Schedule Spotlight Series #1 - Morning Work

Hey y'all! Welcome to the first post in the ten week Schedule Spotlight Series, all about Morning Work!

Let's start with first thing in the wee morning hours with groggy teachers... and bright eyed kiddos! I am NOT, repeat NOT, a morning person!!!  I have barely wiped the sleep out of my eyes and consumed a half cup of coffee! You feel me???

At our school, the kiddos can be dropped off starting at 7:30 and they sit in the hallway outside of their classrooms for a school wide reading time. We rotate morning hallway duty...we each take one day a week.  I really like that the kids all come into the classroom at the same time!

When the bells rings at 7:45, my kiddos come in and unpack. 

Every.single.day {only exceptions are field trip days} they:

 1. Unpack their binders and lunches 

2. Head straight to their seat and get started on their Math Journal

3. After the math journal is completed, they work on 
Mountain Math 

I have done several different things over the years for morning work. THE most important thing to me is that they can do it independently. By themselves. No assistance. I think consistency is key in the morning! Just like breakfast is the most important meal, morning work consistency lays the ground work for a calm and structured day!

While they work on their morning work, I check the binders for paperwork, notes from the parents, lunch money, take attendance and lunch count. I like to get all of this taken care of first thing in the morning...before everything else takes over! I can get this done quickly and efficiently if the children are engaged in a meaningful activity that requires little direction from me - enter the math journal!

My very first year of teaching, I did different worksheets from the Mailbox magazine! Blast from the past, right there! Our sweet media specialist used to email me to tell me when the newest Mailbox magazine came in the mail! This was clearly before the TpT craze! I despised the random worksheet for three reasons: I would have to give directions every.single.day.,  I was making a million copies every week, AND I had to pass them out every morning! That added up to a lot of work for me...and non engaging busy work for them! Lose, lose, lose! 

After a year of random worksheets, the next year I switched to literacy journals. In Kinder, they started out copying a sentence from the board. {Example: A is for apple}. They copied the sentence and drew a picture. After we got to Z, we switched to: A is for _____ and they filled in the blank and drew a picture. After we got to Z with this format, we switched to word of the day. They would use the word of the day in a sentence {Example: The word of the day is the. The bird is blue.} They did all of this work in journals from Starfall. After shopping around, these are a great deal! We now put them on our school supply list...each child gets 4 for the school year.

When I looped up to first grade a few years ago, I knew I needed to revamp the literacy journals. I loved the idea, but I already done it with my Kinders the previous year! Our school had a school wide goal of increasing math journal use, so I decided to go with that and I LOVE IT!

Every Monday, there is a new page at their seats with the 4 math journal prompts for the week. We do math journals Monday - Thursday, and something fun {think poetry, crossword puzzles, word searches} on Fun Fridays!

After completing their math journal {with words, pictures, and a number sentence}, they complete a few problems from our Mountain Math board. Mountain Math is a spiraling math activity. Read more about it {here}. We complete 24 problems over the course of 1 week. We do not start Mountain Math until January. Until then, it takes the kiddos about 20 minutes to complete their math journals. 

If any kiddos finish with both their math journal and Mountain Math, they can read from their Bag of Book for a few minutes. 

The kiddos begin their morning work at about 7:45 and we will meet on the carpet for calendar at 8:15. 

What do you do for morning work??? 

Link up to tell me all about it!

Coming next week on June 17 - Calendar

Have a fabulous week! :)

Wake Up Work!

I am sooooo procrastinating cleaning my house right now! That is the BEST time to blog, right??!?! It is thundering here in Bama, so we are home from the pool and I am not quite up to being productive...so here I am! :)

Ok...confession! I think I forgot how to teach for like 2 minutes! I am starting a little summer school camp tomorrow! Yes, TOMORROW! My reading coach (who is a dear friend!) and I are teaching 12 presh first graders this week. We are doing phonics, reading, and writing. Y'all...I really had to *PAUSE* last week! I was like, okay, WHERE are the sharpened pencils??? HA! My room is all set up (or so I thought!), but not for actual KIDS! I had not put out paper, journals, pencils, crayons, markers, etc! REALITY time! We are all set now and ready to see their sweet faces bright and early! :)

I am going to take a *brief* pause from my Math Menu posts to chat about Wake Up Work...aka Morning Work! I tried something new last year that I loved and some of you have asked about it! :) I know some teachers aren't big fans of morning work and like to hit the ground running, but I HAVE to have it! I check their SAFARI books while they work, and I feel like I have to check these binders first thing...since there are absence notes, notes to the PE teacher, lunch money, etc and I like to deal with those things FIRST thing before the morning slips away! I also think it gives the kids a chance to wake up and warm up! :)

At the beginning of the year, I start off with Silly Sentences where I type a sentence with spelling and grammatical errors and the kiddos correct the errors, write the sentence correctly, and illustrate the sentence.

Example:

thu blak cat sat one thu matt

The kiddos will write the incorrect sentence in their journals. Then, using a highlighter (kind of like glitter, they can't get enough!!) they circle the errors in the sentence. After circling all of the errors, they rewrite the sentence, correcting all of the errors. Finally, they add an illustration! This is a great spring board for discussing editing our writing during The Daily Five.

I usually do Silly Sentences for at least the first month or two (depending on the group of firsties!) They like stability in the morning at the beginning of the year! :) Then...somewhere around October 14...just tossing a date out there :), Wake Up Work starts to become sort of STALE! So...I tried this:

Monday ~ Math Monday
After unpacking, my firsties know to grab their math journals! I type a Number Talk type prompt on the Promethean board. A sample prompt might be: Write all the ways to show the number 12. They can use numerals, number words, a clock, money, tally marks, dominoes, dice, pictures, etc. A few friends share during our Morning Meeting!

Tuesday ~ Tally Tuesday
Another math journal morning! Sample prompt for Double Venn diagram in November: Do you like pumpkin pie? apple pie? or both? The kiddos write the question and then answer the question in the form of a sentence and add an illustration. During our Morning Meeting on Tuesday, we fill out the Daily Data graph for the week. After the graph is completed, we do a quick show of the data with tally marks!

Wednesday ~ Wow Word Wednesday
We have 3 sight words each week. On Wednesday, the fab firsties write 3 sentences with the 3 sight words. After circling the sight words with a highlighter, they choose one sentence to illustrate.

Thursday ~ Theme Thursday
This is where I incorporate Social Studies and Science! Depending on the unit, they will either write facts in their journal about our unit for the week (Example: Write 3 facts about the life cycle of a frog) OR highlight sight words and illustrate a poem related to our unit.

Friday ~ Fun Friday
We have a Mystery Reader visit us on Friday mornings, so our Wake Up Work is short and sweet! I like to have a word search related to our thematic unit! :) They LOVE word searches...some of them take it soooo seriously!!! It CRACKS me up!

I ADORE this Wake Up Work rotation for several reasons....it changes daily, but still follows a pattern, so it fresh and predictable all at the same time! I also HEART that it incorporates writing across the curriculum. One more reason...I do not have to make a lot of copies! Most weeks, the only copy I make for Morning Work for the week is a word search! :)

Do you do something similar??? I would love to hear about it!
Okay, okay...time to CLEAN! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!