Trucking Along

I feel as though this year is just flying by.

Report cards are going to be here before I know it... like next week!

My life in and out of school has gotten into a good routine... nothing too out of the ordinary happens around here! I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

Not only am I thinking of report cards, I'm also getting my head wrapped around this whole winter season called Christmas that will be approaching before we know it. Again this year each home room teacher in the early years will be helping their class to get something ready to perform on stage. Last year my class did a short play called "The Littlest Christmas Tree". Of course I can't do the same thing again, so I'm going to try to figure something else out. Luckily, this year I can count on the help of my colleague and put our brains together to come up with something great. But of course if anyone out there has a suggestion I'd be more than willing to listen!

This week in my social studies class we are starting to talk about Remembrance Day. I always find it hard to share something so big, and in our world, very abstract. 6 and 7 year old children aren't familiar with the reality of war. Part of me thinks that it's really important for my students to know and understand that we have things pretty good when we compare Canada to many other places around the world. The other part of me hates to have these young kids grow up so fast with the reality of life.

In the long run, Remembrance Day is in our curriculum and I will teach what is age appropriate to my students. The line is just really thin and deciding how much these little people should be exposed to can be  bit of a challenge. But I'm doing my best, and I guess that's all I can really do.

Hope everyone out there has an enjoyable week!

SAGE

Every year in Manitoba SAGE is held. This is a day where all teachers from around the province get together to learn things in their chosen field.

This year I attended a session put on by MELIT (Manitoba Early Literacy Intervention Teacher) and I really enjoyed it. They had Regie Routman and her colleague Sandra Figueroa come to Winnipeg to speak. For those of you who have never heard of Regie Routman and are teaching writing the. You need to look up her stuff. Se has become a very well known writing guru.

Our school division has done some work with Regie's work in the past so it was really amazing to see and hear her in person. She is very passionate about what she does and it really shows in her work. She holds every child to a high standard and believes that they can achieve no matter what their label or past history with writing.

Throughout the day listening to Regie and Snadra speak my mind was racing thinking of how I can change the way that I teach writing for the better. I came away with a few things that I would like to try with my students. One such thing being to take the time and have public conferences with students so students can learn for each other. I also need and want to take the time and share and celebrate my student's learning. I know the this will take time and that's why I haven't really done it up until now but the things that will come out of sharing and celebrating should be well worth the investment of time.

If you ever get the chance to hear these ladies speak or have them in your school then count yourself lucky and enjoy! This is the first SAGE in a long time or maybe even ever that I have truly enjoyed and am excited to put some things into action!

Reading Help

I've always had to encourage kids to wait to help when another child gets stuck while reading until they've had time to try it out.

This summer I watched this video and got a great idea as to how I could have students wait to share their answers. 

While working with a small group of readers this week I was finding that kids were interrupting each other with the correct word when thinking was still going on. In order for them to wait to help I had them hold the answer in their hand. If the kiddo who's stuck was not able to figure out the word then the other students can blow out the correct answer, similar to in the video. I'm finding that this is really working well with one of my groups in particular. 

This coming week one of my goals during guided reading groups will be to have the others students work at this so each child has the opportunity to do some problem solving with words.

Loving!

I was reading on of the many blogs that I follow and saw a song in this post and I am in love with it!

I may have played it on repeat too many times today. But I really think the message is a great one. I played it for my students on Friday and I'm thinking that I will be playing it again fairly often for them.

Here it is:

Have a listen, you'll love it.


On another note, this week in Grade 2 we talked a lot about Terry Fox. This very special man did something really amazing for this country. The Terry Fox Foundation has some really great lesson plans available for all age groups that really give students a feeling of who Terry Fox was and what his goals were. I think that every child can learn from this man and never give up on their goals.

Check out these lesson plans here.

This year more than ever this run is important for our school to participate in (we held our run yesterday). This past spring a student from our school passed away from cancer. This run was another great way for our school to connect in a positive way around the memory of this little boy.

Have a great weekend everyone!

From my principal.

I told my principal that I had started a teaching blog. He thought this was a good idea and that I should share something really important with you...

Question: How to get something you want from your principal?

Answer: ASK FOR IT!!!

Fun Quotes

So today I was working with a couple of kiddos individually and they said some things that I had to laugh at. I thought I'd share them with you in case you needed a laugh.

Me: What letter is this?
Kiddo #1 (comes in close and uses a whisper voice): I don't really need to know this I'll just do back to class!

Well a whisper voice from this kid is pretty much amazing and to have this be the thing that he wanted to whisper about made me smile!


Another smile for the day...

This kiddo and I had just finished reading a book together and I was going to get my ipad out and do some things with letters on it when...

Kiddo #2: Aren't we reading?

Me:You wanted to read another book?

Kiddo #2: Well, ya and this time I'm going to read it by myself!

This was coming from a kid who in grade 1 didn't really have a whole lot of interest in learning at all! Oh what time will do.

Good Things!

This week had a great ending!

Reading Recovery (RR) is coming along nicely. I have all my testing done and I'm just waiting to hear which students I should take. This coming week I should actually get to start teaching reading! I'm very excited for this.

On Thursday I again had to race off at 12:00 for a RR meeting. I let my kids know in the morning that I will be leaving for the afternoon. This time the reaction was heart warming. A few of the kids said, "Are you ever going to stay?" I felt sad and good at the same time about this comment. It was nice that they wanted me to stay but a bit sad as well because I feel as though I'm not making the same connections with my students as I have in the past. I will just have to make the most of the time that I have to spend with them!

Friday morning was our first monthly assembly. In the past we have only met together as a school for special occasions. This year to complement our house activities we have planned to get together for a monthly assembly to do some celebrating. This could be as simple as wishing everyone who has a birthday that month a "Happy Birthday", to having a class share something special that they have worked on.

This month we decided that we hadn't been in school long enough for anyone to really have things to share with others so we brought our house groups out for the assembly. During our first activity day we didn't really have time to make our team cheers so we had some time on Friday to do so. After each house had come up with their cheer we met together in the gym. The atmosphere in the gym was AMAZING! Each house was wearing their house colour and it was easy to see who was in which house. We took turns going around the gym and sharing our team cheers with the school. I loved seeing kids from different grades interacting together and really having fun!

After the assembly I heard a lot of positive things being said which makes me really happy. I'm feeling really positive about these activities and I really hope that it can continue on into the rest of the school year.

Lastly, I met with my principal on Friday about my professional growth plan. During this meeting I was encouraged by the positive comments he had to say about my teaching and involvement in our school. It was a really great way to end the week!