Five For Friday: Oh My!

I say oh my because it's crazy that we are already at October. I'm finished with my first semester of the year! What?! So crazy how time flies when you are having fun. I know I'm not the only teacher out there with this feeling...

First, let's talk about the amazingness of my new blog design. I'm so thankful to Lindsey at L.Paull Designs for All for creating the design and working with me throughout the process! My little blogging heart is happy to now see cuteness all over my page. I recommend her for any and everyone!

Let's talk about this week and our focus in the classroom. I have two programs that I work with at my school that are both workshop style. The first is our reading program, Making Meaning. I love that this program not only focuses on a reading skill, but a social skill too. This week our reading skill focus has been working on asking questions as we read the text to deepen our thinking. The social skill focus was on building upon each other's thinking and I introduced discussion prompts, such as "I agree/disagree with _______ because ________." We started out small by discussing with our partner and then built into a large classroom discussion. The discussion we had at the end of the week was BEYOND amazing and I was so thrilled I told my kiddos I was honored to even be in the room! They were so respectful to one another and cleared each others thinking if confused that I just had to sit back, watch, and facilitate when needed (which was rarely). Below you will find questions my kiddos used for their big class discussion.

The second program that I work with is Being a Writer. This week we started our Personal Narrative unit, using Jerry Spinelli's book "Knots in My Yo-Yo String to learn how author's use sensory details in their narrative.

I will say with both of these programs, I am finding myself using rubrics ALOT. They are essentially how I get any and all of my grades. I use rubrics for anything from our Independent Reading and Writing time to journal entries to conferences. As a teacher who use to rely on test assessment grades this has been an adjustment, but I'm finding that I like the change. I feel like I'm getting a chance to praise the process as well as the result.

I love ending the week by reflecting on the positive, good things that happened throughout the week. This is one of my favorites from the week, a sweet kiddo brought me this Belle princess figurine that will have a permanent placement on my desk! She knows the way to my Disney heart. Celebrate your positives with us this week by joining the linky over at Doodle Bugs Teaching!