Friday Reflections

Well, this is the second edition of my Friday Reflections, and I'm feeling pretty fortunate right now. Reflections for this Friday:

1) Today was a day off, and I enjoyed it to the fullest, doing all sorts of things I can't normally fit in my schedule during the school year. I woke up at 5:30 (AM!) to walk with a friend, followed by some strength training at Curves, picked up some paint for the wonderful painters that have stained our house this week, and needed some fabulous green paint for our front door and shutters, went to lunch with friends (more about that later), did errands, got 2 new beautiful pair of black pants (everything goes with black) one size smaller than I have been wearing (!!!), wrote an article, had a fabulous Italian dinner, and am now playing on my computer, doing blog stuff. Great day!!

2) The 2 friends I met for lunch are my grade level teammates. We literally work beside each other five days a week. But we realized, during the course of our conversation, that being in close proximity at work, doesn't always mean we're staying abreast of each other's personal lives. This out of school experience helped us catch up on each other's lives. In addition to that, we did some thinking about where we're headed in writing workshop and Book Clubs. The relaxed atmosphere really allowed for some creative, uninterrupted thinking.
We will definitely be putting more of these "dates" together on our calendars!!

3) Did I mention last week how much I love sharing City of Ember with my class?!! We are having so much fun with it, and the conversations that take place each day are fabulous!! I am so lucky I get to be a teacher, and see the excitement and anticipation on my students' faces as I read aloud. What a great job!!

4) Because this was a 4-day week, and I was out at a district language arts meeting for one of those days, I didn't have a good feel for how writing workshop went this past week in our classroom. To coin a phrase of Regie Routman's, I need to remember to always "teach with a sense of urgency". We have important work to do together this year in 5th grade, and it is my job to make sure that what we do is important and meaningful. Food for thought.

5) That language arts meeting I attended this week was both good and bad. Good -- it really pushes me professionally to be in a group of smart people, all looking for "best practices" in literacy instruction. Bad -- as if my "to do" list wasn't big enough, there are always more new tasks that need to be done after a meeting like this. I'm considering this my contribution to literacy back in my building.

That's all for this week. I hope you all have a great weekend!!