The First Days of School

The First Days of School

     So we have begun!  It was a little stressful because I was at the TCRWP Writing Institute last week (of which I loved every minute!) and I had no time to set up my room.  I only had a few hours on Monday and they kicked us out by 4:30!  But things have settled down and I feel better today.  The kids seem happy and have adjusted well.

     So we have begun reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Patterson.  If you have not read it, do so!  I'm using my Close Reading Guide to lead my students in their thinking.  Find it at my TPT store.  It's a beautiful story told from the point of Ivan, the gorilla, get his story here.  It was on NPR.

     We are going to start with Realistic Fiction for writing as suggested by TCRWP.  We started today by brainstorming ordinary moments.  As usual, kids wanted to write about days at Disneyland or fancy trips. I had to remind them to keep to ordinary moments, such as in the mentor text The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson.  Her craft of stretching those ordinary moments into stories is amazing.  You can also use Miss Rumphius and use the example of Alice sitting with her grandfather listening to stories.
     So for math, our school is moving towards cognitively guided instruction.  I just had my PD on it this afternoon so I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.  I have to do some research!
     We have begun our project based learning.  We are starting our work on driving questions.  You can see my Edmodo post for more info on that.

Snapshots:

• Reading interest survey question: What did you read this summer? Student: "What if I didn't read anything?" Me: (clutching my chest) "What?! Don't ever say that! I think you injured my heart!"
• During Math Student: "Can we work together for math?" Me: "If you need to talk about the work, you can work in pairs, triads, whatever you need." Student: "Really???"
• Student: "Will we do yoga today?  Pleeaassse!" (We do yoga for 5-10 minutes at the end of the day.)
• Reading The One and Only Ivan, Student: "How did Ivan get to live in a mall? That's just weird!"

     Thanks for stopping by!

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