Reading Camp - Week 2

Today I begin my second reading camp for the summer and I can't wait! I have two children that are going into 1st grade and five heading into second (one of which has special needs and is reading on a K level). What a wonderful mixture of students and abilities!
What a delight! I hope your summer teaching and adventures are as exciting as mine!!

Getting to Know You

What a wonderful idea for a 'getting to know you' project at the beginning of the school year. Young students could take this project home to discuss their hobbies/interests and spend as much time as they wish adding details. What a perfect project for drawing out your students' artistic skills (along with supporting students that want/need to express themselves pictorially instead of through writing). Can't you just imagine how lovely these would look lining the hallways at school?! Beautiful!

Today...

Today is my uncle's birthday. I am the luckiest girl in the world to be related to this lovely man.

He grew up in a time when the public (and his teachers) did not understand Autism.

He is part of the reason I became an educator. I hope I can be the teacher he had always wished for and deserved.

UPDATE: An app for your books

Sooo... the app I used to use for my classroom books started giving me grief, so I made a clean break and found a new curator of my collection. Now I am in LOVE with Book Crawler.

 

It's fabulous because you can scan books in with your camera/barcode, you can set categories of how you organize your collection, you can search by collection/author/title, and if you are a real go-getter, you can share your thoughts with a community of other book fanatics.

Check it out!

GONE.

I flew out to LA last week and lost my luggage.
Ug.
Gone.
Never to be seen again.
Some lucky duck now has my entire make up bag, prescription glasses, only jeans that fit, two best dresses and (WORST OF ALL) two of my journals.
So I'd like to take a moment to apologize to the world that my two journals, chalked full of ideas that were going to change the world, are now floating somewhere around LAX.
I can only hope some size 6, (very) far-sighted chick out there can truly appreciate a good eyelash curler and 3 inch cork-heels, is being entertained by reading my last three years of academic and personal writing.
Sigh.

Excuse me while I go buy a new journal.

DONE!!!!

The Sisters' Top 10 List

Like many other districts, mine has become a card-carrying, life-long member of The Sisters' fan club. While many teachers are trying out their classroom set-up (some with enthusiasm, some with apprehension - i.e. where do guided reading groups fit into this model?), The Sisters' philosophies are grounded in ideals we all hold dear. I found their recent "Top 10 List" interesting and strongly agree with number one!  

1.  The number one thing we need to do to achieve proficiency? Have an excellent, highly trained teacher! (Opitz and Ford)

2.  Guess what happens when you put 2500 books in your classroom, kids read them! A swimmer needs water. (Gallagher)

3.  Effort and persistence have to be taught, we are not born with them. (Routman)

4.  Comprehension is thinking about the relevance of the text to you and the world. (Fountas and Pinell)

5.  If students are not making strong progress they need no less than 50 minutes of reading each day at school and more at home. We must also check for engagement during reading time. (Serravello)

6.  The class students are placed in influences their success more than the skills with which students arrive. (Ford)

7.  The most powerful key to acceleration is coaching children while they are working with text. (Opitz and Ford)

8.  What Works Clearinghouse is currently working on the document: Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers. The practice guide will be out in the fall (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/). Check out Dr. Steve Graham's Writing to Read Report from What Works Clearninghouse:http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingToRead.pdf 

9.  Kids need to have 60 minutes of writing each day. It doesn't have to be all at one time but integrated into all content areas throughout the day. (What Works Clearinghouse)

10.  Simply assigning hard books will not ensure that students learn at higher levels. (Fisher and Frey)

IRA, Chicago: April 29-May 2, 2012