5 years after you posted this, I am SUPER GRATEFUL for your advice! I'll be teaching my first combo, a 4/5, during the 24-25 year. Even though I've been teaching 12 years, this year feels brand new in so many ways. Thank you so much for this info!
Thank you. Really make sense now. I was pulling my hair out 👏first year teaching 4th and 5th grades and I feel like I'm a new teacher fresh out of school again. Thanks
Thanks so much for this. I’m teaching a K-1 combo this year. I think the mentor factor will be such a blessing. My Firsties had me for kinder, so they know my routines. My biggest concern is that Kinders start from such a different place. You need to explicitly and slowly cover everything (bathrooms, standing in line, how to use school supplies. Firsties already know those things and are ready to dive into new material. Kindergarteners can learn to work independently, but it takes much practice. Any advice? I couldn’t find much on combo classes either. Thanks for doing this. Please add more!
Great advice! I taught 4/5 combo my first two years, so I had the same group twice. I had 16 fourth graders and 8 fifth graders my first year. The class was evenly split the following year ( 16 fourth graders & 14 fifth graders). Although it was difficult to say the least, I absolutely loved my classes! Good luck to anyone who has to teach a combo class! I would suggest grouping your students for spelling lists based on levels rather than grade level, so you are can meet your kids at their level.
This was very informative and really just confirmed exactly what I need to start planning for my combo class starting next school year (22-23)! So thank you, as soon as I was told I was the "lucky" one chosen for a 1/2 combo class I knew I needed to research and google to find tips and tricks.
Omg this will be my 3rd year teaching 1st grade and my 2nd year teaching a 1st / 2nd combo class (private school) ...it’s exciting but it’s hard and there isn’t a lot out there! Please make more videos about this throughout the year... I need all the tips I can get lol
these are excellent ideas. I'm teaching a drumming class that has multiple levels of students at different age ranges. getting some great ideas from this, thanks!
Hi :) Just came across your video while preparing myself mentally to accept a "combo-class"-job starting in summer (1.-3. grade). This is not meant to be a criticism but especially because there is so little information and suggestions online for comboclasses I want to share my thoughts. For me the whole appeal in combo classes is actually the fact that you can get rid of the whole grade-thinking. There is a possibility to not see your pupils in their certain grades but with their individual level of skills. That's why it confused me so much that you talked about your comboclass but at the same time always splitting them into two grades again. My goals is gonna be to have most of the lessons all together and work with open exercises where each child can work on the same task but in their own level. I want the children to notice that everyone has its own talents and that this diversity is beautiful and so resourceful. Of course certain things need to be separated (for example 1st graders learn to read and write, 3rd graders learn a first foreign language etc.). It probably depends a lot on how strict the curriculum is in the country you're teaching. For me it's very vague and I'm free to decide if I want to cover something in the first or in the third class. So maybe this whole thing is easier for me. Would be really interested to have discussions about this. Cause I think there are so many different ways to successfully teach in a comboclass and there is so little talk about it :)
