Currently Enjoying a Three Day Weekend

Well it is already the 6th of September, so I am hoping I am not too awfully late to join Farley's Currently party. It is the beginning of the year, and I have a sneaky suspicion that I will not be the only one late to this party. :) We are all tired...first weeks of school teacher tired! Late or not, I am always excited to join this fun linky party. I could get lost for days looking at all the wonderful teacher blogs out there. Well....sometimes I do lol....Don't miss out and take a few moments to look around; just remember her rule of 3. :)

Showing our Panther Pride!

As always...we spent our days reading and writing away!

We are still sharing our stories and much discussion about where writers get their ideas. 

When I think about what we know first and what we might have to share, these are my go to read alouds... 

  

When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant and What You Know First by Patricia MacLachlan are both beautifully illustrated examples of writers writing from what means the most to them. When thinking about why writers write, these are perfect mentor texts. 

AND... I LOVE LOVE LOVE sharing this song and video by Miranda Lambert. The House That Built Me reminds me that we all have so many memories to share as writers...we are all writers and storytellers.

This anchor, A Writer's Notebook, is an anchor I work to create every year with my kiddos, and we build on it for most of our launch of writing workshops. We share a lot of great stories and discussion around this one, all of them a great lead in to our own writing.

I am having tons of fun grading our reader's notebooks... you can learn so much about a kiddo from what they share in their notebooks. This is one of my most favorite entries this week.... "a black hole like your desk, Mrs. Dunn"..... oh my...hahaha :) Love this group so much already.

So...this week I was super proud to complete a 100 miles to Labor Day challenge! In the past 6 weeks I have walked or biked 100 miles! Whoo hoo! I put a lot of miles on those shoes this summer, and my goal is to keep going...step by step by step!

My sweet, sweet friends treated me to a wonderful dinner at my favorite restaurant, Kan Pai, as a yummy birthday celebration. Such fun times and great laughs with these girls. 

I received the first of Joshua's senior pictures. The last of my own babies is a senior, and I have absolutely NO idea where in the world the time has gone. We won't be able to use the picture of him with his lamb, Riley, in the year book, but it was certainly one of my most favorites. He has always been so good with animals, and the path that has led him on has been so good for him. So proud to be his mom!

OK... time to talk books! I haven't done this in a while, but I haven't stopped reading. I will have plenty to share as I catch up, and soon I will have the kiddos sharing their own!

How perfect for me to start with this amazing story by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. Fish in a Tree is such a sweet story, and I have no doubts that most of you know this already as it is blowing up on most social media. I cannot scroll through our Instagram feed without it popping up at least once a day, if not more. 

Although I had heard a bit of buzz about this one, it wasn't until my favorite summer reading professional development...So Many Books So Little Time...that I just knew I had to pick it up. This made the top of the list by Ken Stamatis, so I had no doubts it would be a great one. According to him, this is a "teacher's book," and I most certainly agree. 

I have taught so many kids just like the sweet and quirky characters in this book... sensitive and frustrated Ally pushes me to be a better teacher just as Mr. Daniels inspires me to do the same. And secretly I love Albert, the "walking google page."

As I read this story, I was frustrated right along with Ally that no teacher before Mr. Daniels picked up on her issues, and I couldn't help but be reminded of Patricia Polacco's, Thank You, Mr. Falker. I laughed more than once and cried just the same. Sweet and moving and a perfectly inspiring read for any teacher, and I am more than sure that I have a few kiddos that can relate to one or more characters in this one. I cannot wait to share this as a read aloud this year.  

With that I will say goodnight for now and finish linking up with Farley... have a wonderful rest of the long weekend...and kiddos, get ready for another busy week!

Happy Reading, friends!

First week in the books ~ 2015!

Just look at that sweet group of cutie patooties! I totally love them already. We are going to have so much fun this year... I can't wait to see what amazing things we learn from each other!

As first weeks go, ours flew by so quickly. I have to admit our first day had me a little nervous...in their excitement we had a chattery group of kiddos. I wasn't sure if it was the classroom set up, getting to see old friends, or if we were in for a long chatty year, but by the end of the week we had ironed out most of the kinks to have a smooth running classroom. I am so glad that I did not chicken out and start the year with desks. I do believe these kiddos love our classroom setting as much as I do....*sigh :)

Just look at these book lovers reading away! One of our first goals was to really establish firm expectations for our writing and reading workshops, and I would say that we accomplished that. Of course we will need to revisit and maybe even make adjustments throughout the year, but we are off to a great start.

 

While setting up our reader's notebooks, I really stressed the importance of our reading record and our book status forms. These forms can tell me a lot about a kiddos reading when I call them up to conference with me. 

This example is one of my own reading records... if I ask the kiddos to read 40 books and keep a reading record, then I feel I should do the same. This is a mix of young adult and adult books which is what I tend to do throughout each year. 

There is so much I can learn about my young readers from this one form... 

Our book status form is an idea I took straight from the pages of Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller. I fell in love with her philosphy of reading instruction with The Book Whisperer! Her books inspired me and gave me the courage to really reach out and teach reading the way I always envisioned it. If you haven't read these two books yet, you should pick them up as soon as possible!

In writing workshop we worked just as diligently to establish routines and expectations, and create a safe place to keep all of our fun and creative writing ideas.

Every year while creating these writing notebooks, I ask myself "why".... so much work and such a crazy-messy time but when I see the final products, I know exactly why I stick to it an have my kiddos create these.

One of our first entries into our notebooks is our Heart Map! This is another activity that can be wild and crazy, but I sure do love the results and the discussion.

Another of my favorites has become my students' weekly journals. This is a journal in which kiddos tell about their week and share their thoughts on school and their learning - and sometimes outside school events make their way in, too! They share these journal entries in the form of a letter to their families, and the exciting part is their families respond as well. The kiddos love that their parents have homework just like them.... my parents have always been so good to respond and participate with these, and the kiddos LOVE, LOVE, LOVE reading their responses. I will share more about these later. 

Look at this beautiful group of ladies that I have the privilege of working with every day!

Of course we had to do a silly pic :) ~ great things ahead for this group!

Well, I think that wraps up our crazy-busy first week! I am so excited for all the fun and learning we will have this year with this cute little group!

Happy Reading, friends!

Our First Week is in the Books!

Yes...summer is over. Not only do I have to remember the day of the week, but oh my...I have to wake up to an alarm! Those that know me well know that this is certainly something that is NOT in my wheelhouse. Goodness...there were a couple of pretty violent snooze punches this week. 

Ah well... early or not, I have genuinely enjoyed our first week back! Every year I think that it is just not possible for me to love what I do any more than I do, and every year I am proved wrong. This new round of kiddos has me excited for all the possibilities. It is going to be an awesome year, and we have certainly started off productively!

As always, we launched our Reading Workshop with a huge, and frankly quite messy, book frenzy! Stacks of books were given to each kiddo - this is when I love my huge library. Each stack contains books just below, comfortably within, and just above their reading levels and lots of their favorite genres, subjects, and authors. Watching them make their final selections and conferencing with them clues me in to just how well each kiddo is at making appropriate book choices.

Garrett checking out blurbs to create his
"to read" pile in his cubby

Stacks of "to read" piles in cubbies...as we conference and work
together on reading, adjustments will be made to help kiddos
continue growing and motivated in their independent reading

Of course, my ultimate goal is to get them reading and responding to the books they love as quickly as possible.... AND to do as much of that as possible WITHOUT unnecessary interruption from me.

 

 

I am a big believer that kiddos DO NOT get nearly enough uninterrupted independent reading throughout the day. So I definitely try to give them as much as possible in my room. It is always my goal to guide each student as unobtrusively as possible, but we do need time to talk about our reading as well. 

A quick round of Mix-Pair-Share to discuss
our book choices :)

I certainly couldn't launch a crazy book frenzy
without my awesome new librarians...
not sure if they know the enormity of the task
they have agreed to take on :)

Our writing workshop is launched right along side reading workshop... getting the kiddos comfortable and established in the routines and procedures of writing workshop can be challenging, but we are on our way to some fun writing!

We created our writer's notebooks!

  

Some of my favorite personal notebooks

And our heart maps...

 

 

Of course I had to read some of my favorite picture books....

   

This year's kiddos were overwhelmingly impressed with the engravings of Barry Moser in What You Know First. Such a beautiful book!

We had a surprise visitor in our first week back....my new Marine stopped by to say hello! He took a few minutes to talk to the kiddos and answer questions. So proud of him!  They seemed to get a kick out of it, and they had some great questions for him. 

 

He stopped by after visiting another teacher at our local high school... this sweet, sweet lady had the opportunity to visit the MCRD in San Diego and small worlds of small worlds, she was able to meet and eat lunch with Justin. After not hearing from him for months, she called and delivered precious news about how he was doing in bootcamp. I will forever be grateful to her for such a simple act of kindness. :)

I also had a couple of former (and present lol) kiddos come back to visit me after school. They were totting little sister around with them as they visited teachers. The expression on his face is cracking me up, and that is not even HIS little sister...she belongs to the boy on the left....haha. 

I am sure you will all be surprised, but I made a stop by my fave book store this weekend. Whoop whoop! Ah... the feeling of peace that comes from walking into a good book store! It's like coming home!

Well...even more surprising... I found a new favorite picture book.

Little tidbit here...I am a sucker for a picture book that started as a song... I have quite a few, and I just can't help myself when I find a new one. 

Jon J Muth did an AMAZING job painting this beautiful song by Bob Dylan. LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! Oh...and it has a CD... happy dance! I cannot wait to share this one!

I also finished reading the sweetest and most skillfully written little book. Sheila Turnage has such a beautiful way with words, and more than once I caught myself stopping and rereading a certain part just to wallow in the magic of it. It is no wonder that it was a Newberry Honor Book, and I cannot wait to read it to my kiddos. I am in love with Mo Lebeau and all of her southern stubbornness! Such an unforgettable character!

I guess that's it for now, my blogging peeps. I will say goodnight until next time.

Happy Reading, friends!