Thank you, Mrs. Roth's Class!

Thursday's lesson in Mrs. Roth's class was my first lesson in first grade this year. The first lesson for any grade level each month is always a bit daunting, because I don't have a solid idea of what time I need to make transitions and how the kids will react to the lesson. I have always tweaked things after that first lesson.

For the first time since I've been here, I haven't made any changes to a lesson after that first delivery. Miss Ashley (our intern from Clemson, who will earn her M.Ed. in December) and I talked about I-messages and did some examples with the class on the SmartBoard. She shared a story (The Recess Queen), and the students drew scenes from the book and shared their drawings and the I-messages they might give to Mean Jean.

The lesson flowed very smoothly, transitions were made with care, the students responded well to everything presented, and they shared some great drawings & I-messages.

Wordle

Our school literacy coach passed along a great website: Wordle.net

Warning: this website is not specifically for K-12 education and the gallery may feature objectionable content posted by other Wordle users. The direct link above will bypass the gallery.

Wordle seems very similar to a cloud feature that one of my favorite personal library websites uses. It scans a given website or text snippet for words and puts the most common recurring words into a word cloud, sized depending on how many instances of the word show up.

I "Wordled" this blog and came up with this:

Classroom guidance topics

A tentative list for this year:

• September: introduction and I-Messages
• October: Drug Abuse Prevention
• November: Careers, How Santa Got His Job
• December: One Snowy Night; gratitude & generosity (White Christmas fund drive)
  
• January: friendship bandages; Matthew & Tilly; review September
  
• February: Pennies for Patients; tolerance, diversity fairness; Rhinos & Raspberries stories
• March: The Brand New Kid; hope, review last month
• April: Child Abuse Prevention
  

New year, new blog

Although I am no stranger to Web 2.0 stuff, I am new to maintaining a school blog. This thing is definitely in its infancy. I know that I will keep it updated often, but right now I haven't made a final decision on what needs to go here. It is, and will always be, a work in progress.

I will always post things here from the professional school counseling literature that I find appropriate for parents & teachers. This will be an online newsletter of sorts, allowing me to provide a truly interactive communication tool to all stakeholders in our students' education.

This year is exciting. I was psyched about last year, my first in the profession and the school, but I'm even more excited about this year. Having a year of experience behind me helps. More importantly, though, is the energy and enthusiasm I see in the people I work with. This is a great place.