Friday Focus - 1/4/13

Is anyone else surprised that it's Friday already?!  

Great things I've Noticed This Week (some are from right before break):

• Students learning about Alliteration with the Alliteration Rap.
• Grammar activity SO much more exciting than a worksheet: to review nouns/verbs/adjectives students had to talk to each other in pairs, but say something with NO noun or NO verb or NO adjective.  This is quite funny to watch as they catch themselves and realize you can't really talk that way!
• Students working in pairs to grade math homework together--WITHOUT an answer key, just having to discuss if there's any problems with different answers and then rework the problems to figure out the correct answer. Then they had to each write a written explanation for 1 of the problems to explain what was wrong. (If you want to know more about this, just ask me!)
• I've enjoyed seeing all of the Reading Resolutions posted and already added some new book recommendations to my own to-read list from staff doors.  

Events this Week:
Monday-NO Prob. Teachers meeting (see previous email sent out)
Thursday - Consumable Supply Orders due

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

• The 2nd round of student surveys should be conducted and the Survey Analysis forms (in OASYS) should be completed by January 15th. Please ask me if you have any questions on this process. I will try to review them within a week, but last time it took me a few weeks to get through them. 
• I would love to have some students share their reading resolutions on the morning announcements each day over the next few weeks. Please let me know if you have some students that would be interested.
• If you have any students that you have concerns regarding possible retention and I'm NOT aware of it already, please let me know so we can start the SIT process. 

"Blogs, Pins, and Tweets...Oh My!"

*If YOU are personally looking for a good book to read, here are the "Nerdies" awards for best Young Adult Literature: And now, here are the YA Nerdies

*We all build reading lives--every year, every child, every classroom. We can be a force for good for always. #booklove @PennyKittle

click HERE for a site with other writing prompts