Day 10 and other random reflections...

On Friday we continued the launching of Read to Someone! I was so proud of my kids! As I listened in to their conversations, I heard every partner set saying, “I just heard you read…” It was so awesome!!!!!! I told my kids that they made me so happy and of course got many smiles out of them.

I also talked about individual goals and read the book, “Franklin Plays the Game”. This book was perfect! While reading it I checked for understanding, and also talked about the goals that Franklin had, along with the strategies his coach gave him and his friends to use. The goal was to score a goal and win a game. The strategy was using teamwork and practicing. In the book there are few different characters. Each character has an individual goal. For example, the Goose is trying to remember to not use his feathers unless he is the goalie, while the beaver has trouble with long and heavy tail because it gets in the way when he is running. After reading the book I talked about the CAFÉ board and how each student will have individual goals”. We spoke about how each of us are different readers, read different types of books, and need to use different strategies. I also introduced my pensieve, which is called my recipe book to go along with the cooking theme. It stands for: Reaching Every Child, Individually, Purposefully, Everyday.  The kids loved the “Recipe” book! They were so excited to see that they each had their own place in the book. Using the book I talked about my goals as a teacher. I said my long-term goal for the year was to help each student be a successful reader, while my short-term goal was to meet with every child within the next two weeks. I said that my strategy was to keep a record of each conference but I also needed their help! I explained the urgency of them doing the right thing during daily 5 and how this will help me meet with them and their classmates. I think by them hearing that I needed their help, they were even more motivated to do SO well on Friday during our two daily 5 rounds. In read to self, they got to 17 minutes of stamina and in read to someone they got to 5 minutes but could have easily kept going. I stopped them because we had to go to art. During writing time we decorated our writer’s notebooks so we didn’t graph any stamina. I have to admit that I haven’t had the time for many writing lessons. This is why in my last post I mentioned that during the upcoming week I would like to try out a different schedule. I will also be introducing choice. Choice will make me feel much more at ease if I don’t get to a formal writing lesson everyday. At least I will know that they are still writing everyday. 

In addition to trying a new schedule, continuing to build our stamina, and introducing choice, on Monday I will revisit the book “Franklin Plays the Game”. I will use the book to teach a lesson on, “coaching and Time”.  I love when books have so many mini-lesson purposes!  Whenever I revisit a book on a different day, I retell what I previously read. Sometimes I will “pretend” that I can’t remember a characters name or something else from the book. Then I go back and reread that part. I have also broken a picture book up into three different mini-lessons. When doing this I always reread the last page I left off on before continuing. One time one of my students said, “You already read that page!” I replied with, “Thank you for noticing, I always reread the page I left off on to remind myself of what happened and get my brain ready for what will happen next.”

Enjoy your weekend and have a great school week! I know I will have lots more to blog about in a few days!

Words of advice:

Show the children your pensieve if you have one. They will feel so special! Also, talk to them about your goals and the urgency of needing their help to meet these goals.