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Remembering 9/11/01

Cannot believe it has been 10 years since 9/11/01.  I remember it like it was yesterday, in my first year of teaching–1st graders.  And while you and I have memories of that fateful day, our friends do not.  They were alive, but everything they do know about September 11, 2001 is from stories, TV, books, etc.

So how do you deal with a major topic in their history in a way that both makes sense and doesn’t scare them?

I decided to tackle the anniversary first in Writer’s Workshop.  First we read Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey, and then talked about what we were thinking.  We used this as an opportunity to both teach a strategy for writing (responding to literature and what’s going on in the world around us) as well to work through their thoughts and feelings of the day.  Everyone wrote entries about what they knew about 9/11 or what they were wondering.

Later in the day we took some time to watch a news segment made just for kids. It was from Nick News and was called What Happened?: The Story of September 11th.   It did a super job of explaining what actually happened as well as addressing questions that many kids have about that day.  They went back to the entries they wrote earlier in the day and listened for answers, or to add information they wanted to remember. Hopefully your student came home talking about it, and you were able to have a discussion with them about it, too.

Let’s help them remember.

Coming up next

Over the next few days I have plans for several new posts related to “What I did on my summer vacation” (this one will hopefully come in several parts), as well as some fun interactive ones for you to think about this last week before you come back to school.  Don’t worry, it won’t be like homework!  Stay tuned…:)

August

It’s officially August!  That’s good–because we’ll be together soon–but it also means it’s almost the end of the summer.  I’m most excited about today because it’s the day the letters go home so you’ll FINALLY know who’s class you’re in.  And I hope it’s mine!  Send me a message or comment on this post!  See you soon, friends. 🙂

Getting closer…

Hello again!  So today I got a really exciting email from Mrs. Sisul that had some back-to-school information in it.  I learned more about what our schedule will look like during the day, and it’s going to be pretty great!  We will probably have math in the morning–which is good because your brains will be fresher then–and reading is after lunch.  With every little bit of info that I get, the more excited I become to meet you and get this party started!

Oh, and since I whined in my last post about how I couldn’t find anything for our theme, I thought you’d like to know that I’ve started to find some really great things.  Just had to think about it a little more (so I could plan on what I might need to make), and shop in a few other places.  And I love shopping, so that was pretty cool.  Like I said in the title of this post, school is getting closer, and I’m getting even more excited!

Frustrated

I told you already about our theme this year.  Well, I told you that you could find it if you went to the right place.  That place was our classroom website (www.kirkwoodschools.org/faculty/beardej).  So since you’ve already been there to visit our website (it’s really great, right?), then you know the theme this year is Building Great Minds.  I have had all sorts of ideas about things around our classroom that will tie into that theme–table name tags, hall passes, bulletin boards, signs, etc–but once I started shopping for those things, I COULDN’T FIND WHAT I WANTED ANYWHERE!  Apparently there is not much of a market for construction hats and dump trucks or other images related to building.  So what do you do when you run into a problem?  Problem solve!  I guess that now I am on a new search.  And this search includes materials to make most of the things I envision.  Which is actually pretty cool, because I enjoy that type of thing.  Stay tuned for pictures of what I’m making.  Some of the new creations just might have your name on them!  (But not until after August 1, since I can’t reveal who’s in my class until after that.)

Thinking about theme

I know it’s summer, but sometimes my mind wanders to school anyway.  While I am not at school yet doing anything “official”, I usually do at least a little thinking or planning about school every day.  Right now the work is on our classroom theme.  I’m excited to share it with you and then work on building on that theme all year.  Any guess at what it might be?  There are clues out there already if you know where to look….

The waiting is killing me!

So excited to find out who’s in my class this year!  I love this time of the summer when anticipation is high and everyone is excited to learn who their new teacher will be.  Will it be you?  I sure hope so!  Watch for a letter in your mailbox around August 1st.  Can’t wait to meet you all, new friends!  🙂