Working day in Writing Workshop – September 4, 2007

Mr. Stoltenberg worked very hard today conferencing with students in Writing Workshop and everyone worked hard thinking, writing, revising, and editing their pieces of writing. Students will be given tomorrow and Thursday as well to continue working on this quarter’s Writing Workshop.

Homework – Letter to Mr. Stoltenberg is due Friday. There will be a test over the 10 Caught’ Ya Vocabulary words on Friday.

Quote of the Day – “The secret of success is for a persn to be ready when his opportunity comes.”
—— Benjamin Disraeli

First Day of Writing Workshop

Today was our first day of our Writing Workshop and everything went well. I discussed my expectations and rules for the Workshop, collected concept maps, and conferenced with students about what they planned on writing during workhop time. There were no handouts today.

Homework – Read for 30 minutes tonight

Qoute of the Day – “Experience is not what happens to iyou; it is what you do with what happens to you.”
—-Aldous Huxley

Concept Maps and Prewriting

Mr. Stoltenberg gave an excellent lesson over the prewriting stage of the writing process. Students worked in groups to make concept maps by brainstorming topics of interest. Workshop contracts were reviewed and revised as students begin working toward getting started in Writing Workshop.

Homework (8/29) – students are to bring in a concept map for one of their chosen topics to begin working on in Writing Workshop.

Quote of the Day – ” Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.”
——— Les Brown

August 27, 2007 – Getting Workshop Contracts signed

We started the day with another neat Caught’ Ya in the continuing saga of Romeo and Juliet. Students worked on correcting the sentence and checking their mistakes as we graded the Caught’ Ya.

Letters to Mrs. Holloway were turned in today.

Writing Contracts were discussed and the Menu of Writing Possiblilities was handed out and discussed today. Students were asked to take home the contract, discuss with parents, and bring it back signed. Monday, October 1 is the deadline for having all pieces of writing handed in as Friday, Oct.12 ends the quarter. Questions were asked and I answered them and explained more about what they could write about during Writing Workshop. I hope the students are excited and ready to work! Mr. Stoltenberg, my student teacher, is working on lesson plans and ideas for encouraging some great writing activities designed to enhance the Six Traits of Writing. Six Traits are the criteria by which students’ writing is assessed.

A spelling and vocabulary pre-test were taken by students today and we discussed how these results could show us what we need to work on in this area as the year continues.

Homework – Writing Workshop Contract signed by students and parents due Tuesday, August 28, 2007.

Quote of the Day – “Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.”
—— Haim Ginott

Welcome to Mrs. Holloway’s Reading and Writing Workshop!

Good day to everyone! I am so pleased with last night’s Open House turnout and how parents came to visit their child’s classes. It was so good to see each and every parent who came into my classroom to talk to us. My student teacher, Mr. Stoltenberg, was very impressed with all of you and your interests in your child’s education. Once again, thank you.

We are still in the process of setting up our classroom climate and so will be working on more building a learning community during the rest of the week. Today we set up our reading folders, took a reading survey, and discussed books and their importance to our lives. Interview letters were handed in after students completed the daily Caught’ Ya (listening, notetaking, working with grammar and punctuation, etc.) as well as organizing our reading folders. Tomorrow students will cover their spirals by cutting out pictures, words, and quotes to fulfill my criteria of a self-collage.

Homework: Bring in magazines to cut up and or for reading at a later date.

Quote of the Day: ” I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
—— Chinese proverb

April 26, 2007

Today was a rainy day outside, but our class was awesome as Mrs. Barnes came in to present music about the era of the 1960s. Her PowerPoint presentation and handouts were really informative giving students another look at music and its effect on our culture. The music played during the presentation kept the students attention while giving them songs to discuss.
During and after her presentation, students asked questions and took notes.

Tomorrow will be the last day for students to research the sixties and we will be going online to do so in order to prepare for the Podcast.

Homework – Read tonight for 30 minutes.

Quote of the Day
” Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.”
—- Edgar Cayce

April 16, 2007

Wow! It has been a long while since I last wrote in my classroom blog. We have been working on a Sixties unit of study and have been reading two great books in class in preparation for several neat projects to follow.

We are finishing the movie “BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURES” to help give students an idea on how to get back in “time” for their research paper. We are going to also finish reading the novels this week as well.

Homework:
Sixties Poster Collage due Friday at the beginning of the hour.

Quote of the Day:
” I hated toast. So instead of eating it, I would hide it. The closet in my bedroom was stacked with toast.”
——James Marshall
(Author of Miss Nelson Is Missing)

January 4, 2007

Day two of the new semester found 8th grade literature students discussing their thoughts and about reading and how they learned to read. After the discussion students went to the library to check out books and take a tour of its facilities.

Homework – Bring a reading book to class tomorrow

Quote of the Day
“The man who believes he can do something is probably right, and so is the man who believes he can’t”
—– Anonymous

January 3, 2007

Happy New Year! Wow, it has been a long time since I have updated my web site and I apologize for those of you who came to find out information about my classess. Good news! We are in the new building! Today was our first day at Tonganoxie Middle School and everything for my classes went well. It will take a couple of days to adapt, but we are resilant and should get the hang of everythng by Friday or so.

Mr. Egging and I have switched what we are teaching and so this quarter I am teaching with an emphasis on Literature. We will be concentrating on improving our reading comprehension and preparing for the Kansas State Reading Assessment to be given in late April or early March.

Homework – NO HOMEWORK

Quote of the Day – “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

——————— Aristotle

November 15, 2006

Students are working to finish their Soundtrack of My Life projects which are due on this coming Friday, November 17.

Homework – Letter to Mrs. Holloway is due Friday as well knowing this week’s spelling words for the test.

Offbeat Oddity – After a night’s rest, people are slightly taller.