Celebrate Good Times, Come On! 9/30

Each Saturday  Ruth Ayres invites us to share and celebrate events, big or small, from our week. Looking for celebrations has certainly improved my outlook on my week.  For that, I am certainly grateful to Ruth and to all of you who choose to celebrate with me.

A month.  A new beginning.  A celebration.

As August approached, I become apprehensive about my decision to move to a new school, a new grade level.  But after our first month, I have no regrets and much to celebrate.

Readers - I watched 100 books go out of my classroom library.  It was a very scary, but exciting day.  Sharing books with four times as many students was one of the many reasons I made the change to 6th grade.  Making connections with my readers has been exhilarating.  They are amazed that I not only remember what they are reading, but that I can have a conversation about the book with them.

Writers - Writing isn't where I would like it to be, but I am making progress.  Every three weeks we take a formative assessment, then reteach and retest.  This obviously takes a lot of time away from instruction, and in the past, writing has taken a back seat.  After proposing a three day reading and two day writing cycle during the week, we now will take the assessment every four weeks.  (I have a 48 minute period to teach both reading and writing.) I am hoping small changes will reap great rewards.

Bloggers - I have our class blog set up and ready to go.  Guidelines are typed and ready to be passed out.  Students are ready to blog, and we are going live this week!

Have a great week, and may you find many things to celebrate along the way!