It seems, in my mind, it doesn’t hold the same validity as novels for readers' workshop. I don’t believe certain forms have those large chunks of text that my students need to develop stamina in their reading. I don’t trust that my students are reading every page. I don’t see it as an easily measurable genre in my workshop format. I need fight this reaction and begin to see all that nonfiction can bring.
Nonfiction November has opened my eyes. I carry biases against nonfiction. Do I read it myself? In volumes! Do I love the pictures and facts in the nonfiction books I purchase for my library? Absolutely! Does my stomach turn when one of my students in my Readers’ Workshop is curled up with certain foms of nonfiction books. Sadly, yes…
It seems, in my mind, it doesn’t hold the same validity as novels for readers' workshop. I don’t believe certain forms have those large chunks of text that my students need to develop stamina in their reading. I don’t trust that my students are reading every page. I don’t see it as an easily measurable genre in my workshop format. I need fight this reaction and begin to see all that nonfiction can bring.
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I had a great summer & I hope all of you did too & are ready to come back rested, rejuvenated & ready to go! This post is just an overview of: Library Organization Please note that I teach all afternoon this year & if you could keep distractions to a minimum that would be greatly appreciated. As well, Ms. Laszlo will be teaching out of the library the morning of Day 5, so that is something to keep aware of as well! Open Book Exchange: Small groups of students are welcome to exchange books any time! Please remember to only send down a maximum of 5 students at one time for book exchange. If you are teaching a Kindergarten or Grade 1 class you may set a regular book exchange period within the unscheduled times. Booking the Library...Goes Online..with the Laptops! Since booking the laptops, with the printing of the schedules on Monday morning worked so well, I’m planning on adapting the library tables & computer booking to that method as well. I will keep it in the same file as the laptop sign-out to make it easier. Desktop computers are available for groups when Ms. Laszlo or I are teaching, but please ask your students to be respectful to maintain this privilege. Laptop-wise we still have the downstairs cart and the upstairs cart where you can sign out any number of laptops you need and we have the mobile cart. This cart is for whole cart sign out only and is located in the back of the Science room. I believe there are 15 laptops on the cart currently, but I’ll get back to you on that! Partnering: If you haven't already, please check out and fill in the Library Survey to see the different types of partnerships that are available and so I can see how you would like our library to work. Think of when you might want to work with me & let me know, but know that organic partnerships that come our of nowhere are fun too. If we have planned a lesson & I don’t come see you, please don’t hesitate to remind me. Library Programs I’ve got lots of new plans to share with the kids this year. Here are a couple of the items I’ve planned for the library plate. Please, let me know which app you like to to use and why. It could be personal...sports site, music app or educational. I would love it for my beginning of year bulletin board. Also book your orientation so I can update your students on what's happening. Appy Hour! (Name stolen from Sherri Stokes, of course!) 1) Grades 3-5 for a six week cycle – Wednesdays at lunch from Wed, Sept 24th to Wed, Oct 19th. 2) Grades 6-8 for a six week cycle – Wednesdays at lunch from Wed, Nov 5th to Wed, Dec 10th. The focus of the club is to share Apps that students like to use images, music, sound, and more & then create & show collection of pieces created through the apps. I would also like to use the Lego Movie Maker App in conjunction with the Lego Club to create stop motion videos with their creations. Creators’ Club - Would like to meet once a month/every other week with a group of students grade six to eight who like to create stories through words, images or sound or a mix of the above. We can work on writing in different genres or the use of media for contests, assemblies or just for themselves. Re-organize library monitors to be Literary Illuminati with jobs to put away books, create displays, reviews, create videos & share their knowledge and love of reading…basically I’m putting to work all those kids who hang out in the library anyway. Have a bulletin board idea for this too! Code It – Using the great website https://webmaker.org/en-US/tools have students explore code by hacking and remixing. Maybe we could build an app with https://apps.webmaker.org/designer & Quaker parent/app designer, Peter Hansen. I am quite aware that I probably can’t fit all this in and stay sane this year so, If anyone wanted to use the coding app as a beginning of the year activity where kids remix and code their own posters, that would be cool. Check out the remix I made & remix one yourself. I do have to see if this site will work at school ... https://mscoleqvps.makes.org/thimble/LTY1NzMyMzUy/meme-maker Password Changes I’ll do a log-in username & password inservice with all grade 4 to 8 students as soon as possible. This new format may be difficult for some of our students to remember, so it will be a good idea to have a hard copy of the Usernames on hand & perhaps even copied for students to keep in an easily retrievable spot. Please click on the image to access a pdf for directions to print off the list of Usernames through PowerTeacher. Author Visits November 10th: Linda Bailey, the author of one of my favourite picture book series, Stanley, fame will be coming from B.C. to give a talk to our Grade One and Two students October 5th— Michael Wade will be joining us to promote his series And Then It Happened to our Grade 3 to 5 students. His series and talk is great for boys and reluctant readers. I’ve heard good things! He was here one year when Sarah Parry was in the library. Sometime This Fall Supposedly, Eric Walter, Ted Staunton, Richard Scrimger and the whole crew are coming to Uxbridge to launch Seven the Sequel. I’m hoping this is a great event for our grade six to eight students! Digital Bootcamp: It seems we are currently looking at a 4 period recertification with myself and the homeroom teacher for the grade sevens & eights with a full intro to the program for our grade 6 students. Blog Posts Coming Your Way Soon: 1) Connect Your Class Globally! A number of cool programs to connect your students with the world building engagement & knowledge through technology. International Dot Day with Peter Reynolds on September 15th! Could be cool! Who's in? 2) Five Great Teacher Resources To Build Program - I read some fabulous professional reads this summer and they were loaded with ideas to promote Technology, Accountable Talk, Close Reading, Readers & Writers Workshops & Inquiry Circles. See if one of these books catch your eye and has information on an an area you might like to explore. Any questions? Please don't hesitate to ask! Stef Articles Worth Sharing:
Check out this feature for links to interesting educational articles and blog posts. So my kids are in camp this week and I'm powering through school organizational files. Today, I'm supposed to be editing my long range plans for my language class by embedding the philosophies, ideas, new goals and teaching methods I've discovered over the year and figuring out how to get those abstract thoughts into a concrete plan that I could stick to...mostly, kind of, some days, depending.... I like to have a plan, even if it needs to change. A couple weeks ago Elinor shared a site on using memes to display your class rules: You can click on the image if you want to see the memes. They were quite funny. I didn't plan on using this with my class, but this morning before I was settling into work I happened upon this tweet. Greg's post on his goals and philosophy blew me away. You can check it out by clicking on the tweet too! I was also going to work on a couple pages of the photo album for our trip this year, but every picture I saw reminded me of what I want for my classroom & how my lovely, yet strange family, the photos I take of them, and the things they do seem to reflect my teaching philosophy. The two tweets merged in my head & the introductory-learning-living-being-in Ms.Cole's Class-meme show using original photos from last year emerged: I'll be using an adapted version of this to introduce myself to my class and to introduce the idea of the community I'd like to build in our class. I believe I'll be having my students create there own Meme Show to show me what they are about, goals they have & ideas they hold. Here's the outline I'll use to share this introductory project with my students.
Maybe, I can get to work now! We are all on our own growth continuum. It's the only place we can be. We are where we are and we grow from there. The joy of that is there are so many places to go. Apparently the area I love to grow in is in the understanding of, appreciation of and the teaching of reading and writing. My library and language position is an extension of that and sometimes when I look at the bigger picture of my life, I think I should play more, but a lot of what constitutes "play" for me is exploring reading, writing and the teaching of it. To me, teachers who write about teaching language in engaging and meaningful ways are the rock stars of my world. I love their books & find them as fun to read as any novel. Some of my guiding stars are Nancie Atwell, Donalyn Miller & Penny Kittle. I was excited to find a new rock star this year! Through Twitter I kept reading mentions of Whole Novels, by Ariel Sacks. I bought it. I read it. I loved it. I implemented it and I tweeted about it, so others could find it too. Due to my enthusiasm, Ariel retweeted a couple of my tweets and then asked me to do a guest blog on her site. I'm happy and honoured to write about a program that is genuinely helping my students get a better understanding and appreciation of language and I feel like such a geeky If you want to explore the changes Whole Novels has brought to my teaching pop over to Ariel Sacks site and blog and check it out. It seems she even wants me to do a follow up on how I've implemented Whole Novels into my Literature Circles, which has made this month busy and interesting. The literature circle conversations have rocked. The mini-projects were quick, effective and a lot of fun. I'll be doing it again.
To any of my teachers, if something looks like it could work in your program, I'd love to partner with you, even if we just make plans for next year. It truly is a journey. Here I grow again! Stef I've had a large learning curve this year with my introduction to Intermediate Language. I do have a good background in language, but teaching it is another thing entirely. As stated in my title, I did receive a lot of professional development, but it was all on my time, I didn't pay a thing, nor did I leave the house. Meet my two new professional friends. They could become yours too: I Met Pinterest First: Pinterest allows me to browse images that link to great sites and resources. I can then collect the ones that interest me by Repinning to my own online Boards. I found resources, blogs, anchor charts, videos, professional book titles, library display ideas and much more, including recipes, style ideas, hair styles, books, room designs, various ways to tie scarves and other fun things, just for me! Also...added bonus...I have no bursting filing cabinets or large boxes in the basement! Once you find a board with resources that appeal to you Follow the person who created the board or even just Follow that Board specifically. Whenever they post something it will show up on your Home Feed for you to check out or ignore, as you wish. Pretty soon you have great ideas coming to you from minds you admire on a regular basis. We actually have a prolific Pinner on our staff. Here's a peek at Rhonda's page. This image shows just 8 of her 135 boards and a fraction of her almost 3000 pins! Thanks Rhonda! Some other QVPS Pinners, past and present, you may want to check out are Sarah Parry, Susan Geary and Taryn Skinner.
On To Twitter: This is by no means an overview on Twitter, just how I've paired it up with Pinterest. I still have a lot to learn about Twitter. Often the Pins you find interesting on Pinterest lead you to blogs that you might want to follow or receive updates from. Bloggers and Pinners often have corresponding Twitter accounts to share their updates. If you follow great minds, educators and blogs soon you will be inundated by ideas and resources. It's a vicious circle of information on any topic you want.... Happy Exploring, Stef If you are interested in greater exploration, all the above images are linked to the corresponding sites and I have compiled a small list of helpful resources for you below: Pinning 101 from Pinterest Pinterest Cheat Sheet for Educators Twitter Basics from a Prolific Tweeter Twitter Cheat Sheet for Educators Just found http://www.learningunlimitedllc.com/ by Dr. Kimberly Tyson while researching this. She's the Cheat Sheet creator. I'll certainly be following her Pinterest boards and her tweets! |
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Some Great Teaching/Book Blogs Nerdy Book Club Teach Mentor Texts Free Tech for Teachers Reading, Teaching Learning On The Shoulders of Giants Edumcation Two Writing Teachers Dirigible Plum Three Teachers Talk |