Back in the Swing

Happy New Year! January always has us looking forward to the year ahead. I want to take a moment to reflect back on December. What incredible work the children achieved for our Show of Work!! It was a joy for me to kick off my holiday season with the children and families all gathered together. Thank you.

Here’s a candid image of some of the children working to set up our Hudson Riverscape before the big event:

 And a couple of fun shots from the days when we had snow on the ground: 

Last Monday, the children flew into the room and we were back in the swing IMMEDIATELY! Two weeks away from the children was enough for me.  :)

BACK TOGETHER WITH SMILES AND SILLY FACES

We began focusing on the Language Arts right away.

How lucky I am to have Jennifer Gresens not only teaching 2nd grade math, but working alongside me in the classroom on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Sharon Santacroce pushes in to the classroom at the same time as Jennifer. Sharon, Jennifer and I have come together to collaborate on a Language Arts routine for Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Each of us will run three Language Arts rotations for small groups. We are tailoring lessons to the needs of each group we see. We'll prepare work on phonics development, decoding practice and spelling, reading fluency and comprehension, as well as short writing tasks. Jennifer and I will continue individualized and small group work on Friday afternoons. We just launched on Tuesday and we are off to a great start. 

On Mondays & Wednesdays, we have a rotation with art, so I have the class in halves for 45 minutes each. The children have been devoted to Drop Everything and Read time since the very start of the year. As a group, the children can now maintain 30-40 minutes of sustained independent reading. It’s amazing!

We are now ready to move from individualized and independent reading work to our Literature Circles. Our circles pull together small groups of similar readers to share instruction with me and a literary journey. The children will be matched with trade books at their instructional level and every child will independently read his or her own copy of the text. I will gather the groups around particular teaching points (plot, sequencing, vocabulary, character development, themes, etc.). I strive to create an atmosphere that allows for wide-ranging conversations and builds excitement about books. 

Literature Circles will meet one to two times a week. In between, the groups will negotiate the pace of their reading to prepare for the next meeting. These small groups allow me to support, assess, and individualize the development of reading skills on an ongoing basis.  

So much ahead. I’ll keep you posted.

LISTENING TO A READ ALOUD

POND DIGGING...BIG MACHINE...OOOOOOOH!