Nov. 2, 2015

At U-CAN this past week, this great resource was given out to one of your team members.  We spent time going over the well formatted one-page reading strategy ideas.  One thing that I LOVE about this book is that it shows you an example.  Each strategy is cross referenced by levels, skills and genre.  That makes this a great resource for Social Studies and Science as well!  Take a look at the example for younger students but keep in mind there are over 300 strategies in this book. This is a perfect resource so go to when you are trying to differentiate for all levels.  Please take time to examine this resource in your next team meeting.  If you would like time to look through it together, please email me and let's set up a time.

May 11, 2015

At our recent Reading Workshop training taught by Amy Henderson, an OC Taylor 3^rd grade teacher, she shared an app called CONFER.  This app allows you to set up your class, share it with colleagues, and make anecdotal notes. 

One of the features that impressed me was the ability to group students. Delivering support to Tier 2 & 3 students is very crucial to the their growth and this is a viable way to track by documenting the success and weaknesses to drive your instruction and to use at parent conferences/ASC/RTI meetings. 

The app is $24.99 and when you see the features it has, I think you will LOVE it. 

March 23, 2015

What are you colleagues saying?  Here are 2 comments that were shared with me about Wednesday’s ELA training.  Please ask Catha, Valerie, Alejandra, Jennifer and Deron about it because they all had great things to share. 

Reading workshop was amazing. Wonderful presenter!! She shared components of Readers Workshop with specific things to do. She shared about the classroom library, anchor charts and more. Not to mention, links to awesome resources. This was worth every minute!

One thing I'm looking forward to is the session on planning.  It's one thing to have the desire to do a Reading Workshop with your students and it's an entirely different thing to do it.  While I know I will enjoy Reading Workshop, I really have no idea how to effectively plan one.  Really looking to that session on April 15.

You can still sign up for the remaining classes:

Session 2, April 1, 3:30-5:00 - Readers' Notebooks and Reading Logs

http://eduphoria.gcisd.net/wshop/default.aspx?cid=3196 

Session 3, April 15, 3:30-5:00 - Read Aloud with Accountable Talk AND Planning Mini-lessons for Workshop

http://eduphoria.gcisd.net/wshop/default.aspx?cid=3197

Session 4, May 6, 3:30-5:00 - Writing about Reading and Conferring with Readers

http://eduphoria.gcisd.net/wshop/default.aspx?cid=3198

Session 5, May 20, 3:30-5:00 - Sharing my Reading: Book Talks, Book Partners, Book Clubs

http://eduphoria.gcisd.net/wshop/default.aspx?cid=3199

March 16, 2015

Recently a group of our teachers went on a site visit to another STEM school called Town Center Elementary in Coppell.  They are in their fourth/fifth year of STEM.  At our last STEM leadership meeting after school, teachers shared some of their take-aways from that visit.  One of those was the way they have adopted the STEM design process as their writing process.  Erica came back to her class and began to utilize it.  Jennifer learned about it at our share session and has already put it up on her classroom as well.  Please go by these two classrooms and see it. We can work in PLCs to design one that fits with your grade level.

September 22, 2014

One of the expectations of the Learning Liaison is to help provide access to resources.  While visiting classrooms I am searching for resources to help make connections between teachers for our own professional learning. So often our best resources are right here on campus but we do not utilize them. I asked permission to share what I found AND I will be asking you in the future as well.

This past week I discovered in two 1st grade classrooms a way they were setting expectations for their students in writing.  Diane Norwood and Irene Boyton have the GCISD writing stages posted on the wall but they provided a KID-FRIENDLY list as a description of that stage.  Even if you do not teach ELA- you still write within science, social studies and math so this idea can just be adapted for your students.  Students will not meet the challenge of growth, in any subject,  if we do not continually raise or communicate the expectations.

Also-Diane has an extensive classroom library with genre signs which will help her students read a variety of different books while fostering the love of reading.  Donalyn Miller, author of Book Whisperer, would LOVE your efforts to reinforce genres in your classroom.  If you do not teach ELA- you can reinforce genres with your content books as well. 

So please ask these ladies questions OR just go look in their rooms for ideas:)  Cannon is full of gifted teachers!!!!