Inspiration

First of all I would like to thank you all for your responses to my blog post and emails! Please wait patiently while I figure out all of the details. I did announce to the students today about this project and the excitement in the room was palpable. I used a few students as examples, because I've already found good matches for them and their faces lit up.

I find daily inspiration in my students, and I hope that as you all email and chat with them you will feel the same. As the southerners say, "I get chill bumps just thinking about it." This morning I downloaded Obama's back to school speech and listened to it on the way to work. I was moved to tears as I was driving for a few reasons: firstly because it took place at Masterman in Philadelphia so it really seemed like it was close to my life and second of all because it was all about goal setting just like we are doing in our classroom. He told the students of America that "the future is in your hands." So of course I wrote that on my board today and as I introduced our objective mastery tracking binder I made a direct relation to this quote (this is a little too complicated to explain through blog post, but of course email or call with questions).

In addition to feeling inspired by my students' goals and aspirations today I was also impressed with their reading. TFA has us do all of these reflections that answer the question, "when you look forward to May on the last day of school what do you want your students to say to you, and how do you want it to feel?" I always talk about how my dream is that my students will all love reading and will feel that they have the tools they need to succeed in academics and life. Today my students loved reading. We read aloud by color (more on this later or email me for the strategy) and as we were reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and really getting into it I looked up at the clock and saw it was time to go. When I stopped the students in the middle of our read aloud I got responses such as awww man, and noooo it was just getting good. They love the book!!!!! I couldn't be more happy about this, especially since we have to get through all 200 pgs of it, and it is not easy for my little 6th graders. I hope this feeling will carry on throughout. Keep checking back because our classroom blog should be up and running soon!!!