journal 44 bad teacher

This wil be my last teacher journal before break and I've been thinking of things I will do during my break.  One thing I have to do is take home all the reaidng response binders and respond respond respond.  I have been unable to figure out a way that works fore me so that I can respond to the kids on a daily basis and I feel awful about it.  It's something I've woken up a few times during the night thinking about.  I'm asking them to do this on a daily basis-write to me-yet I'm not fniding the time to write back to them.  The purpose of this daily is to have that relationship with the teacher and reading.  I must get it done.  I feel like the binders are laughing at me.

journal 43 likes that it's different

Today I worked with two groups totaling 12 kids.  The novel studies that they are doing are holiday books, but don't scream HOLIDAY!!  When I asked them how they felt about their novel studies they said, "we like them it's something different than what we've done before."  This made me think about if they've had a lot of reading independence before?  Or, have they just not worked in small groups?  If it's something that's different now and they're in third grade then what type of small group work has gone on in previous years?

journal 42-academic focus

Keeping an academic focus this week is going to be tough but today my kids did much better than they did at the end of last week!  I didn't have to have chats with them during their daily time they were almost all on task. 

I have been forgetting to make a new Text Talk for the word work daily so I've been having those kid read to self.  I think there's value in this because then more of my students are getting uninterrupted time to be reading. They do ask about the text talk but I just haven't had time.  And secretly I want them to be reading to self a little bit more.  :)

journal 41 torture

Can I just say that it's almost a week until Christmas break and that no matter how awesome my classroom is at the Dailies, no child should have to be in school one more week!  They were so off today and I don't blame them.  But we have another week to go!!

journal 40 meeting

At the end of each reading period we have a short meeting in which students check in with me.  They do thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs middle based on how they did during their daily that day.  I thought this would be a huge data point in my action research but have found that so many kids think they are doing a great job no matter what and also don't want to get in trouble so they will always put thumbs up.  Today I had 3 lone rangers say thumbs middle and when I asked them what they did that wasn't so rock start today they said-
"I wasn't really in the book, I was talking more and not getting lost."
"My nose wasn't in the book enough."
"I was looking around a lot."

These responses made me think that they are being reflective.  These students were kids that I had caught eyes with throughout the Daily time and they knew they weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing the minute I caught eyes with them.  But then, after I catch eyes with them I don't talk with them about what they're doing wrong.  They came up with that themselves.  It made me think that they are being reflective and know what they are supposed to be doing, but I realize I can't be too tough on them.  Unless they are repeat offenders, I've got to sometimes just realize that they are kids and they aren't always going to be able to be 100% on at all times.

journal 39 listening to reading

In between working with groups today, I sat back and looked around at the kids who were listening to reading as their daily.  They were so into the book and listening and following along.  Not one of my students in the daily listening to reading got up once during the time (unless they had to change their picture book).  It really is great to see this.  What it made me realize is that even the smartest kids sometimes struggle to read words but listening to reading takes away that problem of decoding and students can just focus on getting lost in a book and loving it.  It made me think even more that it's important for us as adults to read to the kids around us.  Though I don't have kids of my own, when I do I know I will read to them.  They need to learn to love to read and love books listening to an adult read whether on CD or in person is a magical experience for a reader no matter the instructional level.  Every kid smart or struggling loves to have a book read to them.

journal 38 how many!

Since my last fellowship meeting I've really been trying to see how many kids I pull on a daily basis.  Such a huge part of my wanting to use the Daily 5 was because it gave me a built in time during the day to work with small groups on Reading.  But since I'm human some days I'd work with more and some days I'd work with less depending solely on how I was feeling.  I have got to snap out of that.  The point of using this program is to give the kids individualized instruction that they need targeted at what they need.  So Today I worked with 12 kids!!  That's half my class during Reading.  I was very excited to see this.  I worked one on one with one student on making words for Kindergarten and then two reading groups.  One was on their novel study and another was on the questioning technique!  I was so happy and I felt like such a great teacher.  This is making my the kind of reading teacher I want to be.