Days 8 and 9

To be honest I wasn’t going to blog today. One reason being that I don’t have any exciting “good” news to share. No record breaking stamina times or cute comments. We did 14 minutes yesterday and 7 today. Then after thinking about it, I decided that if I was going to be honest on this blog, it can’t only be filled with “fantastic” days. The ordinary days will also need to be shared. For my two followers (haha, join in on the fun, follow me!) I want you to see that it’s not always “perfect” in Café 48. I’m new at this, just like many of you!

That being said I’ll move on to Days 8 and 9…. Read to Someone and Pay attention to Punctuation were introduced, along with a review of the previous strategies learned. Read to Someone went okay, but I don’t feel my kids did as well as they could of. I will attribute that to lack of modeling. I did model but in reflecting on it, I don’t think I did it enough. I heard some kids Checking for Understanding while reading together, but others were completely unfocused when their partner was reading. I stopped them when I saw this and we reviewed the “I” chart. We reviewed how to be a good listener and why it was important to share your reading experience. The book I used to introduce “Read to Someone” was Aaaarrgghh! Spider! It actually said the word “EEK!”. So I thought it was perfect.

I don’t have a cute clever comment that my students said, but I do have one that my nephew said. My nephew is 2 1/2 and LOVES to read! Last night I was putting him to bed and he asked me to read him a book. He started off on my lap and then said, “I want to sit here”, plopping his body right next to me. Of course, the teacher in me came out and I said, “The way we are sitting is called EEKK”. Picture wide eyes and a very confused look (remember he is two and I hadn’t made an “I chart yet”, jk, ha!). I continued on and explained that EEKK stood for elbow, elbow, knee, knee and that was how we were sitting. His answer back, “how about we say knee, knee, tushi, tushi!”. HOW CUTE!!!!!!

Back to my class… today after school I stayed for a little and thought about my schedule. After multiple attempts, I am still struggling with finding the “perfect” schedule that allows my kids to have enough time in reading and also fit all other subjects in. We manage to get to everything, but I would still like more time devoted to the daily five. I did tweak my schedule a little bit and decided on a compromise that I will try next week. I noticed on Pro-teacher that many people created a CAFÉ menu called PACE for math. I thought this was a great idea, but also thought there could be a way to incorporate the already existing CAFÉ into my math lessons. The math program that we use is very reading based. Many of the questions that are asked, require a lot of reading. Also, the math program provides literature titles that are related to the contents of the chapter. SO next week I am going to TRY and teach a CAFÉ mini-lesson and relate it to the math lesson of the day. For example, I was thinking I could do a lesson on “adjust my reading rate” or “back up and reread” the problem if you are unsure of what it is asking. Even cross checking will be helpful in math! I hope this works because I think it would be so beneficial to show the children how important reading is for ALL subjects! Also, I think the common language will help!

Next week I plan to do more “Read to Someone” lessons. I would like to introduce and practice all three ways. I am looking forward to teaching the children about Coaching and time! I think they are going to really enjoy that. Also, I plan on doing DRA’s, in order to find out more about my students as readers, and of course I will continue with my individual conferencing. I have appointments set up already with some of my kids!

I’ve come to the end of my blogging for today and I must admit I’m SO happy I wrote! I feel much more at ease and was forced to see the bright side. Not every day is going to be a perfect day, but everyday I will learn more about my kids as learners.

Words of advice:

Go slow! There is no race, and sometimes when we rush to the finish line, we miss out on the best teachable moments.

If you haven’t done so yet, have the kids write on the strategy cards! They love doing so and the board looks great with their writing on it!