Today

What is memorable about today? I am feeling settled in. Besides all the paperwork (beginning of the year papers that need to be sorted), I feel like there is a kind of groove settling in my classroom. I particularly like how my read aloud went today. The students really liked the book Too Many Frogs! They couldn't figure out why the rabbit was being so kind in the beginning and they felt extremely bad for the poor little froggy when he was asked to leave. It was nice to see the empathy. We then spoke about setting up the right environment for reading. We spoke about different places at home and at school that feel comfy.

I asked them to sketch out their environment at home. I also wanted to see if their parents could send me a snapshot of them reading in their comfortable environs. We will see how many email me their photos. I was thinking of making a collage of the wild readers at home.  I might be a Stupeflix video. I will take their creative input about what we could do with the photos. I was thinking of maybe printing them out and have them add it to their reader's notebook with an explanation of why they like their special environment. We will see where it goes.



I really, really, really, really, really enjoyed taking the Reading Survey today. I added some questions that I lifted from The Book Whisperer. I put them in a Google Form and have been asking the students the questions in a one on one conference. By doing this, I am getting some individualized time with my students and getting to know them better as readers. I am getting to know so much background information that will help me find the just right books to nudge them along in their reading and writing life. If you haven't ever done this, you might want to try it. I find it invaluable!

That all I have so far! What? I didn't mention Math?  Oh, yes Math! I felt really great about Math today.  We used a chart of items from a concession stand. The young minds thought up lots of combinations for little money. They then made up their own questions to go along with the chart and the what if...what if you had... and so on. I really liked it!  Math is fun too!