Writing Workshop
The children have been busy preparing their writing for publication. As part of this process, they have chosen one teaching book to reread with a writing partner and continue to add detail to. They will spend Monday and Tuesday revisiting their work and making their writing powerful. As a way to publish their work, we will share it with some of our first and second grade community on Wednesday afternoon.
What I am looking for during partner shares-
Can the child read their own writing?
Are partners able to give feedback?
Are partners using prompts such as
I notice, I think,
I wonder, or
I like?
Are partners asking questions to further the writing of their peers?
Are children working as "green zone" partners?
Do the children feel empowered?
The Share
While partner shares provide a more intimate interaction and supports children in recognizing their important role as a peer, the share with our whole community continues to be children's favorite part in our day. In the below photographs Sophie shares her teaching book about her family. Her community offers feedback, mostly compliments about her drawing of her pet sugar glider- an important member of her family. One friend says that she thinks Sophie could add more to her drawing of her and her sister in the living room. This little bit of feedback provides Sophie with a concrete plan for our next workshop- add more detail! My teaching point for Sophie would have been similar, What else can you teach me about your family?
This kind of support is more powerful coming from a peer.
Academic Choice
Academic Choice continues to be a time for children to transfer their developing literacy skills in authentic and playful ways. I often see children writing and representing more during academic choice, because they are invested in the choice they have made- their learning is meaningful. Using photographs and observation are tools for documenting children taking initiative of their learning and independently applying their developing skills and strategies. I cannot imagine only having a 15 minute choice in our day. We must remember to slow down when meaningful learning is happening, to not rush the child to get to the next thing. We live in a rushed world, always thinking about what's next. It's important to teach children to be present and invested in the learning or experience happening now.
In a recent reading I came across the question;
If you had to choose between compliant, engaged, or empowered, which word would you want to define your students? (G. Couros,
The Innovator's Mindset)
I would choose empowered, but often feel a push for compliance or engagement- we must think of engagement within empowerment. It is a delicate balance between student voice and guidance. While compliance is a part of being at school, it's important to understand compliance as the expectations teachers and students have developed as a community.
In the below photographs, Dylan and Clayton work together to assemble our alphabet puzzle. They want to know how many vowels and how many consonants in our alphabet. They decide to sort the puzzle by consonants and vowels. They are excited as they surround themselves with alphabet puzzle pieces on the rug.
"You could use a clipboard and a piece of paper to record your work", I suggest.
"Yes! Great idea", Dylan enthusiastically replies.
Later, as they share their work with their peers, they explain how they sorted and counted the consonants and vowels. Their initial "how many" question propelled and fueled their investigation. They answered their question and I, following their share, asked another one-
What other ways can we organize and sort our alphabet? Their share invites their peers to sort in different ways, to think about our alphabet in using a creative and constructivist lens.
Here the students were empowered.
Using a book from our math shelf to write the word counting.
Counting how many consonants and vowels.
Reading Workshop
As part of our work sounding like the characters and reading with expression, children acted out one of our loved story books, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. They enjoyed this lesson so much that they have asked that we act out more of our stories and maybe it could be a new academic choice! I was impressed by their courage. We only acted out the story twice, but every child wanted to have a turn. Using the popsicle sticks ensured the participants were chosen fairly and children had the choice to pass- but no one did.
It was hard to be the narrator and take pictures of their performance, but if you are looking for something to do with your family during cold afternoons, I encourage you to act out a favorite story. Try hard to sound like the characters and read with expression. In the photographs, you will notice our bridge was a hollow block and the troll sat next to it as each billy goat went trip, trap, trip, trap across.
Finding Sight Words
Highlighting is real work. It is always amazing to me how excited children are about highlighting. We have been rereading a large version of our leaf poem during our morning message work, but later in the week I gave children their own copies of the poem. The direction was to highlight our new sight word- we. The children eagerly took on the challenge of finding and highlighting we. I've laminated their poems and they will live in their personal libraries. Being a sight word detective is a fun and engaging way to build sight word vocabulary, but the empowering piece is when children start to find (or make) their own sight words. When rereading the poem after highlighting, many of the children said,
"All and over are sight words, too!"
As readers, you can turn any word into a sight word.
