Literacy Centers for Bigger Kids and Bud!

I am so excited because I am pretty sure that I just finished my new favorite product! 

It is a total of six Literacy Stations for the 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade classroom that can be used during the month of December. Head to my store to check out the description and to also download the preview that shows you exactly what is included. I promise you will not be disappointed!

We also have a new friend in my classroom, Bud. I noticed him while I was doing some planning today. 

My kids are at the age where some still do the Santa thing and others do not, so I knew I had to do mine a little differently. I know my kids will not be sure about it at first, but I am excited for it. Hopefully their behavior will improve...especially my 7th period class.

Answers to your Questions!

A few weeks ago I posted a Q&A post where you wonderful people could ask me any questions that you might have for me. No worries, if you still have a question you want to ask, just visit the post and leave a comment.

Shannon from i run read teach asked:

What is the one thing that you do in your classroom that REALLY works and packs some power?

I really had to think about this for a while. Last year when I had two hours with my students daily I would absolutely say that it was the ability to work with them in a small group setting on a daily basis. It was so wonderful to be able to tailor my instruction to the students in each group. Unfortunately, I only have 55 minutes with my students this year when we are on a regular schedule. I really wish that I had more time so meeting with small groups could happen on a more regular basis. I would have to say that this year it is our ISN (Interactive Student Notebooks) that we are using. There will be more to come about these in a future post. 

amybeth64 asked:

Are you doing your Daily 5 using a composition book or a binder?

I do not use a binder with my students. Last year we had one on the supply list, but I never ever used it. Luckily, I was able to convince the other 6th grade ELA teacher that we did not need one this school year. Even though I have not really introduced the Daily 5 this school year, when I do I plan to just add the materials to our ISN. In a perfect world I would've requested two composition books and one would serve as our ISN and the other would be strictly for Daily 5 activities and rotations.

The Ever Changing Classroom from Teaching, Training, and Tots! asked:

What is your top organization tip for teachers?

 This is a tough one! Organization is something that is constantly changing for me based on what I need at the moment. My tip is to get rid of your teacher desk. I know...I am crazy for saying this, but it is amazing what a difference this made for me. I constantly found myself just stacking my things on my teacher desk and then I would get so frustrated because I would not be able to find the things I need. Instead of a desk, what I have now is a kidney table that I use for meeting with small groups and 2 sets of clear stacking drawers. Clear is the key in my opinion because you can see inside of them. :) It holds me accountable and I make sure that everything in them stays nice and tidy. 

I will be back soon with more answers to your questions!

This and That....

There are lots of exciting things going on in the life of Miss Klohn right now! 

One. As of 3:00 p.m. on Saturday I can officially say that I am finished with my Masters in Education degree! This is such a huge relief! I have decided to add the principalship semester, so I will do that that in the fall, but it is only one semester. I never would have thought that I would have my Masters degree the summer after finishing my first year of teaching. It was no way easy, but I am so glad that I decided to do it. I know it will be way worth it one day. 

Two. Today marks the start of our upper elementary book study on The Daily 5. Be sure and head on over to the book club blog and check it out for yourself! 

Three. I hit a huge milestone on this little ole' blog of mine...600 followers! I cannot believe it! Never did I imagine there would be this many people interested in my adventures in teaching. There will be a celebration giveaway in the near future so stay tuned! 

Daily 5 and CAFE Book Giveaway!!!

It is time! In honor of our upcoming upper elementary book study with The Daily 5 and CAFE over on We, Read, We Blog, We Teach, I am giving away a copy of each title to one lucky winner!

You will have a total of 19 opportunities to enter the giveaway! The giveaway will be running from right now until June 6th to make sure that the winner will have enough time for their books to arrive before we start the book studies. 

I personally am so excited for the book study to start and to hear how others are using these awesome things in their classrooms. I had the opportunity to go and here The Sisters at their conference in April while they were in San Antonio and it was so great! I am excited to read about your take on it all! 

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This and That

I did it! My school year is officially over. I am also lucky to have a great principal who let us leave when we were finished today instead of making us wait until 4:00 p.m. like we should have. My room is all in boxes and now I am just hoping that they get the construction in my building finished in time so we get at least two weeks in our rooms before the kiddos come. Even better was that we found out at closing convocation that we are also getting a raise this coming year! Double yeah!!!

I am also in love with our new blog that we are going to start using for book studies called We Read, We Blog, We Teach.

This is the blog where we will be doing the Upper Elementary Daily 5/CAFE Book Study. If you plan on joining us, go ahead and follow the blog to be on top of all of the updates. 

I also wanted to join in on the Summer Vacation linky party that Kindergarten Lifestyle is hosting.

Here is my new laminator in action! I am in love with it!!! Best money I have spent for my classroom yet. 

I am also headed to my summer job starting tomorrow. I work at a summer camp as the Program Assistant and love what I get to do! I am responsible for creating bunk assignments, camper schedules, and also create some of the nightly programming activities. The extra pay on top of my teaching salary will be nice too. 

What do you have planned for the summer?

Daily 5/CAFE Book Study

I am so excited to be a part of the Upper Elementary Daily 5/CAFE Book Study that will be starting on July 1st! I will be sharing more details with you all as it gets closer. We are currently in the process of setting up a blog where we will be doing the book study and I think it will be a great way for us to find it all in one place. I will actually be doing a giveaway for a copy of one of each of the two books to a 4th-6th grade teacher so they can participate in the book study. If you do not feel like waiting, go ahead and order them so you can participate for sure!

Let me know if you plan on joining us!

Another One Bites the Dust...

When I saw Amber's Linky party, I knew I had to join in on the fun! I still cannot believe that my first full year of teaching is about to be over. They year has absolutely flown by! There have been some really great things that have happened, but there have been some not so great things too.

To join the linky party it is easy! 

1. Head on over to Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher to find the original post.

2. Share three things that were great about this school year, and three things that were not so great. 

3. Be sure to link up your post with the linky party on Amber's blog. 

I have 13 days left this school year, really I guess it is 12.5 because the kids get out at 1:30 p.m. on the last day of school, but teachers still have a full day. I had no idea that I would love teaching as much as I have this year. I know that this is truly what I am called to do! This year was a good learning experience for me. There were some things that I just loved, and there are other things I have already planned to change before next year. 

The Great 

1. Reading and Writing Notebooks

(If you click the link, it will take you to all of my posts about my Reading and Writing Notebooks)

Creating interactive notebooks with my students was by far the best thing that I did this school year. I love that we have created a portfolio that they can take with them and use in the future too in their ELA classes. My kids seem to not mind taking notes nearly as much when we do them in their notebooks. I have also loved using foldables this year to help chunk their learning. I know the interacitve notebook is something that I will continue to use in my classroom for many years to come. 

2. Joining the Teacher Blogging Circuit

I had no idea what a wealth of resources were out there for teachers in the blogging world. There is a not a whole lot of collaboration and planning that I have been able to do at school because the other ELA teachers are pretty set in their ways and have no interest in changing them. 
I am so grateful for all of the wonderful ideas that I have found via blogs and also the opportunity to collaborate and email with so many of you. You've got to throw Pinterest into the mix too because it is pretty darn amazing. 

3. Daily 5 and CAFE

These two things have revolutionized how I teach. I got away from teaching in the whole group setting and started meeting with small groups after reading these two books. I did not implement CAFE until the spring semester, and I cannot wait to use it during the entire year this coming school year. I also was lucky enough to attend the Daily 5 and CAFE workshops when the sisters were in SA this year. The best professional development I have ever been to!

The Not So Great

1. Missing Scope and Sequence

That put a big wrench in my teaching this school year. Unfortunately my district only has once Curriculum Director for the entire district so this is not something that is provided to us. Luckily though, one of the other ELA teachers and myself plan on writing one for 6th grade this summer. I really struggled with not knowing what was next. I could see how it would be okay if you were not a first year teacher, but it did not work for me. Hopefully this will help and I will not be as stressed and trying to figure out what will be happening next week. 

2. Grad School, Coaching, and Teaching

I really think I had too much on my plate this spring and I am so glad that the busy part is over. I know that finishing Grad School will be worth it in the end, but it was so stressful this spring. I took 12 hours, taught full time, and was coaching two club volleyball teams. I will never be doing that again. Thank goodness I will be done with grad school on June 30th! 

3. Parent Communication

I have to agree with Amber on this one. I would really love to create a weekly newsletter or bi-weekly one that I would send home with students, email, and post to my class website. At the beginning of the school year I did a really great job of emailing a weekly update out to my parents, but I want to do that every week for the whole school year. I think a big reason why I stopped was because I was so busy and stressed this spring. I also really want us to create a monthly newsletter as a 6th grade team that we send home with our students to keep all the parents in the loop. 

So what was good and not so good about your school year? Head on over to Amber's blog and link up too!

I met THE Sisters!!!

Yesterday and today I have been in San Antonio for The Daily 5 and CAFE workshops! I know I have not been to a lot of PD sessions in my first year of teaching, but I am pretty sure that this is going to be one of the best ones I will ever go to. If you use the Daily 5 or CAFE, or if you are even considering it, you should really consider going to the workshops. I will have another post later in the week and will share some more things with you all. For now, I have 2 pictures from today. One is with the Sisters themselves and I also took one with Kristina who I ran into there. 

200 Posts and 400 Followers!

With my little blog break that I took, I missed two huge milestones...200 posts and 400 followers! You can bet yourself that there will be a giveaway in the near future! I need to get through this next week and then our STAAR testing the following week. I promise it is going to be an amazing giveaway that you do not want to miss out on! 

A plus is that I have finished all of my grad school assignments for the semester except for my Action Research project that is due on Saturday. At least our class time today was very useful and I was able to dialogue with some of my cohort members. My professor seems to also be very excited about my topic because she kept using it as a reference when we were talking about it in a whole class setting. I just hope that I do not disappoint her.

Monday and Tuesday I am headed to a conference in San Antonio that I am so excited for. I get to listed to The Sisters, yes I said The Sisters, present at the Daily 5 and CAFE conference in San Antonio. Their books have really been a huge help for me during my first year and I cannot wait to actually learn from them. I am hoping to even get a picture with them. You can bet I will be blogging about what I learn and the conference. Are an of you going to be there? If so, I would love to meet up and say hi! My principal is having another teacher go with me who has no idea what the Daily 5 or CAFE is. I have a feeling she is not going to be too interested, but I have got to give her a chance. 

I also cannot believe that I only have 6 weeks left of school! My first school year with my own classroom has absolutely flown by! I also got word the other day that my principal has a new idea that she wants to try with me next year. All I know right now is that it would involve teaching both ELA and Math which I would not mind. I should know more in the next few weeks about it. :)

Be on the lookout for my mega giveaway!

Reading and Writing Notebook Update

One of the best things that I did in my classroom was start using a Reading and Writing Notebook. Each of my students has a composition book that they use for this. In the fall we used just a regular spiral notebook that I got for each student, but I asked them to bring a new composition book for the spring semester. 

After all of my students brought one to class, we finally got them all put together. I actually changed them up quite a bit from last semester. I gave all of my students a label to put on their cover, but forgot to get a picture of it. It is real simple and nothing special.

The first thing that is in our notebooks is a Table of Contents. To be honest, we did a crummy job of keeping ours updated in the fall, but I am glad to say that we have done 100x better with it this semester. We are now up to page 20 on it as of today, and know we will have to add another page on top sooner rather than later. We use both the front and back of pages in the notebook too. 

Behind our table of contents you will find our "Word Collector". This idea comes from The Daily 5 and the The CAFE Book. When my students find an interesting word that they may not know, they add it to their list and can figure out what it means when they are at their Work on Words or Work on Writing station at a later time. 

Even though I teach 6th grade, I still feel that it is so important for my students to track their reading. I do not require them to read for a set amount of time each evening or anything, but they do have 15 minutes here, or 5 minutes there to read in class. When we start stations next week, they will also be required to go to the read to self station every day.

In the fall we took some very detailed notes on genres, so I decided to type it up for my friends. Boy were they glad I did that for them!

Each week my students are responsible for writing a Reading Response letter to me about the book that they are reading. This is a list of some ideas that they could write about in their notebook.

My district has spent a lot of money on Shelter Instruction training. We have to do things such as write content and language objectives each day, encourage students to speak in complete sentences, have word walls, etc. I personally do not mind it, but maybe that is because I am a new teacher. I almost always give my students (especially in my Inclusion and Regular class) a sentence stem to help them put their thinking into a complete sentence. This is a list of stems that they could use to help them write their reading response letters. 

This is something new that I started for the 2nd semester. We are doing DLR (Daily Language Review). Each day for their warm up, my 6th graders have 2 sentences to correct and a few questions about some skills we have learned. It has been the perfect way to get them focused first thing, and we are also able to review the skills that we have already learned. 

I knew my post could not be complete without a foldable in it. We use them all of the time in our notebooks. It really is such a great way to chunk the information together for my students. This is one that we did on Persuasive Techniques that we will be using throughout the 6 weeks while we are doing our persuasive unit.

Being that we are beginning Daily 5 stations in class on Monday, we have taken notes for each station this past week. This is what our notes page looked like for the Read to Self station. 

That is just a preview of what is in our notebooks so far this semester. I am hoping to do a weekly post on what we did in them that week. If you have any questions about them, please leave a question in the comments and I promise to answer them!

Assessing, PD, and a Linky

Now that I am integrating CAFE and the Daily 5 in my classroom, I have been searching for a good reading assessment to use with my students. When I was in my undergraduate classes, we took 2 reading courses where we actually worked with a student in an after school program for an entire semester. In this class we used DIBELS to monitor our student's fluency and their growth as they worked with us. I really liked DIBELS because it had a weekly progress monitoring that we were able to give our student. However, this is not geared towards my 6th graders at all. If I remember correctly, it only went up to 3rd grade. 

I have also had previous experience with the DRA while doing observations and subbing at the elementary level. I really like this assessment because it not only has students read aloud, but they also read silently, and there is then comprehension questions that follow as well. I also like that this assessment provides you with a reading level that can be transferred to a grade equivalent. Since we do not use AR at my school, I would at least love to have this ball park number to help with my grouping and instruction that takes place in my classroom. I was looking on the Pearson website, who is the company that publishes the DRA kit, and I was excited to see that they have a 4-8 kit. Have any of you all ever used the 4-8 kit? You can find more out about it here. I am pretty sure that I am going to go ahead and budget for it though. :)

I was also so excited to discover that The Sisters are going to be in San Antonio doing workshops on The Daily 5 and CAFE in April. I already emailed my principal to see if I can go. I would love this opportunity since not many people in my district even know what it is . You can find out all of the places that the Sisters are going in 2012 by clicking here. Have you ever seen them present? I know that it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I have a feeling that I would walk away with so much knowledge that will help me to implement both things in my classroom even better. 

I mentioned last week about wanting to do a linky party where we all share what it is like on a daily basis in our own classrooms. I know that I personally love finding out how others spend their time during the day. It might even provide you with a new idea for your own classroom. 

Here is how it will work. On Friday, January  13th, you will get to write a post that it is completely dedicated to telling others what a day is like in your shoes. You can share as much or as little as you would like. I will have the post go live early that morning and all you will have to do is link up. In the mean time, feel free to copy and paste the picture and tell others about the linky party by blogging about it! I hope you are as excited about this as I am!

A new look in room 117!

I finally did it. I made myself go up to school this afternoon and I ended up staying for about 5 hours. I can at least say that I was uber productive though! I left my room in a big mess before Christmas break because I knew that I wanted to do some rearranging. You can go to this post to see how my room looked back in August.

I of course have been so inspired by the Clutter-Free Classroom blog and knew that I wanted to get into my classroom and do some serious decluttering. I had done a decent job of it before leaving for the break, but I do not think a classroom can ever be completely decluttered. Here are some of the pictures I got when I walked into my room today. It was just as I had left it.

I pretty much had a blank slate which was nice. 

The first thing I tackled was the bulletin board that I had near the door that previously had my calendar on it. It was really the only spot in my room where I knew I had enough space to put up my CAFE menu. Yeah for being the only one on campus this afternoon because I got the laminator all to myself! This was one happy teacher! 

I really like how it turned out. I also just typed up all of the strategies and they are in the same polka dot pattern as the header that they go with. 

Next, I moved on to my clear drawers that now contain the contents of what used to be in my desk. I am so glad that I got rid of it! I am even more excited though for the kidney table that I will be getting later this week!

The set of drawers on the left has community supplies. I had to move them to my area because my markers kept disappearing. Who knew 6th graders would love markers that much! The one on the right is full of supplies for myself and when I am meeting with small groups. I have polka dot labels for them that I am putting on tomorrow. 

I also hit some sales at Wal-Mart over the break and restocked on some essentials like pencils, Sharpies, highlighters, glue, etc. This is what I started with before I got it all organized in the proper drawers. 

Before Christmas, I was not liking how I had my desks. I had them in rows, but it just was not working. Since I am going to be using the Daily 5 and CAFE this semester, I knew I wanted to have them in more of a table arrangement. My biggest class this semester only has 21, but I decided to go ahead and keep 22 desks. I really like how it turned out and I was amazed and how much space I still had left over. 

 This is the view from my door.

 View from the corner by my round table.

View from the classroom library bookshelf. 

I also made lots of signs to help keep me organized. I made some for my reading and writing notebooks and also my filing cabinet. 

I also got my pocket chart up for our stations. I am not 100% happy with it yet but I am excited to use the pictures of my students for it instead of their names. 

I am sure that I will go back again tomorrow to get a few more things finished and copied before we all go back on Wednesday.

I was also so excited to find out that Michelle from Making It as a Middle School Teacher gave me the Versatile Blogger Award!

Thanks again for thinking of me, Michelle! You should go check out her blog too! She has some amazing ideas, especially for the middle grades!

CAFE in 6th Grade

I have a feeling that some of you might be thinking I am crazy for even putting CAFE and 6th grade in the same sentence. I just finished The CAFE Book by The Sisters this evening and I am already so excited about implementing it in my own classroom in 2012! I took copious notes in my notebook and I cannot wait to get my CAFE Menu Board set up this next week when I go up to school to get ready for the semester. I have actually been doing some serious uploading to my Teacher's Notebook store already with some CAFE Headers that you can use to create or update your own CAFE Menu Boards in your classroom. I know this does not make much sense to you if you have not read either of their books. However, if you teach K-6 literacy or language arts, I highly suggest you read them. Trust me, you will not be disappointed!

Source: teachersnotebook.com via Katie on Pinterest

Source: teachersnotebook.com via Katie on Pinterest

Tomorrow, I am going to be working on getting my different binders (or as the Sisters call it, their Pensive) together for my different classes. I am planning on doing a whole post on that with pictures in the next few days.

I was also wondering, do you currently use the Daily 5 or CAFE in your own classroom? Any tips for me as I implement them this semester with my kiddos?

Daily 5 Update and Book Clubs

I am so glad that I decided to integrate the Daily 5 into my classroom. The kids have loved it and I am loving the more individualized instruction that I am able to give to my students. The only thing that we have really struggled with is using an appropriate voice while they are working in their various stations. 

I am using 5 stations in my room. The ones that I have integrated are Read to Self, Read to Someone, Work on Words, Work on Writing, and Meet with the Teacher. My biggest class has 22 so it has been quite nice for my groups. Right now I have my groups as mixed-ability, but I love the idea that I could make these ability based groups if needed.

1. Read to Self- This is where students have an opportunity to read their self-selected book either from the school library, our classroom library, or a book of their own. I allow the students to sit where they choose in the classroom as long as they are not disturbing others who are working at a different station. I will also be requiring my students to write a reading response letter to me each Friday. Over the weekend, I will then respond to their letters. A lot of work on my part, but I have a feeling that with my response my students will know that I truly care about what they are reading. 

2. Read to Someone- This is just what it says. Students will be reading to and with someone else. What they are reading and doing will vary from week to week depending on what we are studying. This week they are reading "The Prince and the Pauper" from their interactive reader with their group. Next week they will be reading The Best School Year Ever with their group. I am also hoping to get a few books on tape or CD that they could also use at this station. 

3. Work on Words- This is where I have my students work with their weekly vocabulary words. This week they made a foldable with their words on Monday, today they wrote acrostic poems with 4 of their words, and tomorrow they will be illustrating their words. On Thursday I will have a review game for them to play to help them practice their words before their quiz on Friday. Time to time students will also have some time to work on their spelling homework if they get finished with all of their other work in this station.

4. Work on Writing- Students have an opportunity to work on their writing at this station. This week they have been looking at a picture and then practicing some descriptive writing. Later this week they will be working on using the writing process to edit their writing that they did. Sometimes this will also be doing a writing response activity to our weekly story or their own literature. 

5. Meet with the Teacher- This is personally my favorite of all of the stations. I love meeting with small groups and having a chance to conference with students in a 1 on 1 setting. During the past two days we have been talking about the writing process. Tomorrow we are going to be working together to create a paragraph as well as edit our writing that they have done the past two days. This is where I will also be teaching mini-lessons that students will use throughout the year to respond to literature. This week I am meeting with every group every day, but I know that as they become more independent I will also be conferencing with them more. 

I am really thrilled about how this is going and I have also got great responses from the administration about my changes. I am so grateful to have a principal who is open to new ideas. She has encouraged me to try my best and not be afraid to change the way Language Arts has always been taught in 6th grade. 

I am also super excited to introduce book clubs to my students. I am really trying to move away from using our Literature book because it does not interest my students. I may now be a broke teacher after pay day Scholastic's best customer for the day. I managed to earn over 5,000 bonus points to day with my order that I placed. I ordered several sets of 6 books each of titles that my students have mentioned that they enjoy. I am going to then allow them to "shop" for their books that they would like to read for the book club. I am still in the planning stages of this, but am super excited about the possibilities it has. Have you done anything like this before in your classroom? I am thinking that one day a week when they are supposed to be teaching with me we will discuss the book that they are reading. 

I am planning on posting some updated pictures of my room tomorrow. I have done quite a bit of rearranging! 

Daily 5 was a hit!

I just had to share that today the Daily 5 was a hit with my 6th graders! They told me that they absolutely loved it and were begging me to do it everyday.  I am so glad that they enjoyed it and I am even happier because I truly felt that the instruction I was able to give my students was so much better because it was more personalized. I will be posting more about what we did today this weekend when I have a little more time.

I am also super excited because today I made plans for spring break this coming year. I am going to Ireland with several other teachers from my school. Even better, it falls during St. Patrick's Day. I am pretty sure it is going to be a trip of a lifetime!

4 Corners

I think that is what I am going to call my version of the Daily 5. My room is a square and I plan on using 3 of the stations plus a teacher led small group as well. I told my kids about the changes that are going to take place and they all seem to be really excited about it. I was worried that they were not going to be receptive to the idea, but I really tried to sell them on it. 

The 4 stations that I am going to have are Read to Self (independent reading), Read to Someone (group or partner read our weekly selection or novel study), Work on Writing, and Meet with Teacher. I have just about 2 hours with my classes every day so I am planning on having them run about 25 minutes each.

Do you assign your students to groups or do you allow them choose the order that they participate in the Daily 5? I am thinking that I am going to assign groups so that I can group students in ability based groups. 

I just added a small group running record to my Teacher's Notebook store to help me document my groups.

Daily 5 and CAFE

I bought them both this evening on Amazon. I know that they are both geared more towards the elementary classroom, but I am really wanting to integrate it into my 6th grade classroom. 

I am a firm believer in having reading and writing workshop in my classroom no matter what level I am teaching. I know that I of course am going to have to modify how I use it in my classroom, but I think it is going to be good. 

Do you use the Daily 5 or CAFE in your classroom? What is your favorite thing about it?

Resume Help and Center Update

I am beginning to apply for jobs, but am not too sure about my resume. What categories do administrators want to see? As tough as it is going to be to get a job here in Texas this year, I want to make sure that they are really impressed with my resume and cover letter. If anyone wants to look at mine and critique it for me I would love that or if you have a really great format for yours that you think would help me would be great too. You can e-mail me at k.e.klohn@gmail.com or if you are interested just leave me your e-mail and I will send it to you. If you are a Texas teacher, I am sure you are familiar with the Texas Association of School Administrators job search, I pretty much stalk it every day!

Monday was day one of using centers during our ELA block and it has been such a hit. The kids love it and I also think that they have been able to get more out of the content because of the small groups. I am most excited for my center tomorrow because we are going to do the conversation hearts writing activity that I posted last week. I hope they really like it and are creative with their quotations. I am ready for the writing TAKS to be over though so that we can not work so much on writing and can dedicate more time to the center activities. 

Something else that has been pretty exciting this week in 4th grade, is that our class was selected to write for the local newspaper for the upcoming Texas Public Schools Week. One 4th grade and one 5th grade class was selected. We were given 2 topics for the kids to write about that are really pretty fun. The topic we have been working on the past two days was "What do you think school will be like in the year 2050?" They were so creative and I am hoping that if they are in the paper I can share some of them with you all. They wrote about things like inventing exploding homework in science class, anti-gravity classrooms where if you get in trouble the teacher just turns on the gravity switch and you fall to the floor, and robot teachers. I am pretty sure none of that will happen, but it has been fun seeing what their imaginations think of. The topic that we are starting tomorrow is for them to plan a day at school where their parents join them. The newspaper lady is coming on Thursday to take pictures of them too. 

Hope that everyone survived Valentine's Day on Monday! I cannot wait to plan my own Valentine's party next year!