#SOL18 Day 6 March 6th

Bad Moments are Vampires My goodness, today as a whole was great. I started the day with INDEPENDENT READING and conferencing. I love talking to my kids about what they are reading and the excitement they share but I also love to hear their negative opinions and struggles about at text. It tells me they are becoming readers. Each of my three classes started with about a 20 minute Independent reading time and then with my 7's I read A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes and What Do You Do With A Chance by Kobi Yamada. Using those text they are writing their own poems about a time they either took a chance or passed one by, we ended the class reading the wonderful Scar Island by Dan Gemeinhart. My students love it, I love reading it and they are all on the edge of their seats every page I turn. With my 8's we followed the same structure of INDEPENDENT READING and conferencing followed by a discussion of our poetry assignment. I then played My Honest poem by Rudy Fransico and we looked at the performance as well as the text and students started crafting their own. The first group it went great the second NOT SO MUCH. There was a few that had an attitude about the work, messing around being silly. It distracted others, annoyed me and no matter the strategy I used the little disturbances in the force rippled the waters of the whole class. The positive energy just got sucked out of the room. I think we all have these days, but wow it is hard to focus on all the great with this little bit of bad hanging on for dear life with the fangs drawn. Tomorrow I throw the garlic around my neck, pull the blinds up and let the light shine brightly. I am done with letting negative thoughts and behaviors be a vampire that pulls the great out of my day. Tomorrow PS: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD IN THE WORLD LET KIDS READ, JUST TO READ!