Below is a copy of my day plan. Prior to my arrival Nikki had grouped the students according to year levels and ability groups. Nikki had found a way to incorporate all of the KLA's for all the year levels into a weekly plan that ensures each students needs are met - it really is a work of art! With Nikki's assistance I have modified the day plan slightly and changed the formatting a little bit. As you can see below my day plan does get a little bit chaotic but we make it work.
The photo below is of an A3 piece of paper with the age groups identified in the three columns, time segments down the left hand side and colour co-ordinated activities throughout the plan which correlate to a key down the bottom of the page. This key which identifies which teacher/teacher aide is working with groups of students. Are you still with me?... The boxes around the day plan are headed with each child’s name, this was the fastest and most effective way (I could think of) to make notes on student progress, observations and individual reminders.
For those of you who know me personally you’ll know how much I love a good graphic organiser. So to help my students, teacher aides and myself know exactly what’s happening and when I’ve created a classroom organiser. Below are some visuals of an average Tuesday morning session. The aim of this classroom organiser is to assist students to become self-regulated learners. Students can identify the activity they’re doing, when they’re doing the activity, what they need for the activity and who they need to be working with. The coloured cards correlate to key in the day plan and students know: green cards – independent work, pink cards – working with Aunty Kay (teacher aide), blue card – working with Miss Phelps (me) and purple card – working with Kari (teacher aide). At the beginning of the rotation I set a timer for 30 min and when that timer beeps students pack up the activity they’re working on, look at the classroom organiser and move on to the next activity.
At Jundah SS this year there are five students in Years 1-3. Guided reading with these students is sometimes difficult most students are on various reading levels and have individual learning plans for reading. Having students names on laminated cards assist students to know who they are completing their guided reading session with.
Communication with teacher aides can be sometimes challenging. To overcome this problem I write mini-lesson plans for the teacher aides to follow which are directly linked to the short, medium and long term plans developed at the begining of Term 3. The long term plan is grounded in the the QSA Essential Learnings Outcomes for each juncture. During literacy rotations teacher aides implement a series of mini lesson which include before, during and after reading/writing activies and questions which assist students to successfully employ the Four Roles of the Reader.
Most days I plann, write and organise resources for 12 mini lessons before the first break (11am).
All of the students have an individual Guided Reading folder with a levelled book, reading checklist and student books with reading comprehension questions (literal, inferential and evaluative questions) directly related to the text.
Younger students also have a reading strategies checklist and reading strategy stickers. This program has been borrowed from a teacher at Maleny State School. The reading program likens the main 10 reading strategies to animal characters. We have been implementing this program for two weeks and the students are using the metalanguage of the strategies like we've been doing it all year! The best part is they really enjoy the characters and finger puppets, such as Punctuation Polly and Chunky Monkey.
