge for themselves. I'm thinking that a combination of 10 minutes doing a teacher directed task and 5 minutes on their own might be a good place to start, decreasing the teacher assignment over time.  

I don't want to take away these 15 minutes altogether because most of my students do take advantage of this time and are busy from the minute they walk into the room until it's time to break for PYP or another lesson. We'll see how this goes over the next few days.

What does your morning routine look like for your students?  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Reading Strategies Book - Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension

The strategy lessons highlighted in Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension, in The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo are critical to students’ engagement and comprehension, as well as their ability to write literary essays, or even book reviews, summaries and reflective pieces about books. If students aren’t able to talk about books in a way that is invigorating and joyful, they will be less likely to develop an interest in growing ideas for writing about books. In her introduction to this chapter, Jennifer Serravallo, reminds us that when conversations go well, children are inspired by what they read and are motivated to keep reading. However, when conversations fall flat, then kids get bored and tune out. How do we avoid this situation and teach kids to  have  focused conversations about books?  The answer is easy: teach kids  strategies to help them develop effective conversa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Are we listening?

A child sits alone with a ripped worksheet packet on his desk. He appears to be singing or subvocalizing something though no one hears him. Or, perhaps they're ignoring him. The teacher stands at the front of the room teaching on the SmartBoard. The children follow along in their worksheets. Except the child sitting alone. He is in his own world. No one engages him and he engages no one. My heart aches for this child. He is physically and emotionally removed from the class. I ask him why his paper is ripped. (It's not an accidental rip.) He says he did that on a different day. When he had been frustrated about the work. He tells me that he sometimes sits by himself because the work is too hard for him. He later tells me that he sits by himself because the teacher thinks he talks too much during the lesson.  He says he does that because he wants to find out about the "lives of the other children". My first impulse is to rescue him from the wrongheade...
10 comments
Read more

A Slice of Life Story: Wishin' and Hopin', A Christmas Story by Wally Lamb

I normally only write about teaching related issues on this blog.  But, I've decided to make some changes in the New Year.  One change I am making is to start posting book reviews, or posts prompted by books I'm reading, that are in some way connected to teaching, learning, schooling, or education in general.  I aim to broaden the scope of my blog so that I don't find myself frantically searching for a topic to post about every week; this has stopped me from posting on a regular basis.  The purpose of making this change isn't to proliferate my blog with trivial posts, but rather to allow myself a broader scope from which to ruminate about learning in the broadest sense of the word. Wally Lamb's Wishin' and Hopin', A Christmas Story  is a great read and not just at Christmas time.  Lamb was able to take a one-time fictitious event - the 1964 Christmas play production by the students at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School - and build a story around it tha...
10 comments
Read more