You guys, I LOVE my new class! All 45 of them :) Yep, read correctly. Forty-five sweeties. My friend Amy and I are team teaching this year, so we are sharing two classes of kiddos. We did a lot of stuff together with our classes last year and it was always so great! So after a lot of research and planning, we got the go-ahead from our principal to team teach! And believe it or not, lots of our parents are really excited about it, too! Not gonna lie, this morning I was a liiiittle nervous about having 45 bodies together ALL DAY, but it was AWESOME!!! They did so well! I think it'll be a great year, and we are going to be able to differentiate and meet the needs of so many more of our babies! So excited for a great year :)
I'm so interested to know how you are setting this up. How do they all fit in a classroom? Did you move to a bigger room? Are you taking turns teaching the different subjects? Thanks for sharing!
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Ideally we would like to have one big classroom (like a kdg sized one), but there were none available. There is a big closet that connects our two classrooms, so the kids go back and forth through it {it is plenty wide for them!} My classroom has 8 tables that seat 5-6 kids {we have 44 right now} and it is working GREAT! Amy's room is set up as a meeting area, with a big carpet space for them. We are also doing a lot of our Daily 5 lessons in there. She and I are taking turns leading lessons, but we are designated to a subject, and we both jump in when we feel needed. It is working wonderfully, and the kids are doing great!!
DeleteHello! My colleague and I will be doing a team teaching approach with 2nd grade. Could you share your research with us? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteTeam teaching was awesome!! We had about 44 kiddos between the two of us. Ideally, we would like to be in one large classroom together, but that just wasn't possible. We were closet mates, so we decided to use our two classrooms, and let the kids travel back and forth through the closet {which we left open 95% of the time}. One classroom has tables for our students to do work, and the other classroom is set up as a reading room and whole group carpet area.
DeleteWe didn't departmentalize {as in I would be the math teacher and teach a lesson to two groups and she was the reading teacher}. We kept our kids together most of the time for whole group lessons. I would teach the lesson while she monitored students, pulled students, or jumped in as needed {and vice versa}. Our kids never knew that they were really two different rosters. They just knew they had two teachers and twice as many friends :)
We use the Daily 5 in our classroom, so with two of us, we were able to conference with and work with twice as many small groups. Team teaching really allowed us to meet the needs of all students. One of us can pull students who may need a little extra help during a lesson while the other keeps teaching. It is also helpful for when you have a disruptive student, or a student get sick! One of us could keep teaching while the other dealt with the student. It is truly better for all students.
I hope I have answered some of your questions!! Feel free to email me if you'd like to chat about it in more depth! Lmlynes@gmail.com
Oh, thank you so much! I will send you an email soon!
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