Happy Monday!

Whew...I finally have my first Monday under my belt!  It was a great start to the week, though it felt like there was a ton to do to make up for the "rain day" that we had on Friday.  We started a couple new project's today in Ms. W's class, so more updates to come as the week progresses, but here are a few highlights from the day:

• We are working on what it means to have "Quality Students" and a "Quality Teacher" in our classroom, part of a school-wide philosophy.  To review, we read Mrs. Toggle's Zipper, by Robin Pulver, and talked about all of the characteristics she possessed that made Mrs. Toggle a Quality Teacher, and all of the traits her children possessed to be Quality Students.  There might be a couple dozen books that I thought of to read aloud to demonstrate this principle, but Robin was my neighbor growing up in upstate New York, and sharing a childhood book and memory with my kiddos this morning was a true joy.

• THE SUN WAS OUT!!!!!  That meant recess outside today--ohmyword what a difference this made for my kiddos.  Mother Nature, please do me a favor and cooperate for at least the next couple of weeks (preferably until mid-June of 2012, or really just, selfishly, for the rest of my teaching career) and I promise I will love you forever and always.
• For those of you other teachers out there that use the Daily 5 for your Language Arts blocks, I may have found a gem for you!  Part of this Language-Arts-block-set-up is based around having students learn to "read to self."  This may sound like a simple concept, but the way it is taught is to have students reading to themselves, completely uninterrupted and engaged, and to do this as a whole, entire class.  Y'all, there are entire classes taught (to adults) on how to implement the Daily 5.  It's big stuff!  (And really great!!!)  Anyways, the book I found and read to my kids was called The Best Place to Read, byDebie Bertram and Susan Bloom.  Though the character in the book winds up reading on his mom's lap (not really an option at school, unfortunately!), it gives some great examples of places not to read, which is something that the Daily 5 focuses on, too!

•  One more thing that I'm learning (well, have been learning for the past couple weeks) is that a classroom takes weeks and weeks to create.  I find that every day I realize something more that I want to add and change, but I am heeding the advice of veteran teachers in making these changes gradually and not breaking myself to get them all done immediately.  (For a Type-A like me, though, this takes some serious restraint!)

That's all for now...project updates to come!

Happy Monday from Room 106,
Allie