I told you yesterday that I had professional development on writing and I came home exhausted. I exhausted today, too, but feel 'oh so better' because my kids insisted that I was too tired to cook and we needed to go out to eat for dinner. I agreed with them and off we went to Olive Garden for lots of salad (their favorite thing at Olive Garden!--yes, my kids love veggies and fruits).
During the professional development I went to, there were two quotes that stood out to me that I wanted to share with you...I even turned them into 2 posters that you can download!
For part of our professional development, we watched a video about Ben Zander, a classical pianist. He is absolutely hilarious. Many of the things he talked about as a piano teacher and conductor applies to use as classroom teachers. What teacher doesn't want their students to leave with shining eyes? You HAVE to watch the video. It makes you think very differently about music and teaching, too.
We spent a lot of time today talking about conferencing with our aspiring writers. Just like the quote, 'you catch more with honey than vinegar', our discussion led us to conclude that it is our job to find the things in a child's writing that we can compliment so as to motivate them to write more and more. We know that practice makes perfect....so we need to compliment more. Here is the quote that stood out to me today:
Jan Richardson is a 'reading guru' that has spent a lot of time in my school district training teachers in literacy and writing. She, along with the 6 Traits and Lucy Calkins, has greatly impacted instruction in many of our classrooms.
If you are like me, it will take a while for these 2 quotes to sink in. You will probably have to mull this over for a while!!
Don't forget that there is only 1 more day for our Fishing For Ideas Extravaganza, which means there is only 1 more day for my store to be 20% off. Go grab things at a discount while you can. Also, there are LOTS more freebies there than what I have listed and shown here...so go.....download merrily!!
During the professional development I went to, there were two quotes that stood out to me that I wanted to share with you...I even turned them into 2 posters that you can download!
For part of our professional development, we watched a video about Ben Zander, a classical pianist. He is absolutely hilarious. Many of the things he talked about as a piano teacher and conductor applies to use as classroom teachers. What teacher doesn't want their students to leave with shining eyes? You HAVE to watch the video. It makes you think very differently about music and teaching, too.
We spent a lot of time today talking about conferencing with our aspiring writers. Just like the quote, 'you catch more with honey than vinegar', our discussion led us to conclude that it is our job to find the things in a child's writing that we can compliment so as to motivate them to write more and more. We know that practice makes perfect....so we need to compliment more. Here is the quote that stood out to me today:
If you are like me, it will take a while for these 2 quotes to sink in. You will probably have to mull this over for a while!!
Don't forget that there is only 1 more day for our Fishing For Ideas Extravaganza, which means there is only 1 more day for my store to be 20% off. Go grab things at a discount while you can. Also, there are LOTS more freebies there than what I have listed and shown here...so go.....download merrily!!
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Jenn
Love these quotes - thank you! I recently heard one "Practice makes Permanent!" Love that one too! :)
ReplyDeleteCheryl
Crayons and Curls
Great quotes. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteApril
Wolfelicious
Cheryl, I love that quote. April, you are so welcome!
ReplyDeleteI just watched the TED Talk and it was fantastic! Thanks for sharing. I downloaded it and am going to share it with my teachers during an upcoming PD I am leading.
ReplyDeleteJana
Thinking Out Loud
I am glad you enjoyed the video. Ben Zander is so funny!
DeleteThanks for sharing. Love the quotes.
ReplyDeleteThanks Betty!
DeleteThanks for this post. Great thoughts. Tell more about the second quote, "Fix the Writer not the writing" What would that look like in your classroom?
ReplyDeleteHow do you move from a piece of writing to making a change in the writer--and thus change the writing? I'm going to be thinking about this. I'd love to see another blog post about it.
In my classroom, you would see me choose one 'big' idea to fix in a writing, not editing the whole piece. I can't change EVERYTHING that is wrong and have the student absorb it. I would conference about one thing that needs to be changed...usually whatever it is that was focused on in my mini-lessons. Before I even talk about what needs to fix, I would compliment 2 or 3 things that the student has done well--presumably what we have conferenced over in the past that needed to be edited and revised.
ReplyDeleteDoes this help? I also use colored editing...you can download it for free from my store on Teachers Pay Teachers. Here is the link to my store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Best-Practices-4-Teaching. Color editing works really well in my classroom. A lot of times I compliment that as well when we are talking about editing.
Another, more simpler, version of color editing called Traffic Light Editing, can be found at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Completely-Common-Core.
I hope this helps!!