Teaching with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen
The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Early Grades by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser
Sharing the Pen: Interactive Writing with Young Children by Gail E. Tompkins and Stephanie Collom
Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook by Aimee Buckner
All wonderful books that I have learned so much from! In addition, I attended another workshop with Lola Schaefer that was offered by my county and covered the topic of teaching writing specifically in kindergarten and first grade.
What went into my Teacher's Backpack?
Where do I start? First, let me explain what I mean. The teacher's backpack is invisible, but it is a place we, teachers, either consciously or unconsciously store tools, resources, strategies, etc until a student or students need us to pull them out in a way that will help them to learn a skill or concept. Sometimes, we have to try several until we find just the right one that student needs. Often times, it the one on the bottom and sometimes we just don't have it. That's why it's important for teachers to keep learning! I can't list all the thoughts, beliefs, strategies, resources, etc that I have put in my bag even this week, but I have listed a few below and hope that you are encouraged to continue learning and adding to your own Teacher Backpack!
- One idea I am keeping in the back of my mind as I develop my class schedule for next year is that students need time to process things in order for the information to be moved into long-term storage. For this reason, I am schedule several breaks for my students.
- I began purposefully using Interactive Writing last year and saw how much it improved the writing of my students. This year, I plan to gather my students together at the end of the day and have them list all the things they did and learned for the day. We will together form one sentence to Interactive Write. I plan to insert each day's writing into my newsletter so my parents can discuss these topics with their child. Not only is this a great reflection technique, it will help my students be able to answer that age old question, "What did you do at school today?"
- I love the ideas I learned from reading The Daily 5! All of them! I have great expectations of how this is going to work in my classroom to help me create students that are independent learners! I can't say enough about this book and I think everyone should read it K - 5 and it could probably be customized by middle and high school teachers as well!
- This is another great book! So many people referred it to me, so I am so glad I finally got it. I can't wait to help my students organize their ideas to help them generate their own writing topics that are meaningful!
- I have been blessed to work with Lola Schaefer in several ways. I hope that my county continues to work with her for a long time. There is still so much for us / me to learn! One of the topics that I have focused on this summer is all the information and ideas she has shared about how to use great literature as mentor text when teaching writing. This information has changed the way I read books and what I think about them. In fact, I have visited several used book stores this summer finding many of the texts that she recommended, but also reading in search of great examples of craft. I can't wait to read them to my students!
Always remember that reading and learning about strategies is not enough. The backpack is there for a reason... easy access. Pull these new strategies out often and use them. If things don't work out as expected the first time, don't give up! Everything takes practice.
What have you learned this summer or just recently that you would like to share? Any great book suggestions? Please leave a comment below so we can share these wonderful learning experiences! I wish you all the best of luck in your upcoming school year!
