How do you break down your class?

I’m fact finding…

I’m trying to break down a class…any class…into its intrinsic parts.

I feel, there’s the beginning 10 minutes…settle down time, check homework…do a getting into the mood activity.

Then there’s the meat of the class…the lesson, the practice…the getting them to do what you want them to do…

Then there’s the last 10 minutes…finishing up…explaining the homework…and getting the communication books signed.

I am wondering if you teachers are systematic about it…do you break down the time into bits…or do you wing it with a general idea of what needs to be done?

Are there different steps for each part? How do you manage your time?
Can you effetively run your “system” each time? Or are you scrambling around at the end of every class?

If not, how is it that you do manage your time and “system” well?

Thanks.

jds

Afte the initial ten minutes, which I use for reviewing phrases and introducing new ones, I do a quick review of the last lesson. I think that pointed review is very helpful.

hmm, many teachers miss that.

I mainly teach reading classes, so we read right through the previous lesson.

so MM, when you review, where are your “phrases”?
written on the board? or do you do them orally?

Are their desks cleared, or do they have their books and such littered about?

Written down, after I introduce them orally, then when I review them, orally only.

Desks cleared, jackets in the hallway on hooks, pencils, books in their desks.

Written down, after I introduce them orally, then when I review them, orally only.

Desks cleared, jackets in the hallway on hooks, pencils, books in their desks.[/quote]
Sounds good.

I videotape new teachers from time to time and one thing we always catch when reviewing it is “LOOK! LOOK! at home much they fiddle around with their books and pencils and whatnot”

CLEAR THE DESKS!

I start each class with the reading or get RIGHT into new vocab.

I teach a 90-minute class, 4 days a week, for 5th graders at a high level of English. When they start to arrive, usually 15 minutes before, up to the first 5 minutes, they have word puzzles and sustained silent reading. For the fifteen minutes after that, we do some warm-up activities, either extending on the story we are reading such as reading response journaling, reading aloud to them, or even mind stretches like brainstorming or critical thinking activities, depending on what gets rolled on the warm-up activities cube. Then we launch into whatever our focus is for that day: Mondays are for literacy focus, Wednesdays are for vocabulary and reading comprehension, Thursdays are for grammar focus, and Fridays are for spelling and reviewing the vocabulary, grammar and reading for that week. We spend about 30-35 minutes practicing that day’s skill and then for the last 15-20 minutes we’ll do a wrap-up activity of something practical such as looking at that week’s reading selection and finding examples of figurative speech (literacy focus), write an advice letter to the main character in a story (reading comprehension focus), edit a paragraph to make it more interesting with vivid adjectives (grammar focus), or do spelling dictation and vocabulary fill-in (spelling and vocabulary review).

I have a general routine to what happens each day, although there are plenty of days (or weeks) where we will do project work or focus on one particular skill.

The curriculum I work from is a literature-based language arts program so all of the skills are based on the weekly selection, unless I have made changes to what we read that week, such as doing a novel study or just skipping a particular story because it’s not culturally relevant. It’s quite a comprehensive, but malleable program which it needs to be in order to teach it in only 6 hours a week.

That’s great. My kids have responded very well to word searches at other times. I’ll try that before class gets started. :slight_smile: As for SSR…yeah baby! Love it.

I think teacher’s underestimate how very crucial it is to read to the students…stories…not just from the textbooks. two points. :slight_smile:

cool.

Sounds great. I’m envious of the amount of time you have with them.

I have to arrange these 45 minute microwave classes…the actual lesson can be like shock English…bambambam…the way we do it works, but the first and last ten minutes of class, I think can be done better.

Thanks for the help.

peace

“How do you break down your class?” Well, those little riding crops with the hands on the end work wonders. :wink:

With younger kids I feel like a cartoon character. One hour feels like it’s broken up into lots of 10 to 15 minute sections, but, the reality is that they are still learning the same stuff. It used to be exhausting, now I am always prepared and can change in a NY ‘second’.

Older kids is a snap. I love testing their brains. I agree with review for 10 minutes or so. I usually have a quiz once a week. I tell them that whatever I say and write on the board is important and may be in a quiz. They always write it down… now… after the first time they didn’t write stuff down.

Tough for me at the moment though. I am only teaching high fliers and troublesome classes. One is keeping the quality high and the other is making the quality high.

I always follow a simple pattern though. Review … do you still know what I taught you last time? You’d better. Teach this weeks lesson… Review what I just taught… do you still remember what we learnt 10 minutes ago… good… don’t forget. Although my first graders are still having trouble with “Titanic” - and tell me that it was about a ‘ship that drowned at sea’ :blush: :blush: shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone.

BTW, sorry, I think I went off topic somewhere but I feel too stuffed to check.

Review, something new (or more review), play, use the book (stundet book/coloring book), read a story (I’ve decided I’m going to teach everyone [those that are capible which I think should be everyone] to read now, I’ll need to read up on that), review the new.

In the corner of the board I write what I want to teach for the day and little reminders of what activities I might use and then have at it.

[quote][quote=“miltownkid”]Review, something new (or more review), play, use the book (stundet book/coloring book), read a story (I’ve decided I’m going to teach everyone [those that are capible which I think should be everyone] to read now, I’ll need to read up on that), review the new.

In the corner of the board I write what I want to teach for the day and little reminders of what activities I might use and then have at it.[/quote][/quote][/quote]

That is an excellent idea. Sometimes when I get going I forget about the plans I had before class.

Me too. :blush: