This is a fun one!
Here is what a general day in my shoes is like:
6:00-6:30-Wake up. Depending on how cold it is outside, whether or not I showered the night before or need to do it in the morning, or just the day determines the time!
6:30-7:15-Get dressed, hair, makeup, breakfast, pack lunch, check e-mail and Facebook (which is how I get the news!)
7:15-7:30-Wake up the boy, get him out of his diaper (He's potty trained except when he's sleeping-yay!), maybe get him dressed, maybe not, fix him his milk and pack his bag. I always forget his shoes. Always. Good thing the sitter keeps a pair that fits him in case they go outside.
7:45-Drop the boy off at the sitters. He's been going there since he was 6 weeks old and they're pretty much a second family to him, so drop off time is quite easy. Actually, most days he wakes up yelling "IwannagotoCari'shouse"
7:45-8:00-Drive to school. Listen to The Morning Zoo on the way in. That's how I get my celebrity news.
8:00-8:45-Sharpen pencils (if I have a sharpener that is working, otherwise I wait on my co-teacher to do it with hers!), get the morning message ready, get caught up on grading, copy papers if necessary, fill out discipline referrals and/or quiet room forms if needed, etc. On Thursdays, I plan with my co-teachers and on Fridays I'm in a book study for Teach Like a Champion.
8:50-9:15-Welcome my lovelies into the room. I used to do check-in at my desk, it's worked wonderfully for 4 years, but my group cannot handle it this year. At about 9:10 or so I started walking around to the students to check-in their homework and it has worked out so much better! While I'm doing check-in, the students are working on their Daily Language, getting new books, or reading.
9:20-10:00-Specials for the students. My planning time. I've always had a morning planning and I love it. Twice a month we have Teacher Based Team (TBT) meetings.
10:00-12:00-Reading & Language Arts with my homeroom class. This is an inclusion class and my awesome teaching buddy is my co-teacher. She and I have pushed to do inclusion together for about 4 years and this is the first year that schedules have worked out. We both love it. And all the students are thriving. We went to a PD, which I posted about here in May, which was excellent, but there was definitely a learning curve and it will be even more successful next year!
12:00-12:45-Lunch/Duty. My 30 minute lunch time depends on the week. If I have lunch duty, it is from 12:00-12:15 and I eat after that. If I have recess duty, I eat first, then have duty from 12:30-12:45. If I have no duties (every third week), I get an entire 45 minutes for lunch! We used to have hour lunch every third week, but we gave that up about midway through last year. Yes, it was OUR idea! Our students had a 30 minute lunch and 30 minute recess and we just felt like it was too much! 45 minutes is plenty. They can stay in the cafeteria for 30 minutes if they want to, but they have to have 15 minutes for recess. If they get done eating within the first 15 minutes of lunch, they can have 30 minutes for recess. It's great.
12:45-1:15-My homeroom class comes back to me and we usually do a read aloud, get our things ready for Math & Science or Social Studies, and take a restroom break.
1:15-Switch classes.
1:15-3:20-Reading with my afternoon class. I usually do the same thing in the afternoon as I do in the morning. I also have a co-teacher in the afternoon who we are calling a Reading Intervention teacher, but she works with the "bubble" kids. You all know what I mean. Not special education, but not on grade level either. We are so lucky to be the only building in our district to have this program. She works with the other fourth grade class in the morning.
3:20-3:40-Switch back. Students fill out and I sign agendas. I also give out stickers to students who didn't get any behavior checkmarks for the day. I blogged about our behavior plan here. Bussers begin getting dismissed around 3:30 and walkers are dismissed at 3:40.
3:40-4:15-Clean up. My desk is a crazy mess of papers by the end of the day. Then, I usually waste a lot of time talking with my teacher-friends. I'm outta there by 4:15 most days unless I have journals to grade that I don't want to take home.
4:15-4:30-Drive home.
4:30-Pick up the boy if my hubby's not home. Get ready for dinner. If he's home, he cooks. If he's traveling, I do. Only out of necessity.
5:30-6:00-Dinner.
6:00-7:15-play!!! I instituted a no TV on weeknight rule for myself and the boy and we almost always follow it. We play a lot instead. Superheroes. Dinosaurs. Superheroes & Dinosaurs. If I'm lucky, we get to play play-dough.
7:15-8:00-Bath time, story time, bed time for the boy. What books do we read? Books about Superheroes. Or Dinosaurs. Or books about Superheroes & Dinosaurs. Yes, there is a book called "T-Rex Trouble" where the Superfriends save Metropolis from a T-Rex, Pteranodon, and Triceratops. The boy can read it. (I know, I know, he just memorized the words, but isn't that what "My Baby Can Read Is"? It's much cooler to say my baby can READ this book!)
8:00-9:30-Clean up, get on the computer, maybe break the TV rule, read, etc. Workout if I feel like it. Shower. Crash.
My days seem to go a lot quicker than the length of this post. I'm sure I've completely bored all of you. I guess a day in my shoes is really not all that exciting. But, the linky party is a fun one, so link up!!
