It’s been such a great, BUSY week!

Wednesday’s workshop on using Google Reader went GREAT! Here’s a shout out to any of my coworkers who are now following my blog — you guys ROCK! I’m going to try to follow up with everyone who attended within the next week or so and help them with any post-workshop issues/anxiety they may have.

Yesterday was Book Club meeting number two. As you know, we were reading Harriet the Spy. I saw a few of my kids kind of struggling with the book. For 2nd/3rd graders who are just a little above their reading level, it’s a pretty tough read. I started thinking about the better choices I could have made and stressed myself out about it. I didn’t know what to do and was talking to a fellow Book Club teacher who suggested I let the students cast a secret vote and make the decision. So that’s what we did. 7 to 1 they voted to make the switch to shorter books so we could read more. I told them they could keep Harriet until the end of the school year if they still wanted to read it without having to rush, and a few wanted to do that. Next year, we will cast our vote at the first meeting of each session – I like giving them the choice in the matter.

So now we’re reading A Good Night for Ghosts by Mary Pope Osborne.

My kids are absolutely bonkers for Magic Tree House books. This is by far my favorite because it takes place in New Orleans! I did this one with my last group as well, so I knew exactly what to do for the book’s intro. We read the picture book If I Only Had a Horn by Roxane Orgill and illustrated by Leonard Jenkins.

It’s a story about the childhood of Louis Armstrong and is the perfect introduction to this MTH book. Then we watched a few videos of Louis playing music and singing. Giving the students that background before reading the book makes for a much richer reading experience.

I’m off to school – day 5 of writing our William Blake style poetry. Pray that my hopes and dreams for next weeks recording process go as planned!