Most Difficult Thing to Teach

     As I reflect on all the different things that I have taught in the past 6 years of 4th grade I keep coming back to Writing.
     Writing is something that every year I find many students are weak in. Some have trouble writing in complete sentences, others create run-ons, some have trouble telling a complete story because they write in circles about many different things and cannot choose just one to focus on.
     I can teach all the different concepts needed and give the students practice but most of the time they don't come to me on a level playing field. I do many one on one conferences, peer edit, have an author's chair, try to incorporate writing other places besides just writing time and many other things.
     I shared this with Ms. Brimhall and Mrs. Chapman this afternoon and we had a nice discussion about ideas on how to improve those weak writer. One thing that Ms. Brimhall mentioned was having the students create the morning message or a morning editing piece. They can write something on the Promethean board and then we can edit it as a whole class.
     I am interested in using edmodo more for the students to practice writing and develop communication skills.
    The challenge this year is to create successful writers in multiple genres of writing... I think there will be a lot of Reading and Science cross curricular writing. The Scientific Method that we went over today will help create more fluent writers. Also, the reading for tonight talks about summarizing and note taking. I think that summarizing practice in reading can lead to better writers too. Funny thing is that in reading summarizing is usually a struggle for them too. I guess practice makes perfect and we are just going to have to do a lot of practice and get the students involved as much as possible with the lessons... technology can be the key... but what other kinds to use???

Rip Van Winkle

I doubt that Rip Van Winkle would have felt totally at home in my classroom if he walked in this past year. My students used the laptops at times. Everyday I had some students working on the PC stations in the classroom. I also used the Promethean board daily. Even if he wasn't seeing the technology being used when he walked in he would probably be asking himself what was with the big white board and the box extending out from the top of it... what are the square boxes that have letters on a rectangle??

Interact

I have been working really hard learning new things at INTERACT to bring back into the classroom. We will be using edmodo this year and maybe making some movies!!  I can't wait!

Coming Soon....

Coming soon... Mrs. Adams is going to post information and activities about her class here. :)
This will hopefully be up and running in the Fall of 2011