Learning

Trying Learning...

And I finally did it! Learned how to do the strike through!!!

And realized I am constantly on the edit html page and not compose. No wonder I couldn't do bullets. Don't worry, bullets will come soon!

How does he know?

Most of my friends know about my quirky habits in finding fun and exciting recipes that hide vegetables and other foods in them. The other day, I took some friendship bread into the classroom that hadn't risen and was as dense as bricks. As I was handing out pieces of bread, one of my boys asked, "Is there celery in that?"

I have yet to bring in any foods to my class where I am hiding vegetables, but maybe now I'll try. :)

Bitter

I'm becoming...bitter. I notice that I want to snap at my student teacher more often. However, I think this is due to the fact that he is getting so much more time with them...reading to them, hearing their thinking, conferencing with them...ugh! I miss them. And only five more weeks. He'll be taking our morning meeting and writing workshop next week. Oh my...

Don't get me wrong. My student teacher is great! He wants to do what is right for the students and wants to get better. He takes home all of the books (probably more than a dozen) and reads through them to soak up the information. I couldn't ask for a better student teacher.

I just miss my class.

Better

Today was better. We set goals in our writing workshop. The students had to fill our their gaggle of goals. I think it helped. And what made it even better was hearing from our student teacher that one of my students during writing workshop, while two other students were talking, walked over to their desks, tapped on them, and reminded them that they had goals today. LOVE IT!

For reading workshop, we talked about synthesis and created something new out of our thinking. I used different ingredients and made chocolate mousse to represent how we mix our thinking and it grows and creates something new.

Later, I invited writers back to the room who wanted to try a glossary in their writing. Seven students came! Woo hoo! They were excited to try it and we ended up eating chocolate mouse (with crushed cookies mixed in). While we were discussing glossaries, one of my outspoken ones was wondering something. Out of her mouth came, "And don't even get me started about Gail Gibbons. She doesn't even do glossaries." She paused and continued, "And she doesn't do the table of contents." I could tell she was very frustrated with Gail Gibbons (a great author for informational text), and I told her that she could write her a letter and ask her to maybe try it. I don't doubt that I'll have a letter to read tomorrow.

Tell Me How...

How do I get my boys to write? How do I get my boys to focus and work? How? Because if today's classroom happens again, I'm not sure what to do.

Granted, it's not all of them. But it more than not, so, any ideas out there? We're currently working on our informational books (and to the moms that read this...I don't think your boys would want you to see their papers yet). Any ideas that anyone can give would be great!

Voice

I have one. I want my local government to hear it. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to get in touch with my district senator. I am not a fan of a bill that Governor Daniels is endorsing.

I want my voice heard. I want to know that I matter. Don't we all?

Regardless, I wrote an e-mail tonight and sent it to my district senator. I don't think I would have written this a few years ago. I think blogging has made (okay, I know) me a better writer. I think teaching in a workshop style classroom has made me a better teacher.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter who reads my blog, who my audience is...what matters is that what I have to say is important. Simply because I matter. My voice deserves to be heard.

Who instills this?

Today, I had a student who wrote a not very nice note to a classmate. After the teacher had spoken with her (happened in another class), I politely explained that I was not going to punish her since she had already been talked to. I asked her what she thought she ought to do and what will happen as a consequence if she does it again. She told me she had already written an apology note (on our sticky notes) and I explained that I will keep the first note and if it happens again, she'll call her mother and read the note.

I am glad that she wrote an apology note before I even asked her to do so and watching the boy read it and accept her apology was precious.

So, my question is...who instilled this in her? Is it just something she's always had? Is it from the classroom and the way we run our community? I'm glad she used the notes that are so readily available. Regardless...I am so very excited that she knows she has to fix what she has broken and that he accepted her apology so freely.