Native Techno Users

One of the great things about the world today is there are over four different generations in the work place and we are teaching students who are born into the techno world. We on the other had are immigrants into this world.  I wish I could say I was super techno savvy. Yes, I have a SMARTboard and yes I try to not make it a glorified white board, but this year I really wanted to take the step next with student involvement.  With the help of my fabulous media specialist Mrs. G, I am off to a great start. We are using Weebly for education as our host.  I have set up my students' accounts and my account. The goal of this class site is for my students to write at home using the blog feature. It is set up to be a private blog and only users with the password can enter the site.  It isvery easy to set up and I'm very pleased to say that on Monday my students are going to jump in and begin creating their sites and hopefully we will have blogs going by Friday. 

My overall purpose for the blogs is to engage my students in Writing Outside of the School Day (calling it W.O.O.T.S).  Writers don't just write at school. They write at all times of the day.  My expectation will be for them to write 3 days a week.  So here's hoping the techno-savvy 5th graders will buy in and write, write, write!

SOLC~Grief Happens

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With the excitement of the new year comes Back To School Night. Tonight I get to be mommy and not teacher. Tonight I am able to sit back and listen and soak all of the elementary-ness of it. I absolutely love a primary education classroom. The color. The newness. The learning I know takes place. I am in awe when I realize the first graders in this room are going to LEARN to read in this room. As I fill out the paper work and Mrs. T begins her presentation the new report card comes around. I take a look and realize that my little one is up a creek. Just last week I was explaining to my students what it meant to have a genetic disorder that my kid is no different from them except that she learns at a slower pace. It's one thing to say this to my students and another to see it in black and white. To know that my first grader is actually on the same cognitive level as my 3 year old. To see it in black and white makes it so real. I do realize this sounds like I'm in denial. I am fully aware of what Little E can and can't do. But a few times a year the realness hits me like a wall. But in the realness of it all I was able to see my daughter's heart topics that she chose and remembered the conversation I had with Miss L today about this writing activity. How Emma was able to tell her using her own words what was important to her: her mommy, her daddy, Gracie, school, music, crowns (aka princess) and Izzy Bea. It shouldn't matter that she is delayed. I am so thankful she is happy and healthy. But I do wish the realness of Down syndrome didn't have to hit me so hard.

One Little Word

As the new school year begins to rush about I have begun to really reflect on my one little word for 2010--PASSION(see here) Today as my students and I were buzzing around ticking things off our daily to do list I realized that I have been so focused on "feeling" passion that I have not stopped to see if my kids think I exhibit passion. As we were in the computer lab trying to type up our baseline on demand writing pieces, I realized that at that moment I was not exhibiting passion. Even in the midst of trying to get 27 fifth graders typing I should at lest exhibit something besides frustration. I guess the O.L.W wasn't ideally achieved today, but I hope in May my students are able to say they saw passion within me.

Grand Conversations

As we begin the new school year and our routines, I encourage you to make sure that you participate in what Lucy Calkins calls Grand Conversations. A time for the community to come together and discuss their reading. Today we had our first grand conversation. Right now it is teacher directed, but I know as time goes on students will gradually take control, but today I witnessed pockets of student driven conversation as they discussed the possibility that Lynsey and Dave from No Talking are taking the boy/girl cootie battle a little too far. What I like most about grand conversation is it student owned and teacher facilitated.

Reading Is Thinking

Reading is no longer a passive activity in my room. This week I have been reviewing the comprehension strategies. According to the pre-assessment I gave earlier in the week. Only a handful of students needed a review on visualization and making connections. I will continue to briefly review the remaining strategies this week, but my first areas of focus will be asking questions as we read and inferring.

I have been making charts for the class as we review.

Chart 1:
Lists all the strategies with a phrase to help them remember the purpose

Chart 2:
I see the movie in my mind because I know to visualize.

Chart 3:
Making connections to reading
Use schema
schema=background knowledge=the things I already know
text to self t>s connecting what I am reading to my life
text to text t>t connecting what I am reading to another text I've read
text to world t>w connecting what I am reading to world (ie movies, what's in the news, famous leaders)

Chart 4:
Asking Questions
I wonder...
Ask questions BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER reading

Thin questions: can be answered within the text...usually one word answers
Thick questions: can't be answered easily

Chart 5:
Inferring
background knowledge + evidence from the text=inference

Chart 6:
Summarize
The main idea of book.

Chart 7:
Synthesize
Creating new meaning from the text

SOLC~New Beginnings

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The beginning of the school year is more like a New Year's Celebration.  We see the new faces and the excitement of what is to come hits! August for me has many more emotions such as the anniversary of my cousin's passing and the anniversary of the finalization of my divorce. I never imagined I would do all of this as a single parent. When I got married I didn't think this would even be a possibility. And this August was extremely difficult personally. I had gone on Family Medical Leave in May so I was home for 3 months before I went back to work. We are adjusting. Emma adjusted quickly. I adjusted ok, but Grace on the other hand is still adjusting.  Amongst all this life commotion I decided to get a new family member for our household. I am so glad I did. She is a wonderful addition. Sweet. Loving. Cute. I haven't had a dog since I was kid and she passed when I was 20.  I've always said that my family was complete with just the girls and I, but I was very wrong. It is now complete...with the our newest puppy addition--Izzy Bea.

On Demand Writing

This week as I introduced the concept of Writer's Notebooks and getting to the kids, I have realized that I truly don't need to start at the beginning.  I am lucky that our feeder school shares in our same philosophy of best practices and teaches Writer's Notebooks. On Monday as I began my lesson on watermelon topics and seed ideas, my students began to take over the lesson. I giggled with excitement and immediately changed my course. I usually do a run down of the fundamentals of small moment writing, but have now decided to do an on demand writing piece Thursday and Friday. I plan on giving them  two days to produce a small moment rough draft. I will collect these and read them over the weekend to determine what the next course of action will be taken with writing. I am anticipating only a handful to need lessons on capturing the seed idea and would rather hone their writing craft than teach whole group lessons on seed ideas. 


I am looking forward to reading their small moments and determining the next round of lessons. :-)