It's been a very fast four weeks of school! I have really appreciated our weekly team meetings to help me keep up with pressing issues. Learning the culture of Centennial, a new staff, new literacy expectations, a new handwriting program, and Everyday Math all at once is keeping me very busy both inside and outside of the classroom. I have come to value many things about my new environment. There is an incredible depth of experience in Centennial's staff. A sense of tradition permeates the school, such as our welcome-back breakfast under the cottonwoods. There is a feeling that administration backs up teachers, and that there is a level of support for teachers in general that I haven't experienced before. My most pressing challenge right now involves getting the master schedule to feel right. After talking about moving shared reading to the afternoon last Tuesday in our meeting, I find that it doesn't feel right to do it that way. I'm wondering if I need to streamline my opening so that I can get right to shared reading at 8:35 or so, then move into word work, and finally push back literacy centers to begin at 9:10 and shorten up center time a bit. It's something I'll have to discuss with the team this week.
I am glad that you are feeling good about the staff and traditons of Centennial. We take a lot of pride in our school and students. I am also glad to hear that you feel supported. You have made quite an impression, in a psoitive way, on me and others. Your knowledge is excellent and it is clear that you value your students and their achievement.
As far as the Master Schedule goes, how does it feel after last weeks' meeting? Is it flowing better? Was your team able to confer with the other support staff to make sure we can make the changes more permanent? Let me know!
I really like the changes we made to the Master Schedule. It now feels like a much better fit. I like starting each day with the shared reading piece, which I'm now choosing based on the sight words that I want to introduce during the week. Moving the word work into the next block of time after recess makes me feel much less rushed for this priority (for me) part of the day. I also like getting the white boards out only once...both for a few minutes of handwriting and for word work. Writer's Workshop is a logical follow-up to our daily word work segment. I'm really glad that we spent the time and hammered out the changes to our Master Schedule. I'm also happy to see my teammates adopting some of the materials from the F & P CD, especially the sorts. I came to value sorts while teaching Words Their Way in intermediate, and have a very interesting article reporting on research done by one of the authors of WTW. She found that students actually learned very few words while reading predictable text, and so came to recommend sorts as one way to have kids attend to word differences. I am now a sorts fan!
It's been a very fast four weeks of school! I have really appreciated our weekly team meetings to help me keep up with pressing issues. Learning the culture of Centennial, a new staff, new literacy expectations, a new handwriting program, and Everyday Math all at once is keeping me very busy both inside and outside of the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI have come to value many things about my new environment. There is an incredible depth of experience in Centennial's staff. A sense of tradition permeates the school, such as our welcome-back breakfast under the cottonwoods. There is a feeling that administration backs up teachers, and that there is a level of support for teachers in general that I haven't experienced before.
My most pressing challenge right now involves getting the master schedule to feel right. After talking about moving shared reading to the afternoon last Tuesday in our meeting, I find that it doesn't feel right to do it that way. I'm wondering if I need to streamline my opening so that I can get right to shared reading at 8:35 or so, then move into word work, and finally push back literacy centers to begin at 9:10 and shorten up center time a bit. It's something I'll have to discuss with the team this week.
Hey Becky!
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you are feeling good about the staff and traditons of Centennial. We take a lot of pride in our school and students. I am also glad to hear that you feel supported. You have made quite an impression, in a psoitive way, on me and others. Your knowledge is excellent and it is clear that you value your students and their achievement.
As far as the Master Schedule goes, how does it feel after last weeks' meeting? Is it flowing better? Was your team able to confer with the other support staff to make sure we can make the changes more permanent? Let me know!
Liz
I really like the changes we made to the Master Schedule. It now feels like a much better fit. I like starting each day with the shared reading piece, which I'm now choosing based on the sight words that I want to introduce during the week. Moving the word work into the next block of time after recess makes me feel much less rushed for this priority (for me) part of the day. I also like getting the white boards out only once...both for a few minutes of handwriting and for word work. Writer's Workshop is a logical follow-up to our daily word work segment.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad that we spent the time and hammered out the changes to our Master Schedule. I'm also happy to see my teammates adopting some of the materials from the F & P CD, especially the sorts. I came to value sorts while teaching Words Their Way in intermediate, and have a very interesting article reporting on research done by one of the authors of WTW. She found that students actually learned very few words while reading predictable text, and so came to recommend sorts as one way to have kids attend to word differences. I am now a sorts fan!