Partnership for 21st Century Skills

http://www.p21.org/

I have just spent some time browsing this site.  It gives a array of information about changes that need to be made to help the children we are teaching now be ready for the real world.  Their mission is to prepare students with the knowledge they need to be better citizens and ready for the workplaces in the 21st century.

There is a link to visit the various states that are already participating in this important program.  I was disappointed to see that the state I teach in, California, is not one of them.  I do feel that I am preparing my students for the 21st century real world but I would feel much better if we were working on this as a state. 

Reading Strategies

I have started a reading program in my classroom that is comparable to an adult book club.  I give the students about 20 minutes to read nonfiction texts.  They have post-it notes to tab pages of anything they would like to bring to the circle.  They students absolutley love this opportunity to share their thinking aloud with the class.  Students tab pages that may have a challenging word that they need help with, something that may have given them a "wow moment", a word or even a sentence that they had to use a reading strategy to understand the information being read, etc.  Having a class blog would give my students time to share that same information when doing their nightly reading at home.  This might even spark interest for other students to dig deeper into that same topic or help another students have a greater understanding of what they are reading. 

Feeling Appreciated

We are celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week at school.  My students brought me an array of adorable  homemade cards yesterday and many beautiful flowers today.  Our classroom smells so fragrant today.  I think I might start leaving a small vase on my desk to put fresh flowers in throughout the year.  I love when my students pick them on their walks to school or while out on the playground and I never have a place for them.  I can't wait to have a brighter desk!

A First Time For Everything

This is the first time I have ever seen a blog, much less created my own.  I have so many friends that Blog and I have never quite understood the whole thing.  I am working towards a master's degree in technology so I better give this a try.  I am thinking this might be a great way to publish the books that my students are writing in their Writer's Workshop.