literacy links
-
One of my favorite parts of teaching in The Now is the art that we’ve created. From plays for our theatre to this stained glass window display, we’ve been creators. Creating has been a great form of expression and even leads to more writing and reading. What a colorful year! Here is this week’s roundup…
-
Two summers ago, in The Before, I attended the Summer Poetry Institute hosted by The Poetry Foundation (PoFo) in Chicago. It was a glorious week of being immersed in poetic forms and devices. I learned and learned and learned and wrote and wrote and wrote. I’m embarrassed to admit that I learned a new-to-me literary…
-
Our beloved post office transformed into a theatre recently! To help build students’ background knowledge, we watched a video of a backstage tour of a theatre and I’ve been reading at least one picture book a week about theatre. We’ve been so inspired we even wrote our very first play about our shared reading text,…
-
This past week I finally feel like I hit my stride in kindergarten. Stations were running, books at independent reading levels were being read, we celebrated the end of a unit that we completed *together in person*. The only bummer? It’s *March*. In the Before, I’d be feeling this way in October. I know I’m…
-
One of my favorite memories from my own kindergarten experience was a Valentine’s Day station rotation that imitated the process mail goes through to travel from one home to another. So when I started planning a unit on connecting with others as part of my Better Lesson coaching, I knew it would involve some kind…
-
One of the many (endless?) struggles of remote teaching has been how much of my students’ days do I fill with learning? I, of course, want to grow their brains, but I also don’t want them to be in front of a screen *all* day. Another aspect to consider is their families: Some families want…
-
For the week after Thanksgiving, our district was remote. Remote is not the end of the world, but it is very different from in-person pandemic teaching (and light years away from teaching in The Before). The structure and routines that I teach students in class don’t necessarily translate to remote teaching. One of the biggest…
-
While it’s day 38 of the school year, it’s only MY fourth day of teaching kindergarten(ever!), and I’m totally in love. Some of my teacher friends from years’ past might be SHOCKED by this fervent feeling since there was a time that I only ever considered moving UP from fifth grade. But over my six…
-
A few weeks ago, I learned that I would be teaching kindergarten in November if the School Committee approved a new proposal. They approved, and a two week countdown began. Between monster cutting and laminating sessions, I decided to collage a cover for a kindergarten notebook for all of my ideas, to-do lists, and PD.…
-
Last weekend I attended the first-ever virtual Saturday Reunion from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Lucy Calkins had very powerful closing remarks that landed just right. Teaching is tough in The Now. Our elementary schools are about to bring back K-2 students (mostly) full-time. Lots of changes ahead for everyone that I know we’ll…
A SEA OF TALK 