I don’t know about you, but there just never seems to be enough time in my teaching day! I always over plan and have more that I want to teach than time allows. Specifically, I’m thinking about my ELAR block of time. It seems that every day I need to fit in…
–Guided Reading/Work Stations/Daily 5
-Shared Writing
It’s tough to fit it all in. Really is there enough time? No. It seems like every day something had to give and I just do not like that! I want my little ones to get every ounce of teaching that I want to fit in! How can I possibly pick something to let go for the day? #thisstruggleisreal
In my earlier years of teaching, phonics is what went. Instead I would teach it during my guided reading time, but it was never as explicit as it needed to be. So phonics became a non-negotiable for me as time went on.
Often times shared and interactive writing would get tossed to the side because I would spend too much time in writer’s workshop. But shared and interactive writing are SO powerful–so many wonderful teaching moments are found there, so I hated for those to get tossed.
So that usually left grammar. There were tons of standards (TEKS) that I was supposed to be teaching and unless I worked them in to a writing lesson of some sort, they were getting left out until I saw that a student needed that skill. Then I would teach it during one-on-one time or a conference time.
Regardless, grammar for first grade wasn’t getting the attention it needed it and I could see it in my student’s reading and writing skills. They needed more intentional instruction and I needed more accountable to make sure the standards were being taught.
That’s when it hit me. I fudged things around and found an extra 10 minutes in my morning for grammar with Grammar Warm Ups.
I created a simple Grammar Morning Work Journal for my students and every day when they came in, I would have the number of warm up we were working on written on the board. They would get out their journal and get started. 
This was my time to introduce a new concept–nouns, adjectives, sentence punctuation, etc. Usually we would make a new anchor chart together if a new skill was being introduced and then the students would work on their warm up individually. After we had all finished, we would check our work together and go over them.
Simple.
It took 10 minutes, I taught a new skill, and the students then had 5 days of practicing that skill.
If you are looking for a way to add some grammar to your daily routine, check out my Grammar Warm Ups! They are freshly updated and are bundled together at a discount now!
Click the image above to find this product in my TeachersPayTeachers store.
Here’s to a great year with enough time for EVERYTHING!
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