writing
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My current writer’s notebook I’ve always loved writing. In fact, there was a time in late middle school and early high school that I wanted to make writing my career, thanks to an impressionable year with an amazing teacher. I researched colleges and universities with strong creative writing programs and started wearing quirky clothes to increase…
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One of my mantras as a teacher is, “If the students can do/make/think it, they should.” So when we realized our schools’ walls could use some spiffing up, we decided to turn over the decor transformation to the students! Since this is “The Year of the Reader,” what could be better than some inspirational reading…
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Click here to find the Padlet for our WIN group. I’ve posted before about Padlet, the digital interactive bulletin board, but I haven’t had the opportunity to use it authentically until now. For the next several weeks, I’m meeting with fifth graders to work on reading responses during WIN. In addition to using critical thinking…
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It’s possible that my love for class books originated from the one I received from the class that I student taught on my very last day of teaching them. It was a simple production: letters on notebook paper, crayon/colored pencil/marker drawings, and their school pictures. The fanciest thing about it was the laminated pages and…
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I have seen firsthand how turning and talking to a reader or writer next to you can energize students. Sometimes I’ll ask a class a question, and wait for a couple timid hands to slowly raise themselves. I’ll quickly follow-up with, “Turn and talk to the reader next to you about…” After a minute or…
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Man, I love a word wall. I always thought I did a good job with word walls because they easily covered close to half of my classroom wall space. Then I saw this image from an article in an issue of Science and Children called, “Interactive Word Walls” by Julie Jackson and Rose Narvaez: The…
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In the past ten years of my teaching career, I’ve avoided doing worksheets of punctuation practice because I haven’t seen students’ writing improve. Instead I’ve seen students work on them, seem to be proficient at using punctuation marks because all of the fill in the blanks are correct or the sentences have been edited appropriately, and…
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I love finding inspiring quotes in the books I’m reading! In fact, my students have a whole section of their reading notebooks devoted to quote collecting. It’s impactful work because it encourages: “reading like a writer.” Being aware of how words are composed influences and excites us as writers. I want my writing to have the same kind…
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I recently developed a math workshop lesson on math vocabulary using the ideas discussed in “Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction” and “Oral Language Needs: Making Math Meaningful.” Using this information as inspiration, I created several stations focusing on practicing math vocabulary: Visual Dictionary, Vocabulary Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Two, Vocabulary Magnets, and Math Revising. In…
A SEA OF TALK 