A Day in the Life

Here is some information about a typical day at my school...

School begins at 9:00am. Every Monday morning, we have an all-school assembly in the gym. Each week, all of the classroom teachers choose two students from their grade (their class) to receive an award, which is then presented at the assembly.

The school day is divided into six sessions, all of them 50 minutes each. However, the sessions are more of guidelines than anything else. On some days, reading may take an hour and half and other days it may take 40 minutes.

Session 1
Session 2
Morning Tea (outside play for the kids and a quick break for teachers)
Session 3
Session 4
Lunch and outside play
Session 5
Session 6

When the kids have time outside, the entire school is out at the same time. When I was in school, only one grade at a time played outside. I love seeing my grade 1 students play with what they call "the little preps" and show them the ropes. (Prep is kindergarten.) Everyone, including the teachers, has to wear a broad-rimmed hat when they are out in the yard to protect them from the sun. I have one that is tan with a red ribbon around it. Also, when it is time to come in from outside, music plays on the PA for 2 minutes as a signal that it is time to start making your way back to the buildings before the actual bell rings. It is a nice way to transition from outside play to going back into the classroom.

Tanya (my cooperating teacher) and I have started and finished our literacy assessments to determine the students' reading levels. It is a similar method to the one I learned in one of my education classes at SNC. We will use this information in order to group the students into ability groups for guided reading and weekly reading activities. We also have writing groups based on ability. I found it interesting that some of the best readers have poor writing skills. In writing, we are explicitly focusing on handwriting. They are still in the process of learning where letters sit on a line, how far the letters reach up and down, and how to form the letters. The lower-case "p" and "b" are written differently here than what I learned. Also, "z" is pronounced "zed" and "h" is pronounced "haych."

In a couple of weeks once the literacy groups are more solid, we will start doing maths groups as well. So far, maths has had whole class instruction. Every week, there are two lessons on numbers, two on measurement/data, and one on shape.

Also, the kids have "specials" which they go to once a week. The specials are art, music, P.E., and library. I have been going with the students to the specials and it is neat to see how they are engaged in different environments.

I am continuing to take on more and more lessons gradually. Today I taught a lesson about "-en" words and the kids responded well to it. I have learned to make my lessons more simple at first and then if some kids finish early, have related activities that they can do to add on to their work. One thing that I have found is how important it is to be ready with other activities for the kids to do once they finish their work!