Greetings from Charleston, South Carolina! Hopefully everyone is enjoying their February break. I'm down South for a few days visiting friends, and of course savoring the second half of our school vacation week. January felt like a very long month--as it always seems to--so a brief getaway and some time off was just what the doctor ordered.

We did a whole lot of writing the week before break. After analyzing poems for the poet's message, we planned and wrote text-based responses to support that idea. Another type of writing we've begun exploring is text-based narrative writing, which is referred to as "narrative writing tasks". This involves reading a passage, then writing in response to a prompt that has students either writing the next scene of the story, writing a new ending to the story, or writing the story from a different character's perspective. This week, we tried our hand at writing from a different character's perspective. We read a story titled "Across the Blue Mountains", pulled out key information from the story, then planned a writing from Chester's point of view...and Chester just so happens to be a cat in the story. Most students either finished or came close to finishing their version of the story, and I was proud of the effort I saw put forth (especially since the actual writing part took place on Friday, which was both the Friday before vacation and Valentine's Day...). A lot is involved with this type of writing because not only do you have to understand the passage and weave elements from the passage into your writing, you need to be able to write in a way that encompasses description, characterization, dialogue--all the pieces that make for a good story. Honestly though, narrative writing tasks are a bit more fun to teach than essays, because they allow kids to get creative.

Our Bucket Fillers this past week were Natalie and Ari. And what fabulous names to be pulled. Let's start with Natalie. Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. There are far too many positive things to say about her. She is incredibly bright, but also admirably humble and genuinely receptive to feedback. She's been doing lots of extra writing this year, and she truly values and uses the tips I give her. In fact, she even went home on Friday and took the time to finish her Chester narrative writing task outside of school. And I'm glad she did, because she did an awesome job. Speaking of awesome, we have Ari. Ari is awesome. (That's an example of which element of poetry, kids? Hint: it has to do with sounds...) He's been super impressive in his understanding of poetry and ability to make sense of figurative language. More importantly though, he's kind. He often makes thoughtful comments, and this week, I pulled him aside to thank him for one of those comments I heard him quietly make in defense of me. His reaction was indicative of how sincere he is--he hadn't thought twice about what he'd said. It was no big deal to him. Ari is just naturally kind...and awesome, of course.

Poetry is HARD. Honestly, it's probably the hardest genre for most kids. This is because of all the figurative language and layers of meaning found in many poems. It's so important to recognize when poets are being nonliteral with the words, phrases, and lines they use in their poems. One really enjoyable aspect of the poetry unit is how applicable the unit's vocabulary is to the media we're surrounded by nowadays. So many advertisements and slogans incorporate similes, metaphors, wordplay, and personification, that figurative language really is all around us. To emphasize that point, and to keep students on the look out for anything and everything nonliteral, I selected a few commercials from last weekend's super bowl and had students try to identify examples of figurative language weaved into each ad. We analyzed each piece of figurative language and then discussed the reasoning for including it in the commercial. It was a fun activity.

Our Bucket Fillers this week were Eric and Sha'Nelize. Eric one hundred percent blew me away this week. I was beyond impressed with all of the effort he put into his work during our ELA lessons. He was consistently focused, on task, and working hard. Not only that, but the amount of participation I saw from him this week made me so proud. I think I may have pulled him aside on at least five different occasions to express my delight and excitement for his hard work and participation. Sha'Nelize has grown in resilience, stamina, and independence this year. Although she started the school year in Ms. Attard's homeroom, she's now officially on my homeroom list, and I'm so grateful that she's been spending more and more time in our classrooms. I adore her, and I look forward to having a front row seat as she continues to progress and flourish this year.

  

 

One of my favorite parts of the poetry unit is how easy it is to incorporate whole class discussions on the rug into the lessons. While we only did that for one lesson this week, I was reminded how much I love having the students share their thinking and build off of each other's ideas. Poetry is often not literal, so it involves the kids doing a lot of inferring in order to make sense of what the poet is trying to say. During this unit, we've already started learning strategies to help us do just that. This includes rereading the poem a few times, breaking down the meaning of each line and stanza of the poem, and tracking the imagery the poet is creating in your mind. On Friday of this week, we focused on figurative language, specifically similes and metaphors. To make things relevant and engaging for the kids, we used the lyrics of well-known songs to identify and analyze examples of similes and metaphors. I compiled excerpts of lyrics from a bunch of songs, like "Firework" by Katy Perry, "Happier" by Marshmello, "Titanium" by David Guetta, and "Skyscraper" by Demi Lovato. It was fun playing the songs too, and having the students recognize that figurative language really is everywhere!

Our Bucket Fillers this week were Maggie and Samar. Maggie really stood out for her participation during our discussions about the poems and songs we read. She was super engaged and eager to share her ideas. One of the aspects of my job for which I am most grateful is when kids show enthusiasm for what we're doing and what we're learning, and Maggie does that on a regular basis. So thanks, Maggie. :) I also owe a big thank you to Samar. She and Eva were lifesavers this week in how much they helped me prepare the final copies of our landmark magazines for both classes. After printing each student's pages, the next steps were to cut them out, glue them together, arrange them in the lamination sheets, and put each one through the laminator. Well Samar and Eva were wonderful in their willingness to help me out and attentiveness while doing so, and they ended up saving me a ton of time. Samar is always up to help me and help others, and I really appreciate that about her!

  

We're two days into our poetry unit, and I couldn't be more pumped! I love the poetry unit. Over the past few years, it's grown to become my favorite ELA unit of the school year. To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of poetry when I was younger. But now, as a teacher, I've come to enjoy the creativity it elicits from the kids. Over the last few years, I've tried hard to integrate writing poetry into this unit, despite it technically designed to have a primarily reading focus (with the exception of writing about poetry). And oh my goodness, the poems that kids have been able to produce over the years have truly blown my mind. The nice thing about writing poetry is that the genre lacks rules. All of the capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure guidelines we are tethered to when writing in prose are, in a way, thrown out the window. Not only that, but it allows students to write about literally anything, from feelings to interests to their own personal experiences. To this day, I have sixth graders who still share their poetry with me on Google Docs, and I love that. Reading poetry also has so many benefits. Of course, the descriptive and abstract nature of poetry gets kids really thinking and making sense of what they read. Making inferences is an imperative skill, and poems require a ton of inferential thinking in that you often have to dig deep to find the meaning packed behind each line of a poem. So yup, I love our poetry unit, and I'm thrilled that its gotten underway.

Our Bucket Fillers this week were Aliyah and Chris. I was so impressed with these two this week, particularly when it came to our spelling posttest for the most recent Spellography unit. To say they improved from pretest to posttest would be an understatement. They both clearly studied their words, and that effort certainly paid off. I'm so proud of them! Aliyah also worked super hard on the reading STAR test we took this week, and lately Chris has impressed me so much with how awesome he's been doing with transitions. I'm looking forward to having lunch with both of them in the upcoming week!

I'm not going to lie, while last week felt short, this one felt long. So this three-day weekend was both welcomed and embraced. Perhaps the reason this week felt tougher than most was the fact that the kids had their nonfiction unit assessment on Monday and Tuesday. Testing is one part of my job I could do without. It's tough to sit there in a quiet room as the kids work independently, and though not being able to provide much support isn't fun, it's an unfortunate requisite when kids are taking a larger assessment like this one. I tried to provide as much assistance and make as many resources available as I could, and most students took advantage of this. They were given a review guide on Friday, which they were able to use for a general two-part question related to what we've focused on in regards to the nonfiction genre. They were also given a chart with what is expected when it comes to writing a text-based response. The chart included both the components of this type of writing (introduction, central idea, evidence, explanations) and sentence stems to help organize their ideas. On Wednesday, we revisited main idea and supporting details with an interactive game of Quizizz on their Chromebooks. That same day, students were even given the chance to return to the main idea questions on the test and make any changes they wanted to based on the activity and on our classroom discussion. On Thursday, we did a small group activity that had students revising sample text-based responses (see the photos below). Then on Friday, students spent the class period revising and reflecting on their own written responses, using an exemplar, checklist, and individualized feedback to help them. In the picture to the right, you'll notice some colored cards on the corner of the students' desks. We use these cards as a way for students to signal if they are stuck on something or confused by something I wrote in my feedback. Rather than keeping their hand in the air and waiting for me to come over, they signal "yellow" if they need assistance or clarification. They then can continue working on other things, rather than just sitting there waiting for me to come over. This is a really simply yet valuable system that allows kids to self assess their understanding, ask for help when needed, and stay on task with what they can do when I am assisting other students. The tests will be sent home this week, and the grade on those tests will include their revisions.

Our Bucket Fillers of the week were Mac and Jodenci. Mac is thoughtful and inquisitive. He continually shows an eagerness to learn and to understand his own learning. He genuinely thinks about what is being taught to him, and he makes use of the resources provided to him. Lately, the way he's been helping his classmates has really stood out to me. Our other Bucket Filler, Jodenci, is a close friend of Mac's, which makes sense. Like Mac, Jodenci is very likable amongst his peers, and he's quick to assist others in need. Jodenci worked super hard on his nonfiction test, and he's always a reliable participant during lessons and classroom discussions. Congrats boys, both of you deserve the prize!

  

This week went by surprisingly fast! Perhaps it had to do with Wednesday's half day, or the fact that my Thursday was full of meetings, but regardless, Friday seemed to come quicker than usual. And with Friday came the conclusion to our Landmark Magazine project! After weeks of hard work--from researching to planning to drafting to revising to editing--students were finally ready to copy/paste their written sections into Book Creator, where they had their cover and inside pages already set up with various text features. They honestly look amazing, and I'm hoping to laminate everyone's magazine so that they even further emulate the real deal.

We also had Book Club this week. Most groups are cruising through their books, and I feel like I'm constantly scrambling to select new texts. For an ELA teacher like myself, what a fabulous problem to have! In addition, we did buddies with the first graders again, which is a valuable experience for both grade levels. This time, our focus was on the nonfiction genre and what we've learned about reading informational texts. Practicing strategies like previewing the text and paying attention to text features was a beneficial review for our upcoming nonfiction unit district assessment. And come to find out, first grade has their nonfiction test next week too!

Our Bucket Fillers this week were Juliet and Johnathan. Juliet is as animated and bubbly as they come. She always has a bounce in her step, a story to tell, and a compliment to give. She's been working really hard on writing smaller and neater recently, and I'm super proud of her for that. Her handwriting is already improving immensely! Johnathan has a huge heart. He's observant, reflective, very thoughtful of other people, and just an overall really likable kid. A perfect example is his decision to bring in flag football belts to share with his peers at recess. He didn't make a big deal about it or anything--his reasoning for bringing them in was quite simple: he was tired of people arguing about two-hand touch. He wanted everyone to just get along and have fun. Pretty darn sensible, huh?

 

Last week there were lots of photos, while this week, we have none! With just two days of school, it was a very short week. We also had a lot of folks absent, so our classroom felt pretty darn empty. We did do Bucket Filler this week though, and our Bucket Fillers were Eva and Laura. When I pulled Eva's name, she was super surprised, even mentioning that she didn't think "she'd picked up pencils off the floor" or anything recently. Clearly she needed some reminding of how wonderful she is! I often see her turning to help others in need, and she consistently puts a ton of effort into her school work. To put it simply, she's thoughtful--both as a student and as a person. Laura was just recently our Bucket Filler, and apparently she also got her name pulled in Mrs. O'Keefe's room this week. Am I surprised? Not even a little. Like Eva, she has a tendency to assist others, even without my prompting. She's one of the kids who consistently transitions from one activity to the next quickly and quietly, which makes me very grateful. She's just an all around gem, and very deserving of any and all recognition that she receives!