The on grade level group my group is getting tricky though. I don't want to do the same thing I do in my class with my group. I am trying to plan fun activities like bingo and center games. We have been focusing on short vowels. I just don't feel like I'm exactly enriching their learning though. I feel like I'm at a lost for materials in which to enrich them even though I have a ton of games and resources on grade level. I want to do guided reading groups but with only 30 minutes I'm not sure how I could work this out. I was thinking about doing 2 guided reading groups a day and the other kids are working in centers. The other problem is I don't want to use the same guided reading books I use during my regular guided reading time. I don't have enough other books to really do guided reading with though. Any suggestions on what I should do? I don't want to try to re-create the wheel on this but I'm thinking of making my own materials for this enrichment time. Would others be interested in materials for enrichment time as well?
Another bone I have to pick with the enrichment time is that it's first thing in the morning. School starts at 8:45 and enrichment starts at 9:00. My students and I are struggling to unpack, organize, and get ready for the morning. You know there are a million things going on at once. All the students come in unpack, write down their homework, get their homework that's due out, do the lunch count, attendance, morning announcements, and other things that tend to just crop up in the morning. Heaven forbid a student comes in late....they'll be in a rush and trying to catch up with everything after enrichment time.
Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated!
We do the exact same thing. We did it last year and many teachers didn't like it! Our whole school has the first 30 minutes blocked off so we must provide intervention/ enrichment. This year we are just pairing up with one teaching partner. All of our first grade gifted children are already in a 1st grade gifted class. I am doing successmaker 4 ( computer program) and fcrr activities with the low ones. The average children will be doing tumblebooks, book flix, and silent reading/taking ar tests. It's always been a struggle to know what to do because you don't want anyone to miss out on a lesson or activity. I would love suggestions as well.
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Do you have access to Reading A to Z? You could print and use those books for your guided reading groups or you could even use poems. There is a pretty good book by Laureen Reynolds (I think that's how her name is spelled) with sight word poems (unfortunately mine is at school and I don't remember the title). Actually, she has a couple of books with poems that you might be able to use. I think I have also seen a few poetry books by Scholastic. It's almost my "school bedtime" so I can't think of much more right now but I'll post again if I think of something else.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain! My grade level has IE (intervention and enrichment) at 8:30 and our announcements and tardy bell is at 8:25. Our school began brown bagging breakfasts to get kids through the line faster but they bring it back to the classroom to eat. One teacher suggested doing a Breakfast Club while these students are finishing eating. I know it's hard moving kids around first thing...especially with those stragglers coming in. We moved our start time back a few minutes to get the housekeeping things done and the kids finished with getting ready, but we have 45 minutes... Hope you find something that works! Good luck!
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