A Day in the Life of a
CCA Scholar
At Compass Collegiate Academy (CCA) we believe that at the core of high quality instruction is rigorous, meaningful learning experiences and joyful opportunities that lead to an internalized understanding of content.
At CCA we create moments and experiences that cultivate the passion, enthusiasm, and joy that comes with teaching and learning. Our scholars, families, and instructional leaders work as a team to ensure learning is occurring in different forms throughout the day and beyond the walls of the classroom. Through high expectations, rigorous content, personalized learning experiences, and diverse learning opportunities our scholars are able to identify with our curriculum and instructional opportunities to make meaningful connections and grow as learners and leaders.
8:00 – 8:30 AM
Prep & Morning Circle
Scholars engage in their morning greeting with their teacher, get their belongings organized for the day, eat breakfast, and greet one another in their morning circle. We use the Caring School Community curriculum during this time to provide explicit instruction in social and emotional development as we are intentional about building a safe and caring school community. An SEL lesson you might observe could involve scholars greeting everyone in class one by one through song, then be given a prompt to think about what their perfect day would look like, sound like, and feel like. Scholars would then be partnered and share about what their perfect day would be like and practice taking turns, listening and learning about their partner. Scholars would share about what their partner said and reflect on how they took turns and what they learned about their partner.
8:30 – 9:00 AM
Fundations
Fundations is our phonics curriculum that teaches letter and letter-sound recognition, handwriting, spelling, and gives our scholars the tools to read! You might observe our letter-sound drills, scholars manipulating the letters and digraphs on their magnetic white boards, and scholars practicing their writing in their notebooks or on their Fundations white boards.
9:00 – 10:15 AM
Wit & Wisdom
Wit & Wisdom is our highly engaging Reading Curriculum. You’ll regularly hear our scholars saying what they notice and wonder not only in this block, but all throughout our day. Scholars love the texts we read and can tell you all about them. Wit & Wisdom is broken into units and has authentic texts (books written by real children’s authors as opposed to books written by curriculum writers) that are connected to Science and Social Studies that scholars study for a week at a time. Scholars often begin class with their noticing and wonderings of a piece of art and will engage with the text by creating questions, finding connections, and engaging in multiple instructional strategies like tableaus (acting out a part of a book), socratic seminars, turn and talks, labeling, and more! Scholars are regularly transitioning from desks to carpet, to partner reading, to 4-corners activities and more during this block. Scholars engage in writing based in the different genres of writing. In kindergarten, we begin this year with this taking the form of scholars creating podcasts and other ways of ensuring all scholars can share their ideas.
10:20 – 10:40 AM
Guided Reading
We use our initial screening, STEP data, MAP data, and observational data from class to determine which skills each scholar most needs to work. Guided Reading can look like a book club for our scholars who are already reading so we can enjoy and analyze text together. Guided Reading can also look like playing a sorting game focused on phonemic rime where each scholar sounds out the word to identify the component sounds. Depending on each individual, this block is different and modified to meet their unique needs.
10:45 – 11:45 AM
Eureka
Eureka is our math block! Scholars begin each Eureka block with multiple fluency activities to build automaticity with numbers. This can look like doing jumping jacks as we count by 2s, making a certain number given manipulatives, and a drill sprint where scholars see how many problems they can answer correctly in a specified amount of time. Math instruction is then rooted in an application problem which leads into concept development where a new concept is introduced and then scholars have time to practice. Eureka always ends with an exit ticket which is 1 or 2 problems similar to what scholars practiced in class so the teacher is able to see who is able to complete the required task and who may need more practice.
11:45 AM – 12:15 PM
Lunch
Scholars eat lunch in their room. Scholars may pack a lunch or snack from home and also always have the option of eating school lunch, which we get daily from James Simons. All scholars receive free breakfast and lunch.
12:15 – 12:40 PM
Recess
We believe it’s important for all scholars to have the opportunity to play every day! Scholars walk to the playground and also have the option of taking other outdoor play things (hula hoops, balls, etc) with them. If there is inclement weather, teachers will lead recess in their rooms by playing an active game or dancing indoors.
12:40 – 12:50 PM
DEAR
DEAR stands for Drop Everything And Read! We love to READ and provide time each day for scholars to authentically enjoy a text. Scholars may flip through books, be read to as a class, or read independently. You can spot us curling up with a great book on the carpet or at our desks during DEAR time.
1:00 – 1:25 PM
Specials / PE
Specials is our time to create and learn more about the arts. Currently, we offer music by a classically-trained musician to all scholars Mondays and Thursdays. Tuesdays, our kindergarten scholars engage in art activities such as painting, crafting, and more. You may find our scholars doing yoga or other activities that generally fall outside the regular curriculum.
We partner with Recess and Results to bring in their director to lead our PE program. We focus on character and social-emotional skills such as teamwork, effort, respect, and learning how to respectfully win and lose as we play games and challenge ourselves physically.
1:25 – 1:35 PM
Snack
Snack is provided free of cost daily. Scholars may also bring snack from home.
1:35 – 2:10 PM
Science / Social Studies
We use PhD Science Curriculum to facilitate our scholars’ exploration of the natural world and Science! Scholars regularly experiment and explore concepts from temperature to shelters. We have a myriad of materials scholars use as they learn from our pet crawfish to instruments to measure, materials for experiments, and maps of our world.
Our scholars learn about the world around us both globally and locally through Social Studies! From the seven continents to the history of our city, our scholars make connections to our world.
2:10 – 2:30 PM
Math Rotations
We use data from class exit tickets, beginning of the year screeners, and MAP data to determine what skills each scholar needs to practice. We then break into small groups and ensure scholars have this time to build skills, practice skills they haven’t yet mastered in class, or provide enrichment and teach them skills that don’t come until future years in math instruction. Some scholars may be practicing counting and writing numbers while others may be learning multiplication in their math rotations group.
2:35 – 2:50 PM
Writing Deep Dive
Writing Deep Dive is connected to our Wit and Wisdom lesson each day and digs further into the content to teach bite-sized writing and grammar skills
each day.
2:50 – 3:00 PM
Closing Circle & PM Prep
Scholars say goodbye to each other, pack up their things for the day, pack their take-home folder, and dismiss
