Happy Friday!
Some things I am reflecting on this Friday evening:
1) My youngest daughter, the same daughter who brought home a cap and gown order form two weeks ago, will be turning 18 at midnight tonight. It certainly makes me reflect on how fleeting time can be. She may be a legal adult now, but, for me, she is still my little girl.
2) After spending much of the first 6 weeks of school getting to know my students as readers and writers through interviews, assessments, and conferences, this week I started reading and writing strategy groups with my kids. In our reading workshop, strategy groups take place during the independent work phase of the workshop. I feel that the work we do in these smaller groups really helps each child grow as a reader. I absolutely love this learning opportunity with my students.
3) I found out yesterday that I will be getting a student teacher this coming Monday. This weekend, I am going to really reflect on what I want her to know about reading workshop and writing workshop. In fact, in our school district, we have adopted the "literacy workshop model" as the vehicle for teaching language arts. I want to share as much as possible with her about some of these best practices in literacy teaching.
4) We have been looking at revising together in our classroom during writing workshop. I rely heavily on Georgia Heard's, The Revision Toolbox, when I teach revising. I love her idea of breaking the "toolbox" into 3 sections: words, structure, and voice. This week, we looked at the "word" section of the toolbox -- we talked about specific nouns and powerful verbs. We also tried to improve sentences like, "It was fun," and "I had a nice day."
5) I have a busy weekend ahead of me -- my goddaughter's wedding open house, my daughter's 18 birthday tomorrow, going to the movie The City of Ember on Sunday and meeting part of my class there, a family birthday celebration for my daughter my parents, my husband's dad, and my brother. All fun stuff; just busy.
That's all for now. Have a great weekend!
YOu are busy!!! What would we do with out the wisdom of Georgia Heard...I love her books ad resources. Enjoy the wedding.
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoyed City of Ember. I too meet some of my 5th and 6th grade class there.
ReplyDelete18!? Our girls--who knew? I went to see HS Musical #3 with Ana today and got teary at the graduation scene. I so agree with how fast things seem to go! Hope you had a great and fun weekend! (And enjoy the student teacher!)
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