A Day in the Life of an Elementary Teacher

I came across this article about what teachers should do when their friends don't understand the daily life of a teacher and/or the struggles of a teacher. I didn't really pay too much attention to it, because I either have amazing friends that understand or the article was written for female teachers with female friends. Anyways, one of the suggestions was write a detailed account of your daily life at school. I thought this would be interesting to do on here, so I am going to update this throughout the day on what I do today, which is a normal Thursday for me.

7:20
Arrive at school.
Turn on the lights in the room and coatroom, change the date on the whiteboard and put trash bags in both trash cans.
Find the master copy of a math paper that a student through the extras away yesterday.
Pull up the picture for notebook writing and math lesson on my computer.
Change the station that each group of students will be going to during math.

7:45
Try to make last minute copies before students come. Another teacher is using the copier and has multiple paper jams. Walk back to my class without the copies.

7:50
Be in the hallway as students start to arrive.
When students come in, they are to take out their homework folder, put it in a basket, and hang their book bags and coats in the coatroom, then get a book from my library and read silently.

8:00
Because my amazing aid came in to my class, I am able to sneak back to the copier and make the copies.
After copies are made, I go through homework folders taking out behavior calendars and any notes from parents.

8:15
Restroom break 10 minutes late because half my class is either absent or tardy.

8:20
Every morning after restroom break, I put a picture on the board for the students to write about while I complete my own daily tasks such as attendance. I try to put a funny picture for the students to write about.

8:30
Students come to the carpet and read what they wrote one at a time.

8:45 Math
I divide my class into two groups, a lower group and a higher group.
While I teach a lesson to the lower group, the higher group does independent work, such as: working on math facts, computer assignments, seat work or math games. After approximately 30 minutes, I will teach the higher group and the lower group will work on the independent work. Today, the lower group worked on subtraction from 0-20 and the higher group just finished 3 digit subtraction without grouping (borrowing), and today learned two digit addition with regrouping.

10:10
Twice a month, we have to do a writing assignment that keeps track of words written and spelled correctly. I decided to do my writing today right before recess. They are given a prompt and have one minute to think what they will write and then 3 minutes to write.

10:20
Clean up and get ready for recess and lunch. I take my class down to the gym for recess, and I am able to come back to my room. of course, I use the restroom, as this is the first time all day I have a chance to. After making copies of a paper I was given in the morning to hand out to students to take home, I eat my lunch.

11:15
I go downstairs of bring up both first grade classes. Each class will go into their room, sit down, and rest their heads to kind of cool down after recess and lunch.

11:25
I line the students up and do a whole classroom restroom break. No, I do not get to use the restroom myself during this time, because I need to be in the hall with the students.

11:35
I read a book to the students. Since 2018 started, I have been reading Pete the Cat books. After those are over, I will go back to reading a chapter at a time out of a chapter book.

11:45
Reading/ELA
All week, we work on the same reading story out of a curriculum book. The curriculum comes with online resources, such as a song for that story. I play this song at the beginning of reading, and the kids love it. Every week, I choose the vocabulary words from it, which the kids help me define and I write them on the board, then they must copy and draw a picture of each. They did this on Tuesday. Today, we are talking about nouns. They are sorting nouns into the categories of person, place, thing, or animal. A student walked up to me holding the word "pencil" asking me wheat it said. I told him, and he left. He comes back holding a pencil asking me why I told him to GET a pencil. During this time, a student decided to get under a table, look at another student and try to make him laugh by grabbing and rubbing his own crotch. I wrote a referral for him and decided to send him to the principal after he told both my aid and me "no" several times. He finally understood, when I said that is what the word said. After they are finished, they always highlight their names before they turn it in. I have them do this because it makes them realize when they do not put their names on their paper. Then, they read a book until we move to the next activity, which is reading the story. I will project the story on the board and read it a sentence at a time. After each sentence, they will read it back to me. After we read it as a class, I will pair the students up and have them partner read.

1:15
Snack
We have a grant to receive fruit as a snack three days a week. I usually pair the snack with a video. Due to reading about farms, I will be playing a video about farms and how they operate. Majority of my students are not familiar with what farms are, so I introduce them to farms via videos.

1:30
Intervention
We have been taking online tests in both reading and math. Students who were absent or did not improve from their previous tests took it again. Nine of my students in reading and six students in math have already gained a year's worth of growth, which makes me very excited. The students who are not taking the tests will get on different websites to help them in either math or reading. The Title 1 team comes in for this, so I was able to leave for my second restroom break of the day. Never a good idea to have more cups of coffee than restroom breaks!

2:15
It is finally time to hand back their behavior charts with how well each students did today behaviorally. After I hand them back, the kids can start to pack up.

2:35
Once all kids are packed up, I will send my bus riders over to the other first grade class and I will take all of the car riders down to the gym.

2:55
I make it back to my room. Normally, I'll go down to the gym for basketball practice, but tonight the school is having a movie night that I was asked to work. I will have about an hour to do grading and getting ready for tomorrow before movie night starts.

3:45
I head down to the gym to help with movie night.

5:45
I am done with movie night and grabbing my things before I go home.