Nose in a book

While this morning was rather dreary, rainy days often make good work days in school--kids aren't distracted by beautiful weather and usually buckle right down to work.

Today students began reading independently --over the next few weeks they'll have three self-selected short stories to read. Most kids made good use of time in class today. I've also posted some story links for reading and listening on my Moodle course--I showed students today where to locate these. Listening to a story after or before reading is a great reading strategy! We'll use book discussion groups to work with the stories on Wednesday of this week--kids will have time tomorrow to prepare for that discussion time.

I did grade Writer's Notebooks today and many students are not using the time in class to write, respond, and work on vocabulary. It's the beginning of the year and some may not think their WN is a "real" assignment, but we'll have a little heart-to-heart tomorrow about expectations, etc.