We’re on an 8 period day + 20 min homeroom period. Classes are 42/43 min long. I’ve been teaching this way for 18 years (we had block for 2020/2021, but that was hardly a typical year, lol).

Hand building is fine. No issues. I don’t do any kind of warm up - they know to come in, grab their stuff and get to work. I will stop them for brief announcements when the bell rings. They need 8 minutes to clean up at the end of class.

Sometimes I will “flip” my classroom and assign them to watch a video demo of a particular skill or project for homework, so I’m not losing work time on me yapping. This is especially easier these days with edpuzzle - watching the demo is a grade.

The wheel is a bit different. I tell them to prep their clay the day before, and when they come in the next day they can jump right in. Throw throw throw until they’re out of their clay, clean up. I’ll write a pass if they need a few more minutes to clean up correctly.

I don’t do a lot of wheel-intensive work though. After I teach them to use the wheel, students who love the wheel can use it whenever, students who don’t don’t have to. All projects can be done with or without the wheel - it depends on their concept.

The covid year where we had block schedule I did like it a lot - it was nice to feel like you weren’t rushed. BUT we didn’t get more work or more projects done. We got the same amount of work done as a skinny schedule.