The Daily Three
Daily schedule and expectations
Our daily schedule:
7:30 Breakfast / Morning Meeting
8:00 Lessons and Morning Work Cycle
10:00 clean up / prep for recess & Snack
10:15 - 10:45 Recess
10:45 Read aloud / Snack
11:25 Lunch
12:00 - 12:35pm Final Work cycle
12:55 - 1:45 Specialist (Art, Gym, Music, Social Studies, STEM)
1:55 Dismissal to Buses, Discovery Club, and Parent Pickup
Freedom and Responsibility
School begins at 7:30am. By 8:00am students should be choosing work. In any Montessori classroom, students have the freedom to choose which work to start with, where to sit, and whom to work with. This is limited by the responsibility to be kind, stay on task, and actually work. So what do students work on ?
Our Daily 3
1. Reading
2. Writing
3. Math
Reading can take many forms. We have students reading chapters books at the 5th grade level and students who are working on letter sounds and phonics with the Rainbow boxes. And students everywhere in between. The cool thing about multiage and Montessori is that students are generally more comfortable with their peers being “lower” or “higher” than them in a given skill. I try to tell the students that everybody is searching for the best work that is neither too hard or too easy but “just right.”
https://wasecabiomes.org/products/waseca-reading-program
Writing is deeply connected to writing. In fact in the Montessori curriculum, writing is introduced BEFORE reading. See the link below for more. For first graders and those new to reading and writing, I emphasize “invented spelling” and “sounding it out.” If a student spells the “I like to write “ as I “ I like too rat” then I commend them for including all the sounds. The first goal of the emergent reader/writer is to include all the sounds.
By the end of third grade we get more into “traditional” or proper spelling. My goal as a teacher is that every student sees themselves as an author with the power to create meaning on the page through a combination of words and pictures. If every budding author had to wait until “they spelled it write” then we would never get Mo Willems, Langston Hughes, Nikki Grimes, or Dav Pilkey! Not all adults nor all authors are excellent spellers! That’s what proofreaders and copy editors are for. Surprisingly enough, not every strong reader is a strong speller.
https://carrotsareorange.com/moveable-alphabet-lessons/
Math works can take many forms as well. More on this is coming soon....