Whew! I can't believe I was sick for 6 days! Luckily, as some of my students worried, I did not have Ebola, just a nasty cold. Be sure you keep yourself healthy: get lots of sleep, some extra vitamin C, and drink plenty of water.
I was so sad to miss out on most of the week with my students. We have so much fun together, it was a drag to be at home by myself. I also know that it can be stressful for students to have a substitute for so many days. I appreciate those students who worked hard to welcome our subs into this community and show them the ropes. It shows a lot of maturity to make this a safe space for any new person. In Enrichment we have been diving into several new things including our first real days of writers workshop and reading The Giver. I am so excited to see where both of these projects will take us. In Humanities we have been working with the short story Rikki Tikki Tavi. While the project has taken a little longer than planned because of my absence, I have been impressed by students understanding of this story. They are creating comics that represent a portion of the story. I can't wait to see what they create! Thank you so much to all the families who are supporting the great work your kids have been doing. Continue to reach out to me as needed. I will do my best to respond as quickly as I can. Its been great to communicate with some of you already! Have a wonderful weekend, soak up some of that sunshine. I'm off to have dinner with my family! Ms. Soloway
0 Comments
We made it through another week! It was such a treat to see parents last night at Back to School Night. I am always so happy to get to know a little bit more about where my students come from and make sure that I am offering them support from every angle. Getting to share my classroom with my students' family made it feel that much more homey. I hope that this continues to grow into a place where students feel safe and able to express themselves.
This week students worked HARD to get their posters completed. They had the opportunity to use the schools Chromebook lab (like laptops with touch screens that run google apps) to type up their writing. It took us a while to get the hang of logging in to the computers but once we were rolling, I saw so much excitement about making high quality work. I was impressed by the way students stepped up to help each other in every possible way. What an awesome community we have already developed! After some focused crunch time work these posters are looking phenomenal and bring so much character to our room. With our poster work finished students made a quick transition into more structured work. In enrichment we are beginning our unit on the Giver (I heard many shouts of joy when this was announced). We started by talking about theme which students were quick to pick up. In Humanities we have started in on our short story unit with reading "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros and talking about text based questions and answers. I can't wait to explore more texts and critical reading strategies as we continue. I hope you are all looking forward to enjoying another sun filled weekend. Find a nice spot outside and get some reading done! Ms. Soloway Wow! I can't believe how fast time flies. We finished our first full week successfully and we are ready to jump into week 3.
Students have been working hard to produce impressive work. I have been blown away by the enthusiasm and work ethic in all of my classes. In Humanities students dove right into writing poems, a hard task for anyone but they took the task very seriously and I am looking forward to seeing their final drafts in a few days. On Tuesday we will begin constructing posters that highlight the work we have done already for Back to School Night. In Enrichment after our exciting visit to the library on Tuesday, we had our first silent reading day. Students had the opportunity to spend more than half the period engaging with a book of their choice. It seems like students have done a great job of picking exciting books because everyone read the entire time. On Thursday students then brainstormed and dug into their first writing assignment. They are creating several short pieces of writing that talk about who they are. Their final versions will be on display for Back to School Night. There is so much great stuff to come. I cannot wait to see how students continue to work hard and engage deeply. I feel lucky to have such active and interested learners around me. Enjoy the sunshine and the rest of your weekend. See you on Monday! Ms. Soloway One Day Down!Well our first day came and went in Room B4 so smoothly I could barely tell it happened. Students showed up eager and ready to go. I was so impressed by how prepared everyone was with all their materials ready to go. Lets keep that trend going. I was also so pleased by everyone's willingness to engage in two different writing activities today right off the bat! Wow! We are going to get a lot of learning done this year with those types of attitudes. Keep treating each other and our classroom with respect, you did a really impressive job of that today.
Tomorrow is another day and I am SO excited to continue getting to know all of you. Well, day 1 is off to a great start. Our 6th graders have the run of the building today. Being led by 8th graders they have a chance to tour the school and start to make friends. The second half of the day they got to visit each of their regular classes.
In my enrichment class students listened to the book Stellaluna by Janell Cannon and then talked about what they could learn from the main character's experience. I heard amazing ideas about being yourself, respecting who other people are, and not changing just because someone says you should. Tomorrow we will get started with getting to know each other better and learning about what our school year will look like. I am looking forward to this school year and getting to share this learning adventure with all of my students. See you tomorrow 7th graders! Ms. Soloway |
ArchivesCategories |