Daily Schedule

All times are approximate –  adjust activity length according to what you have planned. The essential thing is the order we are doing it in. Doing the same schedule/routine each time will help the kids know what to expect and behave better . . . hooray!

9:30 – Gathering – Have out an activity that will keep kids all in one place until everyone is at school. Suggested starting time 9:25, clean up at 9:38 so all can be sitting by 9:40.

Ideas for gathering time – blocks, legos, coloring, looking at books, playing with manipulatives, etc. Something easy to set out, easy to clean.

9:40 – Welcome Time
NOTE: There is a lot of stuff here, and only 10 minutes to do it in. If you do everything quickly and simply, it is only 10 minutes of stuff. However, if you would like to do more/longer things, just shorten up something else later.

-song – sing whatever you want. If you need ideas or CDs others are willing to share.

-Who is here? – Talk with kids about who is at school, who is not, and place their names of those present on the chart. Count how many kids here, and write the number. You can do lots of extensions with playing with names if you want.

-what day is today on calendar – Sing the “Days of the Week” song, to the tune of  "My Darling Clementine.". If you don’t know what this means, ask. Place a sticker on the day of the week it is.

You can then move on, place the day’s weather on the current date, count the number of days in the month so far, count the number of days until a special event, talk about what tomorrow and yesterday are, talk about what a week is, etc. Whatever you would like to talk about that fits into your day and the attention span.

-Read Aloud – This is the fun part – read a book! You can read anything you want. It can go with your literacy activity, math activity, science/social studies activity, or be totally unrelated. Shorter books with rhyme, repetition and/or alliteration will teach kids the most in the short amount of time we have. Feel free to read another book throughout the day to go along with another activity.

I have had great success with having kids listen to the stories when I set expectations for listening and follow-up with reminders.

If you feel like you don’t have any books at your house you want to read, feel free to come borrow one of mine. I have books on a lot of the topics we’ve put on the calendar, so feel free to ask. Of course, the libraries are always a great option.

9:50 – Literacy Activity – Letter alliteration activity or rhyming activity. You will find activities already thought up for you at this site:

https://education.byu.edu/seel/lesson-plans

There are a ton of resources here. You can choose two activities for a week, or do the same activity twice. Of course you can make up your own activities to go with the letter/rhyme, but I’m all for taking advantage of thinking that’s already been done.

10:05 – Math – Following the current math topic, spend a little time doing a hands-on math activity. There will be curriculum placed in the tote you can choose from, you can search the internet, or create your own.  Hint: I often take the math game and use it as a choosing time option.

10:20 – Break/Snack – eat a snack, play outside . . . break! If it’s too snowy/rainy outside, some ideas: throw on music and dance around, do “living room exercises,” etc., whatever gets everyone some exercise and a little break. Make sure this is a time where the kids can be pretty free from teacher-organized activities. It’s always great to play games together, but you will
probably pay for it later in lack of attention span. They usually need a mental break.

I’m sure you would have done this already, but make sure kids wash or sanitize their hands before eating snack. Thanks!

10:40 – Science/Social Studies – Here’s where you do the activity that goes with your “topic.” As you can see, the time is not long, so you don’t have to stress about doing something big. Other ideas to incorporate the topic into the day: have a group activity here, then put extension activities into choosing time, choose a read-aloud on the topic, do a math activity with the topic, use gathering time to begin exploring the topic - look at books that go with the topic, or have out objects you want the kids to examine.

11:05 – Choosing Time – This is free-exploration with boundaries. I called it centers at first, but I think choosing time is a better label for the kids. Put out various options for self-guided learning activities (3-4 works well) and let kids choose what they’d like to do. (You will have to do some monitoring of how many kids choose each thing at once.)

Things you could include here:

-art – free-style art or an art project

-dramatic play – playing house, playing fire station, playing grocery store, playing beauty shop . . . whatever. If it goes along with your topic – perfect! If not, it’s still so great for kids to get a chance to do dramatic play.

- sensory table – water table, sand table/sandbox, whatever . . . lots of stuff can be done with these. Sensory can also include playdough, oobleck, etc.

- building or manipulative play – blocks, legos, etc.

-science exploration – playing with magnets, balance scales, looking at stuff through magnifying glasses, explore or extend the day's topic

- writing center – giving kids a chance to write letters/draw in sand, salt, shaving cream, on white boards, on an aquadoodle, make cards for people, “write letters” to people, etc.

- music center – set out “musical instruments” and let them play

- listening center - I have a million kids’ books on tape. Feel free to borrow them if you think kids will listen to them . . .

- math activity - do something that will add to the day's lesson, or set out the game you played earlier so the kids can play more

Important - please set out choices. This can be as simple as having a playing with trucks option, playing with dolls option, and a coloring option. However, please make them clear and defined choices in designated areas. Do not allow the children to roam your house, yard, or toy room. Roaming can be great in other circumstances, but when children are allowed to do it during preschool at some houses, it is difficult for others to keep children at carefully designed learning stations they have prepared. Thank you!

As you can see, there are a ton of things that can be put in choosing time. It is last in the day so it can be accordion time. Some days the kids may only do this for 10 minutes, other days for 40. This time will probably be a kid-favorite, and you can put activities that go with your topic in here, so don’t be afraid to let it go a while. But don’t worry, it’s designed to be simple . . .

11:25 – Clean up, Gather to sing and read until picked up – If kids help you clean, it should make your life easier, so we’ll say get cleaned up by 11:30 and sing or read books until kids are picked up. P.S. I wrote that in 2009. It was a great idea, but I usually let kids do choosing time until they are picked up. It sticks me with the cleaning, but then kids finish stuff. What to do?