Monday Motivation {Daily Schedules}

Hey friends! I am back today sharing about my daily schedule! In truth, I haven't had a schedule that I have been truly happy with in some time. We don't really have much control over when we do certain things (recess, activity, lunch) and this year, we were required to give up an additional 30 minutes to do RTI four days a week. Our Friday schedules are also different do to PLC time. I will not be including that information here, but here is what the layout of our day looks like.

When I was setting up my room a couple of years ago, I found these ADORABLE daily schedule cards from Amy Groesbeck! You can grab yourself a set HERE!

This schedule ended up changing as the year went on. Here is the schedule that I ended up sticking with for the year.

When students come in, they have a this message on the board.

We are a Title I school and offer free breakfast every day. We didn't always use morning work, but when we did, we used this, from Kiki's Classroom. You can purchase the yearlong set HERE!

Sometimes, students would just get on the computers and do Reflex Math or work on Cursive Workbooks. Eating breakfast in the classroom made it difficult to complete the morning math fully. We would try to finish it later on in the day.

 After morning routine, we jump right into Reading Workshop. I had the resource students this year and we did inclusion, so the resource teacher pushed in each day. In our district, we use the Fountas and Pinnell balanced literacy model and we also use Literacy By Design. We also have the freedom to supplement our mini lessons with whatever resources we choose. I only use the LBD leveled readers during my Guided Reading time. Each week, our mini lesson focused on a specific standard. During our Guided Reading group time, students do Daily 5. You can read more about that HERE. As students are doing Daily 5, they have the week to respond to the skill we are focusing on in their reading notebooks.

After reading, we go straight into writing. Because of our tight schedule this year, I felt like writing was always where we had the least amount of time. Guided Reading would always run over. I really am hoping our schedule allows for more writing time this year. 

I used Ashleigh Swinford's writing units this year. They follow the writing workshop model and they are wonderful! You can purchase those in her shop HERE! The one thing that I feel like I really didn't do a great job with was teaching grammar. Ashleigh's units do have a small grammar focus, but they are not lessons. This coming year, my team will be using Rooted in Reading and I am excited that they will have a grammar focus each week.

After writing, we had a 45 minute activity block. These are our specials, related arts, whatever you call them at your school!

We are required to have PE twice a week in order to abide by state law, so library isn't an official activity block. We have to carve out 20 minutes once a week to go. I would prefer that it be a full activity time, but hey....I'm not the one running things!

When we return from activity, we have one of our favorite times of the day - Read Aloud!

These are just a few of the novels we read this past school year. We also read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Swamp Fox. I would love some more 3rd grade novel suggestions for next year!

After read aloud, we have math. 

About a month into the school year, I discovered Hope King and Amy Lemon's Magic of Math for third grade and it totally transformed our math time! Students have never been more engaged in math in my classroom. I will say that it required lots of copies and preparation, but now I have a ton of it ready for reuse for next year. 

If you are interested in purchasing the third grade Magic of Math, just click on the image below!

You will certainly not regret it! These movable fraction number lines took me some time to assemble, but now I have them for years to come!

After math, we had recess, lunch, and a quick restroom break. 

When we returned, we had about a 45 minute content block. We had to alternate between Science and Social Studies because we didn't have time in our schedule to do both in one day. For the sake of grading, we usually alternated after completing a concept, instead of a whole unit. 

We tried our best to make this time as hands on as possible. We did have a couple of Science Kits to use and we pretty much planned our own curriculum for Social Studies as the text books don't make for much excitement. 

The last 30 minutes of the day was reserved for our intervention time. While I was meeting with these four students, the rest of the students would be on computers or devices working on Reflex Math or Imagine Learning. 

This coming year, I plan on using these progress monitoring cards from Mrs. D's corner! You can snag her freebie HERE! 

After RTI, we pack up and dismiss for the day! 

I hope you have enjoyed this insight into my daily schedule!