The teacher follows a morning routine every day: Do Now task, calendar time, Writer's Workshop, and then Work Board. For Work Board, students are paired up into groups of 5 or 6. They are given 4 different centers to complete each day. Centers can include: ABC's, 123's, Reading the Room, Writing Words, Classroom Library, Browsing Boxes, Highlight Words, sketchbook, and practice printing. The activities for each center are organized and labeled around the room. For some centers students have different activities to choose from and are permitted to make that choice themselves. If the teacher has a specific task she would like a child to complete she gently suggests, "Maybe you should try the patterning box today, Derek." In this case, some students may break off into groups of 2 or 3. The set-up of her classroom is similar to the one below:
As students complete a center, the teacher will check in on them to see how they are progressing and to make sure they don't spend too much time on one task. She allots about 10-15 minutes for each activity. She also makes sure students stay within their groups.
At the end of the day, if students have completed their work for the day, or if it is a special occasion, they have classroom choice time. The idea is similar in that students work within groups of 3-5. However, they are not completing an educational task. They can participate in things such as dramatic play, creating books, water colors, classroom library, and Play-doh. She offers different activities every day so students aren't always doing the same thing. She also encourages students to try new activities so they aren't working with the same children everyday.
The teacher uses 5E lesson plans as often as she can. One lesson I was lucky to observe was planting. She told me that the students had been reading fiction and non-fiction books about the life-cycle of plants. From these texts, they had put the life-cycle of a plant in the correct order using a felt board and also constructed their own model of a plant. On the last day of the unit, students planted their own seeds in a plastic cup to keep in the classroom for a week and tend to. Students had to decide where the plants should be kept to receive optimal sun light, as well as decide when to water them. The students observed the plants for a week, noting any changes, and then got to take them home to plant in their own gardens.
I personally think that constructivist methods are a great addition to any classroom and love the way this teacher uses them.
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