creating
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Someone once doubted my ability to find the joy in teaching, and it was a very painful comment. How could they think that? Was my joy not enough? Or were the things I thought were joyful not obvious to an observer? With my joy-fidence rattled, I decided to infuse as much obviously, outwardly joyfulness into…
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I just posted a new poetry collection on my door! This week’s theme is IDENTITY. I’d originally thought the next theme would be feelings, but I realized kids should share their selves before their feelings. 🙂 I’m hoping to change my poems every week this year. The single week of remote learning threw off my…
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Summer reading is a passion of mine. I’ve developed a summer reading launch unit for teachers to use in the past, so I adapted it for quaranteaching. The goal of the units, one for primary and another for intermediate, is to set up students for success for summer reading: figuring out their best reading routines,…
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This week, the second grade team at my school asked for online book club info, so I rounded up my go-to resources in my free version of Padlet (I maxed out my Padlets, and I refuse to pay $8 per month right now): videos of book clubs in action for students to analyze and infer,…
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Hey, Potterheads! At our very last Harry Potter Club session, everyone created a zine page. The only guidelines were: use 8.5×11 printer paper in portrait layout, include a border of some kind, and share what Harry Potter means to you. The materials were inspiring: colored origami paper, washi tape, stamps, stickers, Harry Potter wrapping paper,…
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Each time the Reading Ambassadors enter the Reading Lounge for our meetings, they will answer the question of the week displayed on a table and then stick their responses on the window outside the room. I have loved reading their responses, but seeing other students stop and chat about the responses has been even better.…
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There’s been a lot of tinkering in Writers’ Workshop since Writing Clinic #2! Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what to expect. In fact, I worried. Would students “get” it? What if they were *still* stumped for writing ideas? What if it got out of control? But over the past week, I’ve seen or heard about tinkering…
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My standard introduction at a conference is, “I’m a literacy coach looking for daily doses of creativity and joy,” so when I read Angela Stockman’s Hacking the Writing Workshop: Redesign with Making in Mind, I knew it was going to be a just-right book for me. Boy, was I right! It inspired me so much…
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Last week, I hosted my first Writing Clinic. Its focus was conferring, which I believe is the heart of Writers’ Workshop (looks like the blog, Two Writing Teachers, agrees with me in the latest post, “Conferring Notes: The Key to Unit Planning”). Entire grade level teams attended the first clinic, and everyone left with a…
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I get a book budget every year, and I alternate between updating teachers’ classroom libraries (with their input about what their students want!) and the school’s book room. Last year was a book room update. I focused on buying #ownvoices and #weneeddiversebooks titles. The books all arrived by the end of June, so I spent…
A SEA OF TALK 