How to: Play Tetris with your Bell Schedule
Dooooh do do dooooh do do dooooh do do doooh, dooooh do do do dooo doooooooh….
Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there! I was just busy humming along to the Tetris theme song, which has been playing on loop and dominating my every waking hour since it popped up on our class Spotify last week. (Curse you, Tetris theme song!)
And, today kids, we are indeed going to learn how to play Tetris—but, not with neon blocks, whizzing down the page. No, no, my friends, we are going to learn to play Tetris…with our bell schedules!
So, how do you feel about your school bell schedule? Love it? Hate it? For better or for worse, the bell schedule is like the weather, the economy, the TikTok sensations sweeping our classroom…these things are controlled by the powers that be, handed down to us mere mortals from on high. Likely, with little input from your average Mrs. Doe, teaching away in Room 701! And, while we might be frustrated with our district’s particular format, the truth is, there is nothing we can do to change it. So, take a deep breath. Pick your battles, and let this one go!
Let’s try to think of our bell schedule as less of a battle and more of a game. Because, even though we can’t choose our bell schedules, we can absolutely choose what we do with them. The bell schedule is a powerful tool for determining your classroom rhythm and building a weekly flow that makes lesson planning easy-breezy, week after week. Not sure what to do, this Thursday? Let the schedule determine what’s on your agenda each day. And, once you find a rhythm that works for you, you can play that theme song on repeat, week after week.
Let me show you what I mean: imagine a Tetris board. Think of each class period as a “container” and each curricular goal as a “piece.” What are the “pieces” in your curriculum? What do you hope to accomplish, over the course of a week? A month? A semester? Where do each of these pieces fit best, given the time that you’re allotted between the bells each day? Carefully examine each piece, one by one, and then snap them gently into place.
For example, let’s imagine you have a few main goals in your curriculum this semester:
Reading class novels
Discussing class novels
Learning SAT vocabulary
Mastering basic diction and grammar
Preparing socratic seminars, working on projects, or crafting essays for summative assessments
Think for a moment about the “size” and “shape” of each piece. How much time do you want to devote to this element? Is it best accomplished over long blocks of time, or little by little each day? Is there a certain cadence, sequence, or day that would work best? Do a quick doodle brainstorm to put your thinking on paper: I like to write each curricular piece on a Post-it, and then arrange and rearrange them by day.
Once we’ve figured out each piece individually, we’re ready to stack them together. Let’s take a look at how these hypothetical “pieces” could fit together within three different bell schedule formats.
First, the 45-minute bell schedule, most common in middle schools:
Or, if you so desire, an alternative with slightly different priorities:
Next up, the garden-variety block schedule, with two block days per week for alternating periods:
And finally, what I like to call the “mega block,” with four block days per week:
Et, voilà! Level unlocked! All of the elements we need in our weekly curriculum, gliding beautifully into their respective places. And, thanks to your Tetris savvy, you haven’t just planned this week: you’ve planned every week! Repeat this format again and again, with a place for everything, and everything in its place. Rest assured: you’ve covered it all.
Why do this? Well, think of all of the time you spend deciding how to arrange your objectives into lessons. Think of the stress you feel every weekend, figuring out what to do on a Monday. Think of how often you ask yourself: will we have enough time for that? Will I be able to give them time to work in class, too? Heck, think of the last time you had a jump scare when you realized that your summative was looming around the corner! The Tetris method solves all of that—and, makes lesson planning a cinch, to boot.
So, how’s your Tetris game? How do you fit your curriculum within your schedule each week? Drop me a comment: I’d love to hear!
And finally, remember: love your job, and put the kids first. Everything else is…secondary.
