First week of 2015!

I've been happy all week long.

I was well rested after a European Winter Break and very relieved that we made it to see Anne in France, made it to Venice, and made it home on Saturday, January 3rd after falling asleep at the Geneva airport at 11pm on Friday night and awaking at 5am to catch a 7am plane that got us to Dulles at 3pm EST. Boy, I couldn't wait to get out of that outfit and sleep in a bed.

Then I spent Sunday planning for the week. I realized that I wasn't ready to dive into the history informational writing unit. And I had stories to tell about my winter break. SO I decided the kids probably did, too and we would spend the week getting back into the routine of writing workshop and do personal narrative quick rights. Then by Wed I started introducing them to the idea of how to pick a history topic to write about next. I had fun having the kids do a write-around of a history primary source, something I learned from TCRWP.  (Next year I think I also want to have them do a history topic word sort to help give them more ideas of history topics). Then Friday we used the Bulldog story from Pathways to understand better the information checklist. In partnerships, they read the information piece and highlighted the skills of information writing. Monday they will set THEIR information writing goal and then start to read and take notes on their topic.

I was also happy to be back at Janney. I had Venice bookmarks I bought as presents for my teammates. I was excited to see my students and decided to give them more responsibility and in pairs, they would be in charge of morning meeting, homeroom, and closing circle. On Monday, we 
picked a partner, we planned with our partner and now, after 2 days of pairs running this time, I am more relaxed. The kids are getting on their classmates. The kids are planning really fun things to do. I am helping to facilitate. I'm more relaxed because as a community we are doing this work together. (Next year, I'll start this in October!)

I also am happy that Nancy, the instructional coach, is doing to work with me on how to better take notes during conferences. The Writing Committee is also going to share all about writing workshop at the PTA meeting on January 29 and I get to help and on Friday, I already started taking video clips of writing workshop. I love working with Mary and Scott. Our vertical planning meetings are so fun and useful and productive.

No wonder I have been happy all week.
I love my job as 2015 begins!!