He's a genius...

I had a student teach on Friday for writing workshop! It was great! He showed that he reread his writing so he knew what he was writing the day before and where he was in the place of the story. Then he told the students to try it themselves. IT WAS GREAT! Then I taped them actually doing what he suggested. In sharing circle, students then shared about how rereading helped them with their writing that day. One student even thanked him. With editing and permission from parents, I might post it here. Might is the key word.

If they only knew...

My students say funny things...and I love it. Lately, they know when I am writing down things for the blog. I found out that through my blog, one of my students gets to hear some of the postings. He's started his own journal where he writes down what he's feeling and his thoughts. So cool!!!!

On Monday afternoon, one of my girls was upset over losing a free mini-notebook. Several students told her to retrace her steps. She replied that it'd be easier if she had paint on her shoes. Nice thinking!

Also on Monday, I refrained from using sarcasm and finally couldn't quite take it anymore. I said, "I could make a sarcastic comment, but I won't." One of my students asked what sarcastic meant. I tried to explain it, but told them I'd find another time to make one. Later in the day, I did find a time. After making a comment about student bringing toys to play with during school, I explained how it was sarcasm. And without realizing the sarcastic comment it could be made into, he said, "Thanks for teaching us sarcasm today."

And today, while it wasn't funny, but so incredibly sweet...I kept a group of students in to work on writing the date correctly. One student was upset that he didn't get to go to recess and another student replied, "Learning is more important than recess. Learning is better than recess." Woo hoo...getting through to some of them!

I'm a genius!

Okay, not really...it was by the grace of God. I had originally planned on teaching a focus lesson on strong action words, but I thought some dialogue needed help after seeing a student's writing yesterday. I shared from an author that we are using to mentor our writing and broke it down into three steps. And then it came to me...add some action to it. My students remember things so much more if we add action or hand motions to them.

Three things that dialogue needs
1) Character names
2) Tag lines (said) - this is where we added action by having students tag (some ended up whacking) themselves as we said the tag line
3) Quotation marks - and yes, we use our fingers to make air quotation marks here.

Did it work??? We'll see when they turn in some writing for me to read...I'm excited!

Maybe...

Last week when there was talk of snow, I honestly was sad. This may seem weird and maybe it's because I don't have any children of my own, but when they said it might snow over Thanksgiving Break, I was a little disappointed. There's something about experiencing the first winter snow with the class. I stop whatever we are doing and we go over to the window and just take it all in. And after about thirty seconds to a minute, we are back to our learning...but standing there watching the snowflakes come down with them is just another bonding experience I get to have with the class. And knowing that there's a small chance for flurries tomorrow, I look forward to standing there again with a new group of second graders.

Cute things from students

I was trying to explain the prefix tri to my students and more words popped into my head, so after asking them about triangles and tricycles, I thought of trimester. Then the word trinity popped into my head and I asked them if they knew what that meant. Blank stares and crickets chirping...I decided to help them out..."You know, God the Father, God the Son, and God the..."

One of my students said, "Sister?"

I just had to smile and laugh inside and of course share with my readers!

What are your thoughts?

I read this in a book last night and would like your take on it...I have mine, but sometimes I feel that I don't quite "get it" sometimes when it comes to literature and symbolism.

"To see coming toward you
The face that will mean an end of oneness is -
Far more than birth itself-the beginning of life."

- Holly Roth

Thanks to all who comment!

Making the Blog

To understand what occurred in the classroom, you need some background knowledge. Many years ago, I took broken crayons and melted them into multi-colored crayons using my oven. We also have been discussing nouns in the classroom - singular, plural, common and proper, and when to add -es.

Now, you are caught up to speed.

I had pulled out the bag of multi-colored crayons for another teacher to use and the students in our classroom wanted to use them. While we were waiting for everyone to finish a page, I let them color the back of a paper while I met with a student at my desk. And so began a conversation among the students.

"It's a cray-on." (emphasis on the -on) said one outspoken student.
Another student disagreed, "it's crayons."
"Cray-on."
"Crayons."
"Cray-on."
And another student couldn't help but join this conversation. "It's crayons."
The outspoken student responded with, "They're all mixed together, so it's one."
The extra student said, "Yeah, plural." (meaning it should be crayons, not cray-on)

About this time, they (meaning most of the class) noticed me grinning like a Cheshire cat at their conversation and frantically writing. One of the students blurted, "You just made the blog."

The students are becoming aware of me spying on their conversations. I honestly do not spy just to gain funny conversations, but do you realize the magnitude of their conversation? They are processing what we are talking about in our classroom and bringing it into other conversations. To discuss if something was plural or singular was great! I love their conversations because their voice matters in the classroom.

I really do think that teachers often miss the best teaching tool they have in their classrooms...their students. They are filled with wonderful ideas. Today, I made some of the students explain terms and homework assignments to others that weren't listening the first time...not as a punishment for the listening students, but to make the students who weren't listening aware that they can go to their peers as a resource. I am not the only resource in the room.

Can't wait to see what these treasures continue to discuss in the future!