Time to Reflect

Time! I'm thrilled and full of gratitude to have time to reflect. All school year my wonderful job gives me the opportunity to be with amazing teachers, parents, and kids. But, my super generous, supportive husband shares my love of living through experience! I feel so lucky to share this journey with him. We are coming up on number 18 in a few weeks. I wouldn't be the learner/teacher I am without him! 

Connections with Kiddos Over the Summer

Well,  so far I have been able to connect (through our class blog) with about four of my 21 kids.  It is so hard to just let them go.  But, I did try something new this year.  I sent my kids home with a bag of books.  I am afraid the books were a little too hard.  So, I hope their parents are not freaking out.  I just couldn't imagine the kids not having the access to books like they do in the classroom.  They read from their book boxes every day.  It was really important to me they felt reading could continue at home just like they read at school.

After report cards are done I think I am going to start sending emails to parents to see how the school/summer transition is going.  Just getting in touch with them might be an opportunity to help support parents with questions and learning at home.

I'll cross my fingers!

Bridging the Summer Learning Gap

taken from http://alavoices.org/summer-learning-loss.aspx

Once again, my challenge this summer is to help my students maintain the learning gains they have made this school year.  Since I am looping with my first graders to second grade I have even more time and energy invested in the lives of these kiddos.

In the past, I have tried to use Moodle as a platform for communicating through the summer.  Then I tried Weebly.  This is another website tool to help keep our classroom community connected through the summer.  I hope to keep my kids excited about reading books, writing about their experiences, and engaging in learning activities to help them maintain their love of learning during June, July, and August.

Since some of my first graders are beginning the Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne, I hope to engage them more deeply through interaction with her website.

The xtra math website could be another way for the kids to maintain basic fact practice.  While quick recall programs are not the ideal way to use computers, the need to master addition and subtraction facts would eliminate about 40% of the errors students are currently making in multiple step problems.

The students who need the most growth in writing should really be the students I target with summer letters.  It would be so delightful if I were able to correspond even just a few times with them.  I think I am going to try and send a self addressed stamped envelope to each student and see what happens.

Since most of my parents have email and smart phones, this could be the summer I have the highest amount of students communicating with me.

I'll cross my fingers!

Building a Learning Community

 A group of teachers at my school has developed an authentic learning community to support reading workshop.  Teachers from other schools were invited to come.  Now, there are even other teachers from other school districts who want to come.  It is powerful.  The original intent of the small group planning was to support teachers trying to implement reading workshop.  In Michigan, we are using some reading units developed in Oakland County.  These units were built based on the models developed in New York at Columbia Teacher's College.  In addition to these units, I am using tools to inform and personalize the units for our students' needs.  Some of these tools are resources from other teachers - lessons we model for each other.  Other tools are professional books and websites, assessments, student behaviors I observe during conferences, inventories, etc.

Dedicated, passionate teachers

When I can have these conversations with many educators it brings more purpose and life into my teaching.  I'm filled with more questions with each conversation.  My motivation for teaching extends beyond my students and parents.  Just as I want my students to ramp up their own learning through collaborative learning efforts, I also see my teaching is being lifted to a higher level as a side effect of my own engagement in the learning process.  Juggling all of this is no easy task.  

As our profession continues to get more demanding and we feel overwhelmed by all its expectations, we can be each other's biggest help.  It takes a lot of energy to steer around  all the obstacles we face in our classrooms, our buildings, our districts, our country, to find the pathway of positive learning and bolster up our attitudes to provide the most optimum learning conditions for our children.  The support we give each other will be the only way to meet this goal.

Reflections about the words of Peter Johnston and Kathy Collins

Choice Words and Opening Minds are two texts by Peter Johnston I have been perusing while teaching during the last four months. There are so many nuggets of wisdom.  It overwhelms me. (The more I read, the less I am able to track the ideas percolating in my head.)  Last August, I listened to Kathy Collins, at Teachers College. She is equally moved by Peter Johnston's work. As I grow my classroom of first graders and take them into second grade, I am so mindful of the words I am using and the language/literacy laboratory we are growing together.

Out of the Weeds

It's the middle of October.  There's a lot to celebrate.  For the first time in 17 years of teaching, I started a year fulfilling my own expectations.  Going back to teaching first grade to start looping again has been a wonderful fresh start for me.  The kids are starting to work independently.  They are making progress.  They are learning with joy!  So, I am taking time to celebrate and reflect.  But, instead of looking back, I'm looking forward.  In order to maintain my joy in teaching it is necessary for me to make some adjustments here.  While I love my job, being an excellent teacher requires honing learning skills from within.  This means allowing myself time for learning.   I have put into place a few outlets for my learning; one being a teacher support group for reading workshop.  During the month of October my goal is to write more.  Here is a silly little chant I wrote for my kiddos.

This is a chant we recite while getting ready for reading workshop.

Books in a stack
Chairs back to back.
Now we can read
After we've had snack.

Put your finger under the text.
Think about what will happen next.
Read to yourself,
Then read to a friend,
Using chunks and consonant blends.

Talk about characters,
Retell, too.
Get your brain ready for something new.

Special thanks goes to my supportive ten year old.  The last line in the lyrics belong to her.  I hope to keep saying this with joy every day continuing to inspire my readers and myself.

Storing it up for Winter

There are so many parts of my summer I try to store in my mind for a cold, dark day in the middle of January.  This afternoon I took a bike ride with my friend Laura.  I was so excited to share the bike path along Little Traverse Bay in Petoskey with her.  


It was very windy, so we really had to work for it.  But, the destination of East Park between Bay Harbor and Petoskey has the most breathtaking view.  The park juts out so much, you have to turn your body around to see the both sides.  It was an overcast day, but the light was filtering through the clouds so much that the water looked magical.  There were so many different shades of blue and green in the bay mixing with the white caps.


I want to tuck that little memory away and take it out in winter.  When I go to school in the morning in the darkness and leave in the evening darkness, I will close my eyes and try to remember: the brisk wind pushing against me and my bike, the sound of the gravel underneath my tires, the swaying birches waving to the bay.


I'm so blessed to witness such beauty.