Capitol Collegiate Academy

These ten characteristics reflect a common set of practices that have demonstrated academic achievement in urban schools. These practices allow traditionally “at risk” students the opportunity to excel in school and perform at the highest of academic levels. It is specifically because of this track record of success that Capitol Collegiate has chosen to adopt these proven instructional practices, structures, and organizations.

A TYPICAL DAY AT CAPITOL COLLEGIATE
To illustrate how Capitol Collegiate students will spend their day, we have provided a look into a “typical day” at the school. The typical day reflected is for Gloria, an incoming kindergarten student, who is already preparing for college. Gloria knows that every second of her day has been structured with college in mind and she is working to make this future a certainty.
A Typical Kindergarten Day at Capitol Collegiate

7:30 AM	Gloria arrives at school at 7:30AM and is greeted warmly by the Head of School, who knows her by name. The Head of School checks her uniform, waves to Gloria’s parent, and reminds her about the morning procedures as she moves into the breakfast room. As Gloria smiles and makes her way down the hall, she is surrounded by college pennants. Gloria has already learned about some colleges and universities and talks regularly with her parents about her new favorite schools and songs.
7:45 AM	Gloria enters the breakfast room, where she puts her homework folder in the crate at the end of her class table. She goes to her assigned breakfast seat where breakfast and Sunrise Smarty work has been laid out for her ahead of time. She eats her apple and cereal and then begins her Sunrise Smarty work, tracing the letters of her name and drawing pictures of what she did after school yesterday. Gloria happily talks to her friends at her class table until 7:45AM, when the transition to community circle begins.
8:00 AM	At 8:00 AM, the official start to the school day, the Head of School makes announcements, dismissing classes individually to their rooms with a celebration of how smart they are and how much they are going to learn. All kindergarten through second grade students remain in their seats and then, by class, are directed to go to the Community Circle area. Gloria walks with her class to her class section of Community Circle. Gloria is excited because her best friend, Julia, is the class mascot for that day – a Golden Bear, as her class is the UC Berkeley room. During Community Circle, Gloria participates in her class’ cheer, gives praise for other classes and students, chants and sings motivational songs, completes mental math, and encourages her classmates. She is always excited for this part of the day because it reminds her of how much she wants to learn and succeed.
8:15 AM	Gloria enters her classroom and goes to her assigned desk. The teacher greets the entire class warmly and then asks all students to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Afterwards, the class begins the daily math meeting. The class moves through short, quick activities such as counting forwards and backwards, identifying the date and day of the week, counting money, describing the weather and recording the result on a weather graph, naming shapes and colors, and working through a word problem that a student helper illustrates on the white board. As Gloria transitions back to her desk, her teacher marks the student who is absent and puts the sheet in the class mailbox for an administrator to collect.
8:30 AM	Literacy Block 1: Gloria begins her first literacy block. Gloria’s teacher leads the class group in phonemic awareness activities such as oral blending and segmentation. Today they learn the letter “p.” After the teacher demonstrates the proper strokes for writing the letter and leads a discussion about words that start with the “p” sound, a few students are chosen to go to the board to practice writing the letter under one teacher’s guidance while the children on the rug use their “air pencils” to pretend writing the letter in the air under a second teacher’s supervision. Gloria’s teacher then plays a CD and the children transition to one of three locations in the room. Gloria moves to a corner of the room with her second teacher, while the two other groups either move to a section of the room with the primary teacher or to the computer area, where students will be engaged in the River Deep Reading Program. This program requires that students first spend a few minutes on handwriting practice, writing out their first and last names. Gloria has the opportunity to spend 30 minutes with her teacher in a small group of 8-9, focusing on phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and fluency before she moves to the computer program station.
9:15 AM	When the music comes on again, Gloria transitions to the second literacy block, this time focusing on read-alouds and reading comprehension with her teacher. Students have been grouped by reading ability, which allows the teacher to differentiate instruction based on student need and to engage the group more effectively. Gloria’s teacher reads a book with emotion and excitement to students, stopping to explain difficult work, pose a question, discuss a topic, she has students predict events of the story, or asks for opinions on the story and its characters.
10:00 AM	Gloria’s teacher puts on the transition music and all students return to their seats for break. The class participates in a Literacy Block Completion chant that congratulates the class on learning to read and promotes the excitement of continuing that learning tomorrow. After the cheer, break and recess begin and the teacher directs the class to divide into two lines for the bathroom. Students are taken in groups, by gender, to the bathroom by their second teacher. If not using the restroom, Gloria is able to complete practice worksheets, color, talk with friends on the rug, or talk with her teacher. (Depending on facility, this would also be a time where Gloria and her classmates would be able to play outside, where Gloria could play tag, hopscotch, or Queen of the Court, her favorite games). In each case, Gloria is able to relax, take a break, and enjoy free time.
10:15 AM	Gloria hears the transition music come on as the teacher directs the class to begin the math cheer. Students move through their math activity for the morning, counting to one hundred and beginning addition activities. Gloria is proud that she can already complete all of her addition homework easily, even adding two-digit numbers.
11:00 AM	The class transitions back to the rug for a whole-group writing activity. The teacher provides a topic of the day, and the class helps brainstorm an illustration for it, which the teacher draws on a piece of chart paper. The children then help the teacher formulate a sentence to describe the picture. The students tell the teacher how to spell the words, and she writes them the way they tell her, including their mistakes. Afterward she edits the sentence explaining the correct spellings. She also makes sure that she is modeling the correct spacing and placement of all letters and words. While the class is engaged in this lesson, the other teacher lays out paper and pencils on the students’ desks. The students then move to their desks and begin their own illustrations for the topic. Both teachers circulate around the room and engage the students in discussions about what they are drawing and writing. They edit the students’ mistakes, just as the teacher edited her own, and makes sure that letters are shaped correctly and words are spaced just as the teacher had done.
11:45 AM	Students are dismissed for lunch. Gloria lines up with her class, and her teacher walks her to the bathroom. Afterwards, the class walks into the lunchroom where each student is greeted by the Head of School and directed to his or her lunch seat. Lunch is already set out for each student. Gloria is excited that today is chicken sandwich day and she and her friend smile as they trade Fig Newton flavors with each other. With fifteen minutes left, the Head of School leads a motivational session with the school, where students are again able to sing, dance, celebrate, and share. Gloria loves cheering for colleges, clapping, and sharing the best parts of her morning with other students. After lunch, Gloria goes to Physical Education, where her class is learning the rules of soccer. Gloria is so excited for this time because soccer is her dad’s favorite sport and she wants to be able too show off for him what she has learned.. She smiles when she thinks about being able to watch the match with him this weekend and explain all of the rules.
12:15 PM	After PE, students are dismissed by class. Gloria lines up with the rest of her class and walks back to her room for Enrichment. Gloria is excited because this week is music. Last week she had art and next week she will have language. Gloria’s teacher tells the class that they will be learning a new college song and dance to perform at Community Circle on Friday. Gloria is excited to have music right after lunch, but is even more excited that her class will get to perform this week – she loves singing in front of people.
12:45 PM	At 12:45PM, the teacher tells the class that D.E.A.R. will begin. Because many students are learning to read, the teacher leads this time, walking students through a large book. All students have a copy of the reading material and students move their finger along with each individual word. Gloria does not recognize all of the words, but has become more familiar with many of them so that she can identify the word that she is pointing to without the teacher saying it. She is proud of her abilities and glad that there are so many pictures to help her follow along. The class excitedly points to pictures, asks questions, and laughs as the teacher reads through the funny parts of the story.
1:00 PM	The class transitions into Social Sciences and Science. Gloria learns geography and map concepts, as well as information about her city, state, country, and world. She is now able to find where she lives on a variety of different maps and can identify rivers, mountains, and oceans by picture. In Science, Gloria is growing a bean plant and is monitoring its growth and learning about what helps to make the plant get bigger.
2:30 PM	As Gloria transitions into Math, she is looking forward to applying the concepts from the beginning of the day into the afternoon work. In the morning, her class worked on adding simple numbers. In the afternoon, her teacher will lead the class in identifying the same procedures though problems that the teacher verbalizes to students. The first problem is easy, as the teacher is modeling to the class what happens when a student starts with two pencils and then receives nine more. Gloria thinks, “I would have eleven pencils – that’s easy!”
3:15 PM	Gloria’s teacher announces that it is Class FM time – “For Me” time! Gloria knows that this is the part of the day where she gets to play and have fun with a part of the school that has been harder for her. Gloria is assigned to the reading group where she is able to play “find the hidden letter,” Where’s Waldo’s Word, and use Leap Frog activities. She loves playing these games and likes to race her friends to see who can get the most points.
4:00 PM	At 3:45, Gloria’s classmates are brought back to class by their teachers and return to their seats. The teacher thanks the class for a wonderful, productive day. The class participates in two cheers. Two students announce the homework for the night. The class does one more cheer and then the teacher tells them to line up for dismissal, releasing students to the line by row. Gloria’s teacher walks them to the front of the school where she releases each student individually to parents, greeting families. Gloria waves good-bye to her teacher and says how excited she is to practice her “sh” sound tomorrow. Gloria’s father takes her hand and asks about her day as they walk home.