Teacher Week 13: Organizing for Instruction

Here is my biggest project each year…Long range planning.  If you are curious what we are teaching in kindergarten throughout the year feel free to check them out by clicking on the link! We teach in units of Inquiry so the topics change each year on a rotating two year cycle so we have more time to go in depth on a topic.  We purchased the new Lucy Calkins Units of Study in Narrative, Informative, and Persuasive writing as a school as well so I changed up my writing plans which may have to be adjusted as the year goes on. I also added in the Common Core Standards this year which made up a majority of the changes from last year. If you have questions please feel free to ask!

2. Daily Schedule

Finally my poetry binders. I introduce a new poem each week related to the current inquiry topic so they change a bit from year to year. We read the poem on chart paper each morning as a class and practice visualizing the poem (by drawing in the box at the bottom of each page), finding letters, sight words, word chunks, rhyming words, and a million other literacy goals.  Students then have a copy in a binder in their book box that they can practice the same skills.  I find the poems from all different sources around the web and in books.  Here are the poems we are using this year if you’d like a copy for yourself.

Don’t forget to check out all the other great ideas being shared at Blog Hoppin’ this week.  I know I cant wait to try some new things in my classroom.