Fun Week

Hm, Monday was a long time ago. I think we reviewed essay structure or something.

On Tuesday, it was Grammar Rock time! We began with nouns. The students loved it (very attentive, some definite bopping) and when it was time for the follow up activities, they got to work faster than I've ever seen. It was awesome and fun and I was happy.

Yesterday, we continued our revision work. On Monday, I wrote a lame, short paragraph and they told me what details I should add. So yesterday, I made notes on those details on the original paragraph and then rewrote it, adding in the suggested details as well as changing some words and sentence length. We did a real writing workshop that day, since it was a short reminder lesson, and they had between 15 and 30 minutes to work on revising their own essays. I was so proud, because everyone was working quietly. I circulated and gave feedback and I felt like a real teacher! :)

Today I upped the noun ante a bit by prompting them to continue patterns that led us to noticing plural and proper nouns. They did well, except for not paying attention and writing things like 'foots.' Goofs. We talked about choosing books, which led to me talking about books, which led them to talking about books, and it was good except that we were already running way over and I had to make them stop. But I hope to recreate that excitement with some kind of Reading Rainbow kind of thing (which, by the way, most of my students have never heard of. Sad!) every once in awhile. But scheduling and planning is already difficult, with each class having a different number of classes per week.

We also discussed reference books and then began an activity looking up and alphabetizing words. Totally didn't finish, so we'll do that tomorrow too.

Pinch me! I am having fun this week. The kids are doing so, so well, and homework rates are still very high. Not 100%, but everyone minus three or less, so still pretty good.

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Last night, Boyfriend and I went to see KT Tunstall! I had to leave early because I'm old and I live in an Outer Borough and school starts way too early. But it was great! She was clearly having a blast and sounded awesome.

Brandi Carlile's coming in a couple weeks, and so is Missy Higgins! Totally random, since I don't even think her album's out in the US. And! Haley Bonar's here on Oct 19! Hurrah for my favorite musical artists!