Taking Shape

Day by day, minute by minute, and step by step my room is finally taking shape. Sure, there is much to do. It will be under construction the whole year. Today my library committee took some time to start their library project. They are working on labeling books and placing them in bins, shoe boxes, and other dollar store specials. They had a little time to do this today. The room looks and feels so much better. They also presented their work to the class and started some semblance of rules for their library.  I like how this is going. We will see how it goes. So far, so great!

In addition to that, I had some time to display  more student work. The young poets have written poems about themselves using my poem and Where I Am From by George Ella Lyons as an example. They have also incorporated the use of writing literacy letters to their parents and to me. I have learned so much from reading them and will answer them over the weekend.

For the past week, we have been using the Pentad by Kenneth Burke, to analyze and write. I red the book Red, A Crayon's Story to them. They worked by themselves and used the pentad to analyze the story.  Then they shared their pentad with a few others. After that, they wrote a reading response, using the Pentad as a guide. We then discussed which areas of the pentad that their response may have covered. I felt pretty good about their participation and engagement with their classmates, materials and thinking. Not bad, not bad at all.

The students have also combined some editing practice using the Express Lane Edit idea from Jeff Anderson's video called Teaching the Craft of Grammar. The editing shopping list was place on a large postit, along with the receipt. They used it today when they were writing a Math problem as well. It is amazing to see the improvement in their writing.

Classroom Math Wall! Got a compliment from one of my students today.