Example day for a 2-3 classroom: Ms. Smith arrives an hour before her students on Tuesday morning. She spends about a half hour setting up a simulation for the focus period and then meets with one of her students and his parent for another half hour. They look at the student’s portfolio and Ms. Smith suggests some short novels for at home reading that match the student’s reading level and interests.
The students arrive and the students discuss what to do when more than two students want to use the two glue guns the class has (resolving a problem from the day before) and then Ms. S reads aloud a chapter from a fictional novel about ancient Rome.
Students all go to their literature journals and write a summary of the read aloud and a prediction. About two-thirds of the students go get a Chromebook to work on either Compass Learning, Reading Eggs, or Read Naturally, while the rest rotate into working with Ms. S in small groups on Words Their Way activities targeted to meet needs. During recess, Ms. S checks the online dashboard to see how students progressed and makes plans for the next day based on that information.
When students return, Ms. S introduces a problem scenario that involves figuring out how to best use pieces of wood for a building project using perimeter and area. Some student grab graph paper, others get an iPad, some form groups and others work alone. Ms. S moves around the class and offers encouragement and asks questions. As students find solutions, they post them to the display board at the front of the room and move to the Chromebooks to log into their Dreambox account. On the way to lunch, they go slowly past the solutions and read them. Ms. S spends ten minutes looking at the Dreambox dashboard and joins her class for lunch.
After lunch, three “homeschool blend” students join the group for the rest of the day and Ms. S reviews the previous day’s instruction on ancient Rome and the whole class participates in a mock forum using the simulation Ms. S set up that morning. The simulation includes both a reading and writing component. Students head out to recess and Ms. S takes a look at her notes regarding students’ focus projects and does some prep for the next day.
When students return, they move into their focus projects. Two parent volunteers arrive to help. Five students go get a Chromebook to work on writing projects. Another group goes to the project area to continue working on a model of ancient Rome (and hopefully share the glue guns better). A group of girls goes to one corner to practice a song and dance routine they’ve been developing with one of the parent volunteers who has dance experience. A few students go to the library corner and browse books and “surf the web” on iPads looking for their next project. One student gets out an acrylic painting he’s been working on and another is sketching ideas for a new skate park. One student decides to make an Educreations presentation to explain her solution to the math problem earlier in the day. Ms. S works out a plan with one student for her new project and then moves about the room supporting students with the other parent volunteer. There are some unfocused moments, but students are mostly engaged. In the last fifteen minutes of the day, some of the students share out what they are working on and one student from the library corner proposes a project and asks for someone “good at art” to join him. Ms. S makes notes during this time. Students are dismissed after a five minute flurry of clean up.
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