Tuesday, 11/5/13

Oh gosh, the kids sure came in talking about that Bears game last night!! I was at the IPTO meeting for the beginning of the game, and when I got home THEY WERE WINNING!!!!!!!!! I was beyond shocked (not that I doubted, but those smelly Packers are so darn good. Humph!). So------because I couldn't be a jinx, I immediately changed the channel. I was dying to watch the game and see how things had been going, but when you have a smidge of superstitious tendencies, well, you stop at nothing to help your team win. So, I "sacrificed" with a little Adam Levine eye candy and flipped occasionally and quickly for a score update----then finally saw the final score and could breathe again!!!!!!!!!!!! Happiness across the land!!!!!!!!!!!!! Check out our classroom graph: It's starting to look more and more beautiful, huh?

Today in writing there was one of those lessons that I wish so badly you could see. Your kids are just amazing and are growing exponentially before my very eyes. Let me premise my story by giving some insight--I've never been one to talk "baby talk" or "little kid talk" to my students. I talk to them using my normal vocabulary that I'd use talking to anyone. Sometimes I have to explain a word or two, but the reason that I bring all of this up is that I'm always impressed when I see the kids start to rise to the occasion and start using bigger vocabulary themselves---AND THAT HAPPENED TODAY! Okay, so my excitement is not so much over the vocabulary itself, but rather how one student expressed himself in an interesting set of circumstances. Let me set the scene: We were doing a writing lesson on "bold beginnings." The page we were looking at gave 2 choices of beginning sentences: one that was deemed bold and another which was not. We went down the line, one by one, for all four sets following the same formula: I'd ask the kids to decide which of the two they though was the bolder, then the students who chose choice A were to defend their answer and those who chose B were to defend theirs. When we got to the fourth set, only one child chose A, while everyone else chose B. As we went into our dialog, the one student defended his answer and a few who chose the other defended theirs. Then something amazing happened----one of the kids (who'd chosen choice B) began to explain why it was "okay" that the initial child (who'd chosen A) made his choice. With all of my heart I wish I could have recorded how he stated his feelings, it was so eloquent and "grown up." It was something to the effect of, "I understand why XXX made his choice and he was right to tell use his opinion." That's not really how he said it, but it was something along those lines and it was UH-MAY-ZING! It made my teacher heart melt as well as beam with pride. I can never say enough about this age level and how, given the opportunity, the kids have the capacity to exceed any and all "little kid" expectations. They may be miniature-sized humans and have little, unsoiled minds, but their brains are GIGANTIC and growing every second. My mind was blown today, and I can't wait for it to happen over and over and over between and now and June!!