Hi Hello Reader,

We are heading into our third week of school, and this is usually when I feel like I can finally start taking a breath. The first two weeks have been all about getting to know each other, learning procedures, figuring out where things belong, and practicing how our classroom works. Now we're getting to the part I really love: settling into the actual academic routines that we will use for the rest of the year.

I thought I'd share what a typical day looks like in my classroom right now because I know I'm always curious about how other teachers actually fit everything in. I don't have a magical extra hour in my day, and I certainly don't get everything done every single day. What has helped me over the years is having a handful of short routines that happen in the same place in our day.

We start at 8:10am with Morning Message. My students work on it as they come in, and at 8:30 we correct it together and use the message to teach our grammar lesson. From there, we spend 15 minutes on blending, morphology, and spelling before moving into our 45-minute reading instructional block. Then we have 30 minutes for writing, where I am using Paragraph of the Week along with my other writing instruction.

That first part of our morning is very predictable, and I think that is one of the reasons it works so well.

✨ Tip #1: A routine doesn't have to take a long time to be valuable. Some of my favorite routines are only 10 or 15 minutes long. They give students repeated practice with important skills without taking a huge chunk out of our instructional day.

After recess, we do Calendar Math for 15 minutes and correct our Spiral Math Homework before our hour-long math block. I also use that time to pull a few students for small-group work when I can. In the afternoon, I have another small-group opportunity with i-Ready before we move into our Social Studies, Science, Art, or PE time.

✨ Tip #2:I don't always look for a giant block of time for small groups. Sometimes I can pull two or three students during a routine when the rest of the class already knows exactly what they're supposed to be doing. It isn't perfect every day, but those little pockets of time add up.

After lunch, we have one of my favorite routines: our 15-minute Nonfiction Quick Dip. It's a short piece of nonfiction reading that gives us a chance to build knowledge and practice a reading skill without turning it into another huge lesson. (We did our first NQD for the book Keith Haring and it was a HIT! You can pick up your free copy of the lessons we used at link below.)

And then at the end of the day, we clean up, pass out homework, have our SEL circle, read aloud, and get ready for dismissal. I really like having that last part of the day be predictable too. By 2:00, everyone is tired, including me, so I don't want to be making a million decisions about what happens next.

The funny thing is that when I look at my schedule, it doesn't look particularly exciting. There isn't a fancy new system or a complicated rotation. It's really just a collection of routines that I have used long enough that I don't have to think about them anymore.

And that's exactly what I'm trying to build with my students right now.

We're not just learning fourth grade content yet. We're learning how to be fourth graders in our classroom. We're learning how to start an assignment, how to transition, how to work independently, how to listen to someone else's thinking, how to get help, and how to use all of these little routines without needing me to tell them what to do every single time.

That is the work of the third week for me.

The curriculum is definitely happening. But underneath all of it, we're still building the routines that will allow us to get through that curriculum together.

If you're in your third week too, I'd encourage you to look at your day and see if there are places where a short, predictable routine could make your life easier. It doesn't have to be another "thing" to add. Sometimes the best routines are the ones that simply give a regular place to something you're already trying to fit in.

That's really where my Morning Message, Spiral Math, Calendar Math, Paragraph of the Week, and Nonfiction Quick Dips came from. They are routines I actually use because I needed a predictable place in my day for those things to happen.

I've put them below in case you want to take a peek at what I'm using this year. I truly could not teach without the routine these programs afford me.

Happy third week!

Stephanie
Teaching in Room 6