Well it's day 3 of the new school year and we've jumped right into the learning. I've already revised my schedule once and it will probably happen again, but here it is as it now stands. The times are loosely set. A guide more than a hard fast rule, however we do try to stick to a good schedule.
9:00-9:15 Following Directions ~ This is a warm-up activity using a publication by Creative Teaching Press. The book is called Following Directions and it is written for 3rd and 4th grade. I think following written and oral directions while doing fun activities is a good way to warm up the brain and begin to focus on the day.
9:15-9:30 Reading Fluency ~ This is a reading activity where the focus is on fluency. The text includes an audio CD and 20 lessons. We are spending about 1.5 weeks per lesson to really work on our fluency. I think this is a good morning activity as well. It's very independent and it also helps to warm up the brain for a day of learning. The program is published by Shell Education and is called Increasing Fluency With High Frequency Word Phrases.
9:30-10:30 (M,T,W & F) History and Social Studies ~ There's a lot in the curriculum this year, everything from learning about your home state to prehistoric peoples and early civilization. (Thurs) We will study religion as it is pretty hard to study civilization without it. This will not be about what we believe as a family, but religious studies in general and how it relates to the groups of people we study.
10:30-10:45 Snack Time
10:45-11:00 Fiction Reading
11:00-11:30 Math ~ We covered nearly all of the 4th grade concepts last year. We are using Total Math published by American Education Publishing to review and then we will move on to 5th grade math.
11:30-12:00 Vocabulary ~ We are using Sylvan's Vocabulary Success for 4th grade to increase our vocabulary and study word concepts and grammer.
12:00-1:00 Lunch and Play Time
1:00-1:30 (M,T,W) Science (TH) Literary Elements ~ main idea, plot, conflict, etc. (F) Review ~ We will spend this time going over all of what we have covered during the week.
If you are wondering where writing comes in, we will be using our history topics and our fiction reading to work on our note taking and writing. For example, right now we are studying prehistoric peoples. We have created a time line and are using two sources to gather facts about the different groups. From there I'll have Wes write one paragraph about each group. Then we will write an introduction and conclusion. Then we'll type it into the computer and then edit it before printing a final draft. Wes won't even realize it until he's almost finished that he's written his first big paper. Then we can go back and discuss all of the steps we went through. We will explore other forms of writing as well using similar strategies.
We also have some new resources in the classroom. A gorgeous laminated timeline that begins 5,000 yrs BC and goes all the way to present day. I found it at Learning Through History. We also have a new Scholastic Encyclopedia, The New Way Things Work, The Clear and Simple Thesaurus Dictionary (love this!) and One Million Things - A Visual Encyclopedia
No comments:
Post a Comment