Think about it Thursday: Best Practice

Hola!
Best Practice? What is best practice? Best practice is defined in so many ways by so many different people. I love my school because we are ever evolving while maintaining our philosophy and putting ALL of our students' needs first. Over the past couple of years my school has gone through many changes: 3 new administrators (we only have 3), changing our school to a K-8 school from a K-5 school AND this year we have new programs that have been put in place. We will be starting a character education program, IWT, kindergarten just acquired an entirely new reading curriculum AND, the kicker, lunch duty once a week. LOTS of changes. Oh, and we have subscriptions to two different websites that we have been asked to get all of our students using weekly. All of this is new to our school. ALL OF IT. We are a small school and I know many of you already do all of these things but again, it is all new to me.
SO, we were in a meeting on Tuesday about IXL.com & IWT and everyone was panicking. Not just panicking, in a frenzy! Where are we going to get the time? When are we going to plan? Who is going to teach what? When do we do this? When do we start? How do we start? Does that mean I have to do more work? My goodness! I was overwhelmed by the unwillingness of so many! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE trying and starting new programs. I like the organization of it all, I like the potential that I see in my students and new materials that can better help my students. I love it and I am ready for it! But, is this best practice to do IWT? Is it best to cut our day a little shorter in order to spend 20 minutes with these groups? In kindergarten this year, we have kinda decided to spend 20 minutes, 3 days a week on IWT. Is it enough? Is it going to be effective? How will we balance taking out that time? Will it be worth it?

I ask you my friends, what has been your experience with IWT? I'm not sure if my team is ready to hear it but I want to bring them some positives! What have been your most successful groupings? Lessons? Time frames? Anything?

See you all tomorrow for my first Friday Photo Dump linky party!