Writing Focus

Wow, what a week! Thinking about it... what a MONTH! Does anyone else feel as though November is SO crazy? We only have 2 full weeks of school in the month of November. With PD days, conferences, Thanksgiving, etc., I'm going to blink and it will be Christmas! With that being said, I need to take a step back and remind myself of how thankful I am and take some time for myself.

I am big in to working out and having some time to decompress after the day. What do you do to come down from the day? I have been taking Ballet Burn and LOVING it! This morning, I ran in a 5k. Call me crazy, but I'm signing up for my first (and probably only) marathon. However, I'm thankful that I take the time to do this for myself and be healthy.

In addition to that, I'm taking two masters courses. However, the light is at the end of the tunnel... I sent in my graduation papers on Friday! I will be done in April and graduate in May. I'm thrilled to be done and continue applying the literacy strategies that I have learned.

Now, on to what's going on in first grade!! We have had a huge focus on writing lately. The stages of writing are present and the students are loving writing, evaluating, and publishing their work. To begin writing, I model everything. I like to call it "Ping Pong" writing. I write, you write. This really works for them and while I'm modeling, I use a lot of Whole Brain Teaching to get the students to interact during the lesson. From there, we play calming music, they show me what good writers look and sound like, and off they go! I conference one on one and we create goals. I have been blown away with what my little ones are producing. Here are some pictures to show what we've been up to: