I don't think I would be loving it as much as I do if I wasn't doing the 4 blocks.
Writing is done whole class.
My expectations are different for the emerging writers but they receive a great deal of support from their 2nd grade peer tutors. Words block is whole class for the words that I present weekly are a combination of the 1st and 2nd grade words. I do ahve to do a district spelliing program with the 2nd graders so they split from the 1st gr for that. This is when we do some 1st grade word family work as our On The Back activity. On Fridays the kids read to each other during the ssr block.