8am to 4pm is a long class day! What do you do in each day?

The school day is longer for a reason. Research has shown that students who want to learn and who are brighter benefit greatly from having more time to learn. Other research has shown that students' learning is accelerated when they also have access to recess... that is unstructured time of play and activity. Thus, longer school days are one of the dimensions explicitly addressed due to best practices. Here is the basic layout of a day; but it will take a bit of time so keep on scrolling down!

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Mornings

The day starts in a full school recess time during which parents drop off the children by the RPA FUN ZONE signs and then head to the playground.

At 8 am, the students are gathered into their classes and either we do an outside pledge of allegiance to the U. S. flag on the flag pole in front of the school or students are lead into The Commons and  pledges are recited there.  The full school recitation begins after the new Kindergarten level students have had a chance to learn the pledge.

Students enter their classroom for some whole class instruction time also known as "Circle Time".  Here the teacher leads students in review of concepts, in examining the calendar, in discussing the weather that they experienced outside, and in learning American Sign Language signs for the alphabet and common words. Because American Sign Language will not have bee systematically taught to the students before all grades will receive instruction in the language both its parts and its signing in context. New math concepts (or those that need full class review) will be introduced. Students will also be read a story related to the theme unit. This holds true even for older students. Who know, they may also like the occasional picture book. After the full class session, the teachers will begin the guided learning which will occur either in small groups with the teacher or one on one depending on the number of students at the same developmental stage.

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Sometime mid-morning, the classes will come outside for recess. Having recess is very important for both academic learning and for social relationship learning.  Research has shown that physical activity increases blood flow to the brain and focus. Furthermore, the unstructured free play time allows for social interaction between children. This is another of the dozen or so best practices incorporated into the school day.

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After recess is more centers time, where students choose activities to pursue that are related to the afternoon theme unit or to enhance the learning from what they already know. Of course, there is teacher guided learning again!

Two periods of teacher guided learning and independent choice from centers available and we've the customized foundation topics covered. Like the picture shows on the left, there is structure across the activities both hidden and very clearly defined. Children's learning includes both pencil and paper, individual and group, teacher and self directed resulting in a more well rounded individual who is learning and being held accountable for that learning. And before you know it, it is lunch time with the hour long recess! Time to eat, time to play, time to make up games and try them out, time to relax and watch clouds... Time to be kids.

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Afternoons

After lunch is silent sustained reading or being read to time for 20 minutes. We believe that even junior high aged kids will enjoy being read to now and again. Of course, some are more passionate about that reading than others. After the reading time, comes one of our specialized lessons. This may be music, or art, or PE, or drama, or a special speaker.

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Next in our afternoon is our first theme unit time. This is time spend exploring the constructs of our topic. doing research from our books, learning to research on line, doing experiments, and applying the reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic learned in the morning! Much of this is done in collaborative learning groups. Sometimes it is done inside and other times it is done outside. It just depends on the topics! This ends up about 2:40 and time for another recess! 

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We are back for a final round in full class discussion sitting again in our "Circle Time" space.  We'll be working on memorizing a poem related to the theme unit or learning a new song or acting out a part of what we heard during the earlier reading times. This is also a time to tidy our classrooms if needed and/or finish any project not yet completed.

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At 3:55 we wrap things up and head on out to the pick up spot (the same as the drop off spot and the children are picked up or have another short recess before entering into after school care.

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