The Power of Share and a Purpose to Write

The students in my classroom share/celebrate their own writing (or books/poems written by others that they enjoy) on a regular basis. As a matter of fact- they can count on a piece of every one of our days being dedicated to just that. This week, we began to dig a little deeper into the craft of writing poetry. Each year, my students create a collection of poems that is left in our classroom library for future classes to enjoy. It is so wonderful to see the student's reaction to a poem of a sibling or friend that had been in my class previously being shared during "share time". The conversation naturally leads to questions on whether or not I will be sharing their poems in years to come with my future students. "Of course" is my response. The poetry workshop that followed was diligent and purposeful as the children now realize their poems are meant for an audience- whether it be their parents at our annual Poetry Pocket Celebration or for the future students that will live in the classroom. When students know that their writing will be shared with others, it is, perhaps, the most inspirational purpose we can give them to write.

Thank Goodness for Miracles

Miracle

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Politics

I must say as an elementary teacher I never thought I would have to deal with such contentious political discussions in my classroom. While I was out one afternoon, my kids apparently had a poorly informed and most unkind political discussion leading to excluding others based on the politics of those children’s parents. Once I recovered from the shock that my kids were having this mean-spirited political discussion, I had to step back and think about what lead my children to engage in any political conversation. I had to ask myself the question why are my children who are only six having this level of political conversations? Is it bad, is it good? Do I allow it, or do I forbid it? As a child, I remember going to a presidential rally, but I never remember talking with my friends about the candidates and certainly never thought of their politics as affecting my friendship or respect for them. I spent wakeful hours that night thinking about where the line should be drawn between how much we expose our children to. Well, anyway back to my kids. I really had to decide what I was going to say to them. While I think that you want to make your children aware of some of the events that are happening in our world, I think that sometimes as adults we forget that they are still very young children. We must remember that they still need to be sheltered, and they are always listening and taking in what we are saying. So, the next day at school as a class we had a long conversation about respecting others and also about the upcoming election. What I ended up telling my children is that if they have questions, concerns, or worries about the upcoming election to come and talk with me or their parents. While I think it is great from a government or civics perspective that some of my kids are enthralled with the election, so much of their information is the sensationalism found on TV and in the not so watchful or mindful remarks of parents and relatives. I believe that as an adult when discussing politics or other subject areas with children, there is a fine line between what is developmentally appropriate and what isn’t. I think that we always must consider what is appropriate and what isn’t. I just hope in the process we do not lose sight that both teachers and families need to honor the innocence and ingenuousness of our little people and provide respite for them from issues and concerns that are too confusing, often scary, and certainly worrisome to our little ones. These are short lived and precious years, and we are not serving our children if we rob them of the protective, carefree possibilities of this time.

Children's Writing Discoveries

Over the last week or two, I have been meeting with my kids to conference about their writing and coming up with a writing goal. I have always met with children about their writing, but this year is the first year I have met with them and come up with a goal for the month. This idea came from Katie at Creative Literacy. Well, the reason I am talking about this is because I met with one of my boys, Joe, the other week, and I was very impressed with his writing. He wrote a story called The Biggest Creature in the World. He based his story on the book I’m The Biggest Thing in The Ocean by Kevin Sherry that I had read as a read aloud. I asked him what made him think to make his own book based on this story. He explained to me that he just loved the story and wanted to make his own just like Kevin Sherry. He is also making a sequel to the book he wrote. His next book will be called The Biggest Creature in the Universe. I was so pleased with his thinking throughout this meeting. After we met, he was able to share with the rest of the class his thinking and his story. I believe some of the children will now begin to really start thinking about how authors are a great source to help them think of what they might want to write about during writing workshop. I will also use this idea as a jumping board to start having conversations about what books might help us during writing workshop. I really am looking forward to seeing what Joe will write and to see what some of my other children will be writing after they heard Joe’s story.

We Heart Your Blog

Here are the rules:
1) Add the logo of the award to your blog.
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!

Lauren and I heart the following blogs:
A Year of Reading
Creative Literacy
Two Writing Teachers
Bud the Teacher
My Breakfast Platter
My World-Mi Mundo
Literate Lives

Better Late Than Never

Remember those Summer Goals I had.....well....I was pretty successful in accomplishing most of the personal ones during the summer. The professional goals, as always, are a work in progress. Well- I am happy to announce that thanks to a wonderful colleague and friend, Katie (see Creative Literacy), the revamping of my word study goal is coming along nicely (though it will always be changing and evolving- see how much I learned). And today- we (the kids and I) have officially reorganized the chapter book section of our classroom library. It was so rewarding to see the kids eyes light up at the sight of new-old books (you know- the ones that had always been in the library but got lost in the chaos), as well as, seriously new books that I purchased this weekend. We had a room full of book worms today....I think we could have spend the whole day reading. Oh what a day! Tomorrow we shall begin to tackle the picture books. I have to say this has generated some wonderful thinking on both the student and my behalf.

I will write more about my word study revelations in another post.

Ellie McDoodle

I found this little treasure in the library yesterday. I am sure it has been around for a while but I figured I would blog about it anyway. This series is "part journal, part graphic novel and all fun". Ellie McDoodle is a strong character with great voice. She is confident, funny and relatable. I have so many students that are torn between picture books and chapter books- this is a perfect combination of both. The pictures help tell the funny and engaging story. I can hardly wait to introduce it my students.