This is how we do it...

Soooooo...it is about that time...progress reports!

I wanted to take a minute to explain my literacy class.  You notice I said literacy...not Literacy/Social Studies.  There is a reason.  I teach READING and WRITING.  The social studies content (American history) will be taught through those disciplines.  The focus will be on the skills and strategies one needs to know to be a successful reader and writer.  The history part is secondary.  I will use short non-fiction works and picture books (possibly a novel during the Revolutionary War) to teach the basic historical concepts that 5th graders need to know.  Most of this will begin during the second nine weeks when we specifically study non-fiction texts.

I guess my purpose for writing this blog is to tell you that your child's social studies grade at this point is strictly participation in class.  We have not begun to cover social studies standards.  We have been working on procedures, and getting the basics of the workshop model down.  We are still in that process, though we are rolling along much smoother as the weeks pass.

I feel very strongly that if I can get your child reading and writing proficiently, then they will be able to do well in ALL the other subjects they have in school.   American history will not be neglected, but I will not be handing out vocabulary words, taking notes or giving tests over social studies content.  I will be teaching it through reading texts and writing about what we've read.

Constitution week will be coming up in September.  We will be studying the writing of the Constitution and its importance then and now.  Then we will discuss the Native people of our country and how exploration changed both the area now known as the United States as well as how it affected Europe.  We will begin to look at colonization and the Revolutionary war in our 2nd nine weeks.  We will focus on government in the 3rd nine weeks and finish our year with Westward expansion.

If you have any questions concerning social studies or literacy, please feel free to contact me.  Just don't PANIC when your child doesn't have much on his/her social studies progress report.

Happy reading-

Open House info

This post will be short and sweet.  I am going to put the information from open house on this post so that if you need any info from it, you have access.  You just need to click the link and you can view the slideshow. Open House Slideshow 

More photos and classroom updates soon!  Stay tuned!

Do things the "write" way...

In this quest to re-design my classroom curriculum, I attended a workshop by Kelly Gallagher.  For those of you who are not educators or who may not be literacy teachers, Kelly Gallagher is a high school ELA (English/Language Arts) teacher in Anaheim, California.  He is also an author of professional development texts on the subjects of reading and writing who travels the country speaking to teachers about these subjects.

I attended this session knowing that I would be implementing the writing workshop in my classroom.  I needed some new ideas to help my students see the value in writing.  Mr. Gallagher spoke specifically to that topic. It was as if Fate herself knew what I needed to hear that day!

Now, it is confession time...usually when I am at PD, I'm busy checking my Facebook and Instagram, or I'm doodling on my note page...basically, I'm THAT kid (you know the one) in a grown-up body.  If you are not giving me new, interesting and relevant information...I'm tuned out.  Kelly Gallagher was so interesting and everything he said was so ON POINT with my journey as an educator that I actually didn't notice when we went OVER the usually time allowance!  During this 6 hours of PD, I took a whopping 6 pages of notes and began 3 narratives.  I would have had more notes, but I couldn't write as fast as he was giving information.  It was amazing!!
The focus of his workshop was "what makes kids better writers?"  He had 4 main topics that he said improves writing:

• Volume - They have to write a lot.  Students need to have and opportunity to write many, many ungraded, un-pressured writing. 
• Choice - This goes back to volume somewhat.  They need lots of opportunities to write about things that interest them!  This needs to be with the understanding that not all writing has to be done "just to get a grade".  
• Modeling - Students need to see examples of good writing.  They need to read like writers.  They need to see the teacher struggle a little and go through the process herself so that they understand that it is not a "once and done" process.
• Conferring - Students need feedback on their writing DURING the writing...not at the end.  They need just one or two things at a time to work on within the writing piece.  Bombarding them with red ink just discourages the process.

So, what does this have to do with your child?  Well, simply put, this made so much sense to me.  It was like going to church!  I am implementing these 4 things into my classroom so that I can (hopefully) develop a love of writing within my students.  If not a love, then at least an appreciation.  I want students to understand that there are different types of writing genres, just like there are reading genres.  

This is a learning process for me, as well as for the students.  I am hoping that some of my passion and love for literacy will rub off on the students and they will continue to grow exponentially.

I hope this gives you a little more insight into my classroom philosophy.  Feel free to email me or Remind message me any questions.

Happy reading-