Pushing Yourself Further

This year I was asked to be the FUSE teacher - coteach with an ESE teacher, her teaching assistant and their students.

After the initial reaction of, "Whoa...! What?" I thought about it for a long time and decided I was ready to push myself further.

Futher meant off the cliff. A scary, scary jump.

This jump meant having 20+ children in the room and as many as 6 being VE. It meant having to teach infront of someone else most of the day. It also meant having to have solid plans and community planning so we were all on the same page.

After coteaching now for almost a year, I can't imaging not having it there. It is safe, secure and you always have someone to fall back on. It means having more than one brain working on a problem. It means more people to help celebrate successes!

For the children, it has meant growing in acceptance, learning how to model for each other, loving people different than you and having friends that are wonderful.

9 months after starting coteaching, I have grown to be an advocate for it. For the teachers benefit, the students benefit and the joy of it.

Passion for reading and thinking

I have two favorite times during my day: when we are singing and when we are reading. Both times put a smile on my heart.

Today the little boy in the picture moved up from a DRA 6 to DRA 8. It was a great celebration. The class cheered, we sang, laughed, clapped and were truly excited for him.

It made me think... When does this joy and passion for reading start, and when does it stop?

My students this year are amazing readers, writers and thinkers. There are times when I want to do something "just for fun" and they turn it into a deep, thought-filled activity just by the questions they ask and the comments they make.

Why can't this feeling continue through all their years in school?

Why does it stop?

What can I do to help it grow?

I don't know the answers - but what I do know is at the end of this year I will be saying goodbye to people who I wish were my age, that I could spend more time with, because they have taught me as much as I have taught them.

Tracing paper and a 5 year old

For Dr. Seuss' birthday I let the kids take tracing paper and create pictures from their favorite books.

This photo just shows how much patience a 5 year old can have when engaged in something they enjoy!

Simple, and sweet!

Sparkle Words

Hi!

I got this great idea from the Dr. Jean training a few weeks ago and my kids LOVE it. We have been talking about adding words to our stories that make them sparkle. We modeled sentences then "sparkle sentences" (ex. I see the cat. became I see the big, black cat.) What a difference. :)

Then each child picked their favorite "sparkle word", wrote it on a sentence strip and glittered it.

This simple bank of words has been a blessing to adding spice to our writer's workshop!

Kelly :)

Dr. Jean

Wow!

Wow!

Wow!

I was so lucky to get to go see Dr. Jean on Wednesday. She was even more captivating, exciting and idea-filled than I thought.

She is so energy-filled that I left and my head was spinning with all the things I could do in my classroom.

One of my new favorite ideas is using "Smart people..." to start command sentences. For example, "Smart people follow line procedure in the hall." I did it on Friday and let me tell you, they did it!

I also loved the idea of making big phones and keyboards on shower curtains and having the kids "type" with a fly swatter.

If you get a chance to see her - GO!