Confessions of a (former) Fourth Grade Teacher: A little about blogging...

Yahoo!!!! The final day before Spring Break is upon us!! A little happy dance is in order!!! Thank goodness no one can see it...Yikes!

I want to begin with a short recap of the day before, the day before, Spring Break! Haha! The big STAAR test is looming (along with TELPAS online...but that's a whole other blog!). Part of my plan is to review two or three parts of speech each day before my reteach or test prep. I find ELLs need a repeat of ALL parts of speech because practicing at home is usually not possible. Today, we reviewed nouns and verbs and their correlation to subjects and predicates. My students looooovvveee the Schoolhouse Rock video, The Tale of Mr. Morton. I remember these videos from my childhood. I loved watching them on Saturday mornings and singing along. Turns out that the technology generation loves them, too! Here is our anchor chart:

I am really beginning to appreciate, and even strongly like, anchor charts. (Some of you are coughing up your dinner after reading this...sorry!) I think my students are now excited about them and refer to them often because I am more open-minded about them...the irony is rich, here. Anyway...in my ALT group, the students created their own foldables based on these charts.

I let my students use markers, etc. to create foldables, but this student chose not to. The point of the activity was for students to put their sentence together underneath the correct tabs. They did a really good job on this basic review.

Now...on to blogging...I have found it soooooo therapeutic. I get to say what I think, show what I do, and share to hopefully help others. There are so many fantastic ideas out there in the vast world of teacher blogging. There is a whole system out there that I never knew existed!!! It's fantastic!! So many are willing to share!! And those that sell their ideas have fantastic prices! It's great to purchase things from teachers because you know these ideas have actually been used and tested in their classrooms!

So many teacher bloggers have helped with minor newbie things, like fonts, page setups, comment links, etc. We all become jaded at times and experience people in our lives who don't share anything at all with their colleagues. And, quite simply, I have had episodes of not sharing. I usually get turned off by "I'm not spending my money on these kids." or "Yea, well, I've done that before at my other school." or "My kids won't like it." That locks me up and shuts me down. Something I need to work on, I guess. However, in Blog Land, there is nothing but support, encouragement, and down right kindness. I just love the "awesomeness" of it all!!

I will also say that blogging has forced me to rethink lessons, try harder, and become inspired to express my creativity...something that was beginning to get lost these last two years. Creativity was at a high for me when I taught 1st...I'm glad that this blog has helped me find it again.

So, again I end with a quote that suits my post...

"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."--John Lennon

Thank you, dear Blog Land, for answering my screams!!! Haha!!