Saturday, February 1, 2014

A Peek at My Week {2-2-14}

Happy Groundhog Day!  I hope that furry little fella brings us a quick spring.  After the last week we had (two school snow days for the Polar Vortex Part II and more snow, snow, snow to shovel, shovel, shovel), I have quite had it with Old Man Winter. Anybody with me???

I was just looking over the very sad list of my recent blog posts.  It seems like all I can do these days is manage to post for this weekly linky party.  (Good thing I started it then, right?)  I am right in the middle of an online course I'm taking to get my Reading Teacher license and it is so much work!  At the end of the day, all I can do is fall asleep (usually reading something for class).

So, what else is up this week?
I will have another three day work week this week, but this time it won't be for bad weather (hopefully!).  I am very excited to attend the Wisconsin State Reading Association (WSRA) conference in Milwaukee this Thursday and Friday.  I love this conference, and am hoping to run into some of my friends from the Writing Project from this past summer.

At the WSRA, I will be attending some professional development sessions with these fabulous people:

Carl Anderson:  I will see two of Carl's presentations -- Assessing Student Writers and Conferring with Student Writers.

       

Aimee Buckner:  Take Note!  Strategies for Helping Students Recompose What they Read to Their Own Words
Lester Laminak:  When Writers Read
I'm sure that after these two days packed full of professional development, I will have lots to share with you here.  Be sure to check back!

Also this week, we will continue to explore Text Structure.  I plan on using select Wonders from the Wonderopolis website to demonstrate the different text structures.  
Wonderopolis
Have you ever used Wonderopolis in your classroom?  My students love it! (And it's FREE!

I have read through the titles of the Wonders and have chosen two for each of the five text structures I will teach.  Each day, we will read through one of them, identify the text structure, and give evidence for our thinking.  
What I also love is that students will learn something along the way to add to their background knowledge.  Like this Wonder we read about Earworms.  You can read about it here.  (You know that you want to know what an earworm is!  Really....it's not gross and you can impress your students with your new knowledge.)

So that's it for me this week!  How about you?  Grab my button and link up to your post.


Wishing you a fantastic week!  (Think spring!!)

10 comments:

  1. Oooooo sounds like an amazing conference! Please come back and share :) I've used Wonderopolis in my room for some independent workers during our intervention time. They have really cool topics! I've since started using NewsELA.com as well and LOVE that one too since it is tied to current events, has anchor standards listed for each article, the articles can be read in different reading levels and some articles have short quizzes. Really a neat website (it's free too).

    Enjoy your week!
    Kelli
    Tales of a Teacher

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  2. I would love to see every one of those speakers! I'm so jealous!! And Wonderopolis- OMG. Never heard of it but I'm soooo excited now! We are doing text structure now! :) Thank you for sharing!
    Jivey

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  3. Sounds like you are in store for some great professional development. I am so sick of the snow already - although I do appreciate it has my kids out of the house right now - ahhh, the quiet!! I love Wonderopolis. We used it everyday last year during one of our non-fiction units to record new learning, ask questions and make predictions. My students loved that they responded to our comments. I even had students going home and commenting or going on to find out the Wonder of the Day before coming to school!! The love it!

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  4. This looks GREAT. Definitely going to check out Wonderopolis!
    :) Erin

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  5. It sounds like you're going to have a great time! As a new bloffer I am extremely excited about joining your linky next week!

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    1. Also, I LOVE Aimee Buckner's books! I have all of them and they get better and better!

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  6. Can't wait to have you report back to us at school about the conference!!! :) You're going to have a blast! Let's hope we get a break this week and the snow goes south... I don't know if I could take another day or another snow storm!
    See you tomorrow-
    Ana
    Mrs. Bentin's Blackboard

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  7. I can't wait to hear all the exciting information you learn at your conference! I'm embarrassed, but I've never hear of Wonderopolis! I've been missing out all this time! I can't wait to really spend some time on this site!!!
    Joanne
    Head Over Heels For Teaching

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  8. I've been hearing a lot about Wonderopolis lately! I wish I was in a position to use it. Based on your blog I think you will be a great Reading Teacher!

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  9. Thank you so much for sharing about Wonderopolis. I am teaching text structure this week and I would love to know which specific articles you chose from this site. After reading several articles, they all seem similar in structure. I would greatly appreciate your help.

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