Hi everyone, from HOT Tennessee! Hopefully your day was as successful as mine. Guess who created a skeleton of next years pacing guide with CCSS?? And "planned" the first two weeks of school?? Yep, that is correct. I feel my summer vacation mind slipping away and my teacher mode coming back... and it is only June 11th!! (Ahhhh...)
Anyway, today was very exciting because I got all my "potential" kiddos of next year, as well as, some interesting updates. One thing is.. I will be in a portable and I can begin construction soon, so I will update you on its progress when we get there.
Well today's post has nothing to do with today, although it is exciting. Flying on the plane back from San Juan, I began to read Notebook Know-How; Strategies for the Writer's Notebook by Aimee Buckner.
For the next few posts, I have decided to share her ideas as well as some of my own. I'll post for each chapter and once school starts (which is Aug. 1, YUCK) I will include how I use it.
So for now, let's start with the book itself. Most of you reading this will probably get to this point in the blog (hopefully you made it this far...) and you are wondering if this book is something you are even interested in. WHERE'S THE BUY IN, Right? Well you are in luck. I am up for the challenge! If you read my first post, you may have noticed I am transferring school. Last year, we did a book study over The Power of Our Words. This year, they selected NBKH to read. Since I wasn't going to be there, I wanted to see what I would be missing out on (the kids don't just get that curiosity naturally :))
When a picked up the book, the first thing I noticed was HOT DOG, it was only 132 pages long. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time investing in books that are 250+ pages. As I thumbed through, I realized there were lots of summaries, easy references pages, and short chapters. (Reason number 1 to read it). So I went home to look on amazon.com, and found it for a grand total of 10.99. (Reason number 2). Click of a button and wha-la it was mine.
Buy it here
I decided to take it on the plane with me as a backup read, and spent the majority of the time reading it! As I read, I realized I would revisit it tons, which is so easy to do. This book is full of strategies on how to make your students active writers in their daily lives, not just responding to prompts. The best part is, it is super easy to change up and to incorporate.
As a second year teacher, I was looking for something that I would actually use with some sort of confidence. I would love to try the Lucy Caulkins series, but quite frankly, I am a little intimidated and need to have my focus on more than writing during this summers PD (it is on my list to read Caulkin's fans, no worries). (Reasons number 3-6 to read it).
So if you are like me and think your students need to dive into writing a little more, or if you are just looking for an easy summer read, The NBKH is the way to go!!
Jackie
No comments:
Post a Comment