Another successful (and
tiring) week is in the books! I
think it’s safe to say that the “extra activities” this week impeded a lot of
my teaching time, but that’s what the first few weeks are all about, right? Some of these “extras” included a fire
drill on Monday, a wing meeting on Tuesday, and our first library visit on
Wednesday, which was followed by an impromptu fire alarm. The surprise fire alarm resulted in
spending twenty minutes of class time outside with kids on the verge of tears,
and working the rest of the afternoon to get my kids “back” into learning! (No
worries – It was just a broken smoke detector in the end!) Oh, and I certainly
can’t forget to mention the hours spent leveling each of my 53 students with a
Fountas and Pinnell reading level.
Even with all of these “extras” (and the craziness), it was a great week
to finally delve into academics.
The kids are coming out of
their shells and it’s been a lot of fun getting to know each of their
personalities as they begin to feel comfortable in my classroom. Poetry is the first reading and writing
unit that I’m teaching this year, and I have to say that I LOVE beginning our
year this unit!
I began the unit by reading
a book that I learned about in the OWP 4-week. The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown (author of
Goodnight Moon) is rather simple; it explains why inanimate objects are
important. The featured items are
ones that you probably take for granted in your everyday life: a spoon, a
daisy, rain, etc. Below is an
example of an “important poem” from the book.
Right off the bat, I asked
students what they noticed about the compilation of poems, and what each of
them had in common. The kids
quickly agreed that the first line was always stating the important thing about
the object, followed by a few lines of description. The poems always ended with a restatement of the “important
thing.”
After analyzing the book of
poems, I asked students to write an “Important Poem” about themselves. As students were sharing their poems, I
enjoyed hearing “important things” about each of my students that I wouldn’t
have normally gotten to see through my traditional introduction activities. This
“getting to know you activity” definitely felt like an authentic way of getting
a glimpse of my students’ personal interests, AND it was an excellent way to pre-assess
their writing skills.
Students glued a template
into their writer’s notebooks for future reference. These poems won’t be going away in my room!! Stay tuned… next week I’ll explain how I’m
using “Important Poems” to summarize reading passages.
This week, we also began
reading Love That Dog by Sharon Creech, and I think that my students are
quickly coming to the realization that poetry doesn’t have to be scary; it can
even be fun! My highlight of the
week was on Friday, when students listened to a NPR “This I Believe” essay
written by a six year-old, Tarak Mclain.
(See my blog post for details! "This I Believe") The kids then wrote their own “This I Believe” statements, and then chose one line to read out loud to the class. As we stood in a circle around my
classroom and read our statements aloud, I got chills, and there was
no hiding my excitement in my students’ writing. From looking at the smiles on their faces and feeling the energy in my room, it think it's safe to say that the kids were just as impressed with themselves as I
was with them. I believe that we need to teach our students that kids CAN be writers; they ARE writers. Kids need a safe
writing community to experiment with their abilities in writing.
I think we’re heading in the right direction. It was one of those “teacher moments” that we’re all seeking
every once in a while. I hope you're all enjoying your long weekend! Don't longs weekends just always come at the perfect time? Even if we're just two weeks into school! ;)
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