I want to clarify one minor detail about my new weekly schedule for 2012, which I haven’t published yet but has a few changes in it from last year. Now I am plowing through a novel, but this post describes changes to my normal weekly schedule when I am doing stories as described in the category (below right) of the Suggested Weekly Schedule (2011).
One change in 2012 that I’ve already written about here is the first ten minutes of class is now SSR of a novel and not FVR, so that we can get lots of reading on that novel, which to me is a much more effective use of time than the random reading that is FVR, which I think is a waste of instructional time.
And we extend that SSR reading of the novel into the entire class on Friday, including some fairly heavy assessment at the end of class on Friday for a total of about 90 minutes on the novel that week (5 x 10 min. of reading to start class each day, plus 40 min. of discussion of the reading that week with a ten minute assessment at the end of class on Friday).
However, this second, newer change that I wanted to mention here is that the SSR day on Friday is for levels one and two only. For upper level classes, they should get the poetry and music. They’ve earned it and they can do it now.
How to use circling to teach a song? There are posts on that here, but, briefly, I just take the first line of the song, take the key structure in it, PQA it as much as I can, do the same thing for the song’s second line, and on through the song like that, not playing the actual song until the kids have heard those 40 min. of circled PQA first. It is the only fair way.
Tomorrow with my older kids I am doing Le Coeur au Bonheur from Les Misérables. Oh man. How cool is that? Ain’t it great? I am planning a lesson for my kids because I want to, because I am happy to give my best lessons on stuff that I myself am passionate about. Nobody in DPS is telling me what to teach. I am planning lessons because I want to, not because I have to. I am grateful to now be professionally free to make my own decisions about what is best for my kids!
I might even sing along with Marius Pontmercy! The kids love it when I do that because they love beautiful singing.