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Saturday, April 5, 2014

a very late Five for Friday!

Hi all! So my fave time of the week - Saturday morning, coffee in hand, doing laundry, reading my blogs and now writing! Hope you had a great week! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today to share five awesome things about my week that just ended. Hope yours was great, too!


I love the Internet. Funny memes, BuzzFeed, and awesome blogs make me laugh about the ins and outs of our field. Here's a buzzfeed that had some super amazing protest signs teachers were carrying. This one was my fave:

Today on my facebook feed, a teacher friend posted this and it made me laugh, too:



idk who that lady is on the right - but I can't get her out of the pic!

And, a new blog that I love: Curmudgucation. This guy is HILARIOUS. Yesterday he was writing about the Washington Post interviewing Michelle Rhee. This part was just great - you'll see when you get to the 'freakish intensity' part. Michelle Rhee was quoted about in italics, and then his reply follows:



I mean, this is how I feel about literacy stuff - I have a freakish intensity about it and it's so true. Book talk books to fifth graders? Yes please! (See same kids in hallway three days later and ask all of them what they're reading...yup!) Do running records and then feel giddy about any teacher who wants me to show them how I track the data? omg! Plan word study lessons to get kids to differentiate short from long vowel patterns? The stuff of dreams! The possibility of teaching as an adjunct at a University - I just. hit. the jackpot! (I have an interview on Wednesday!) (Forever grateful, LH!)

Freakish intensity? Yep, and proud of it!


The Stripes Store - Tiger Tickets - and our Amazing Parents:


We use PBIS at our school and Tiger Tickets. Kids save up their tickets and then get to "shop" at the Stripes Store. Our parents are so awesome....in addition to all the events they do - Valentine's Dance, Movie Night, Book Fairs - they also help run our Stripes Store. The kids love it - one boy, A, bought vampire teeth and then left them on my colleagues' desk with a note. He actually stopped by the other day to ask her if she still had them, and there they were on her desk. Anyways, it does take a village and I'm so thankful for the awesome collaboration that happens with the families of our kiddos!


The Someday List



Do your kiddos use a Someday List? It's just a list they keep in their notebooks of the books they want to read someday. Keeping this list helps kids become readers who can figure out everything on their own. When they finish a book, they don't need to go to their teacher to ask what to read next, because if they are keeping a Someday List, they know right where to look! The key is getting them to think about it each week. I used to do this as part of my "Do Now" when I taught middle school. Kids would come in and their instructions (maybe once a week) would be to read their friends' blogs and then add to their Someday List. The constant reminder of the list helps kids remember how to direct themselves as readers!




"Ms. Brezek, I LOVE this book!"


Get ready for freakish intensity - I had the kids in my RtI group take Love That Dog home for Spring Break, and then J came back loving it, so I gave him Hate that Cat. We don't even read our independent reading books in our RtI group, but he brought it with him every day, and on the first day back, he was just ecstatic about the book. This is what makes me love literacy and get so excited about it. If we can get all our kids to be this excited about it - we're doing exactly what we should be!


Speaking of my kiddos....


Three fourth graders and three fifth - these are kids in one of the two groups that I see every day. I seriously love kids. Not only do I get to hang out with them for 40 minutes every day, but we also get to read lots of books together and work on our reading. Win - Win!

Yesterday we were talking about passions and after I asked them about theirs they asked about mine, and so this blog came up. I told them about it, they wrote down the title, and wanted to go looking. I told them I'd put their pic up, so here it is. As a 1:1 district, our kids are all over the technology, so it's pretty cool. The girls seemed interested in writing, so perhaps I'll have them blogging with me very soon!

And, you know we have to do a funny face picture, too:




That's all for me today. Gators play at 5...we're one game away from the finals! Woop-woop!

Have a fab weekend!





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