Creating a schedule for a self-contained classroom for both your students and your paraprofessionals can seem extremely overwhelming. However, once you get in the groove and have all the subjects covered, it becomes easier and easier each year! Below is an overview of my 2nd grade self-contained classroom schedule. The gray parts of my schedule are plan time, collaboration time, and my lunch. I will continue to break down the specific parts for you!
Arrival Routine/Personal Info Binders
My students always arrived at different times because buses were unpredictable or parents were late dropping off. I luckily had lockers right outside my classroom where students were able to drop off their backpack without disrupting others. Students would enter the classroom with their lunches, AAC devices, and folder to put in their color coordinated student bins as shown above. In their student bin, they would find their personal information binders. When they finished their morning work, they earned free choice until other students were finished as well.
Morning Meeting/Word of the Day
Morning meeting is such a great time to take attendance, check in with students’ feelings, and give them opportunities to participate. I loved incorporating a question of the day in my morning meeting where students are participating and are 100% accurate every time! Students had a write in or adapted binder to follow along with our morning meeting group. We would listen to a morning meeting related song (weather, days of the week, months, etc.) once we finished the group. My students LOVE music. We then moved onto Word of the Day. My SLP and I created a Word of the Day group adapted from the Expanding Expression Tool (EET). When we were finished, we’d move onto bathroom breaks.
Literacy & Math Centers
I have broken down my centers into 2 blocks – literacy in the morning and math in the afternoon. I enjoyed teaching literacy a tad bit better than math so I liked teaching it first! Centers in my classroom worked in 1:1 settings, so I created 5 centers for 5 students. If your classroom is larger, you can easily pair students at centers, so if you have 10 students, you could put 2 students at each center. Above you will see a photo of my student’s centers schedule. We kept these separate from their full day schedule so that students weren’t confused!
Life Skills Centers
It is always impossible to find time for paraprofessionals to take their lunch breaks, but obviously so necessary! I was lucky enough to utilize our related service providers to help run life skills centers. Check out how to set up Life Skills Centers here. Often, we would have 2 adults and 5 students in a group. If you have a center that will be more independent, you can utilize adapted books and file folders that are already mastered in an independent work system. You can also incorporate some movement and self-regulation through Yoga apps on the iPad! I always loved to create some meaningful activities around the holidays, like practicing wrapping presents during Christmas time.
Goodbye Group
Goodbye group is my favorite way to end the day altogether! Students were able to answer a question about what their favorite part was of the day. We would also fill out a Daily Communication sheet to send home to parents. Families loved seeing this everyday so they could learn about what their child did and be able to ask any questions to their children. Then, students would pack up and dismiss to the bus or to parents!
This is a quick overview of my schedule. My paraprofessionals followed the same schedule that I did except for Specials, PE, lunch/recess when they would push out into general education classes. I would assign paras to specific students during those times so that everybody took turns to avoid burn out. I also assigned paras to specific centers each week because they liked to switch it up!
If you want to learn more about my classroom, check out my classroom tour!
