January 22 class

We began the day with announcements for Yellow Block, and a read aloud. I read The Whales by Cynthia Rylant. I like this informational text because it is written in a lyrical voice and yet gives so much information, such as different types of whales, where whales are found, that whales breathe air and suckle their young and sing songs to each other.

I asked the class why we need to read aloud in our writing classroom. We decided we read aloud to build community (a big deal when you're trying to establish a safe environment for sharing writing), reading fuels writing, kids hear good models for their own writing, and you can introduce different genre and writing techniques so kids can see possibilities for their own writing.



We integrated math into our writing class by making clock charts. A clock face with numbers of the hours was drawn in the middle of a 5x8 sheet of paper and lines were drawn out from each hour. Students went around the room making appointments for the different times, and these appointments become partners for activities. I got the idea from Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading book. We used our 4:00 partner when we engaged in a silent conversation concerning our beliefs about writing. A silent conversation begins with writing on a piece of paper (or texting on your phone) your thoughts and then trading the paper with the partner. We decided it slowed our thinking down, which can be a good thing, and that we might not want to do this with first graders although they might like "passing notes" just like older kids do.

Homework is to begin a timeline of our learning to write to include positive and negative memories from preschool through college years. We'll use this in the next two classes to write our autobiography. The purpose of the autobiography is to remember our writing journey so we can re-create or avoid lessons we had in our lives when we get into our own classrooms.
Also read Fletcher Ch 4-6 and make notes or highlight to use on Tuesday in an activity.