First Semester in Review

I take pictures of EVERYTHING, with the intent of blogging about it once we’re finished.  But then life happens and I end up with a computer full of pictures, lots of stories to be told, but feeling a tug to move on because it’s been so long since the activities happened.

So when that happens (like it did for most of what we did in our classroom in December), I usually just move on and blog about the next big thing, sad that you missed out on the awesomeness that is Rm. 202.  But not this time!  I figure I am going to give you at least a quick glance at the fabulous things my kiddos did during 2nd quarter.  So let’s commence with the show-and-tell. 🙂

Halloween (Man–see, I told you I’m behind!)

We had a great time in our costumes, but it rained and so our school-wide parade went around our building instead of through our neighborhood.  Our class parties were done with the whole grade level together, and probably the hit of the day was the photo booth.

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Veterans’ Day

We wrote letters to veterans at Aberdeen Heights.   Our whole-school Veterans’ Day celebration was pretty fabulous, too, and we were able to share a great song we’d learned called “The Heart of America” with the rest of the school.  Some boys from our class, who are a part of a group called iLead, got to be ambassadors and lead our guests to their seats.  Honor choir, which also had many members from our class, started off the whole thing with the national anthem.  What a great day!

Honor choir

Honor choir

Mia, Haleigh and Hanna sang the solo at the beginning of our song.

Mia, Haleigh and Hanna sang the solo at the beginning of our song.

5th grade shared "The Heart of America" with the audience and it was FABULOUS!

5th grade shared “The Heart of America” with the audience and it was FABULOUS!

Informational Text Writing Celebration

I shared the work that we did with our informational text writing unit, but I didn’t share with you the way we celebrated our hard work!  After each kiddo had spent time on their poster, we were ready to share our hard work with each other.  Differently than in past units, we decided to have a whole-5th-Grade celebration, so we could see everyone’s amazing writing.  As we visited each classroom’s writing samples, kiddos (and teachers!) gave compliments to each writer on a sheet that each kiddo then got to keep.   Great job, 5th grade!

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Door Decorating Contest

To celebrate the last week before Winter Break, our school had a door decorating contest.  There were some rules that we had to follow, but other than those, the theme was fair game.  IMG_1983

While we had a week to work on our door, there really wasn’t alot of time to create during school hours (we did still have things to learn, after all!).  We worked at recesses and after school one day to get our ideas together.  The plan looked like this:

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  In case you can’t tell, there was a theme of a night sky, where I would be featured in the moon and kiddos would be showcased on stars.  Lots of glitter was to be included, too.  Sounded like a great idea, and so we got to work.

Now…I wish I could tell you that we ended up with a great door decoration, and that we won first prize–but actually what happened is we ran out of time and didn’t even end up getting all the stars on the door, or the letters, or the Milky Way…instead they ended up with a sign and a bowl of M&Ms to entice the judges to give our door high marks.  Bribery?  Maybe.  Creative either way.

Beginning Another Informational Writing Unit (this time with research!)

If you haven’t had a chance to read about the AMAZING work that we did with our last on-demand writing sample, you must check it out!  It was the beginning of this second informational unit, and after it we were ready to get to work with the next steps.  Those steps involved starting an essay about a common topic, one that all of us had some background knowledge about–Westward Expansion.  But even before we could start talking about what we’d do with that topic, we had a conversation about what we already know as writers of nonfiction.  We used an analogy floating around our school (I’m sure many people use it, but I most remember my friend Mrs. Harris talking about it with her 4th graders last year) about a suitcase that you fill with learning every year.  The idea is to get kids to understand that they are expected to be learning things “always and forever” (not just for that moment), packing it in their suitcase, and then carrying that knowledge or skill with them wherever they go in the future.  So with this image in our heads, we created one on our chart:

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We then began by jotting down as many ideas as we could think of related to Westward Expansion, putting one idea on a different post-it.  We organized our post-its by topic (i.e. some were related to Lewis and Clark, some to the Gold Rush, some to the Pony Express, etc.), and put each topic on a different sheet in a booklet we had made together.

Since we were all working on the same topic, and since this is just the beginning of the unit where we’re learning how this whole thing works, we made sure to steal share ideas to make sure we all had enough subtopics for each category (the idea was to have 5 topics, each with at least 3 subtopics underneath).  We talked together, got ideas from other writers and added to our own work.

Then, when it was time to draft, we again went to our laptops and iPads.  At first when I mentioned that they would flash-draft all 7 paragraphs in one class setting (the 5 topics in their booklet plus an introduction and conclusion), some kiddos were a little freaked out.  Once we talked about the benefits of doing the draft this way, and how easy it would become to add, revise and edit their piece along the way, they were ok.  This is as far as we got before we left for Winter Break, and we’ll pick up at this point when we return in a few days.  What great thinking we started here!

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Winter Sing-a-Long

For one of the last hurrahs before we left for Winter Break, we gathered in the gym as a school for a sing-a-long.  The kiddos knew that we would sing Winter Wonderland and a few other favorites (because they’d been practicing them in Music with Mrs. Kesler), but they didn’t know that we had prepared a surprise song to perform for THEM!  It was The Twelve Days of Winter Break, and each grade level group had prepared a line of the song.  The verses were like this:

Screen Shot 2014-01-05 at 3.52.32 PMCan you guess which one we were responsible for writing?  One hint: it’s technology related…

Here are some pics of the fun, including Mrs. Sisul as a Roadrunner, and 4 teachers playing 2 pianos simultaneously.  That’s talent, people!!

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Gotta love a principal who will do crazy things like this for her kiddos! WE LOVE YOU, MRS. SISUL!

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Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Kesler, Mrs. Dix and Mrs. Hong tickled the ivories together to accompany our sing-a-long.

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Probably the best part was on the last verse–12 inches of snow–when “snow” was tossed on the crowd. Messy, but fun!

So that’s that.  I was way behind, but I was able to fill you in on a teeny, weeny bit of the fun we had in 2nd quarter.  I will do better in the upcoming months.  Maybe.  I’ll just promise to do my best, ok?  Trust that even if it’s not on the blog, it’s happening in our room anyway!

Thanks for reading, and here’s to a super new year!

(And thanks for staying for such a LONG POST!  Just noticed that as I finished it…)

Let’s Get This Party Started…

I am so enjoying this time off from school–time to relax, to be with my family, to travel a little (we just spent the weekend in Chicago, which is a new favorite place of ours), and to think.  I’ll admit that I think a little too much about school when I’m away from it, but hey–it’s hard not to when that’s where you spend so much of your time!

In this last week I have before I get back into the daily grind again, I hope to spend reading and reflecting, look both back and forward to what is to come in the new year.  And one piece of that “reading” part happens for me on Twitter (and I KNOW I’ve mentioned that here before, so instead of telling you any more about it, I’ll just share a tweet I just found that I loved. 🙂 ).

And so as I get this last week of break underway, let’s get this party started–as I hope that I’ll have many other posts to share with you soon. 🙂

How Did I Not Tell You?

I just realized I’ve keeping something from you….so yep, I’ll spill the beans.

My kids are bloggers!  I am not sure what I’ve been doing the last month or so, but I’ve neglected to tell you that my kiddos (and some of yours, too!) have begun a fabulous new blogging journey, and we’d love you to join us on it. 🙂

I started blogging with this group of kiddos the same way that I have the past two years, which I wrote about here.  It has been a great thing for us as learners already, and I am so impressed with how so many kiddos have taken the ball and RUN!!

We’d love it if you could jump over to our blogs and have a look–and more importantly LEAVE A COMMENT or two to help continue the conversations we’ve started over there.

Check us out at www.kidblog.org/mrsbeardensclass2013 and join in on the fun!  See you there! 🙂

On-Demand? Give Yourselves a Hand!

I know, I’ve been talking about on-demand writing a lot lately, haven’t I?  Well, we did it again today, as the pre-assessment for our new unit of informational writing.

The directions were pretty much the same as the last time, but I threw in a couple of wrenches.  Instead of handwriting their piece, they were expected to use technology–either their iPad or a laptop.  Instead of writing about something they knew a lot about, they were to do some research–well as least look for some facts in a book from our classroom.

I also laid down the expectation from this rubric from our writing curriculum:

Screen Shot 2013-12-11 at 9.21.20 PMThe part about having to type a “minimum of 2 pages in a single setting” is new for us, and was a BIG STRESSOR for some of my friends.  We agreed that today was a try-it–that we would focus on trying to do our best and recognize that there were a lot of things to do (figure out the technology, think of what to write, find the information we’d use in our resources, editing, revising, publishing) and that we’d just give it our best shot.  So we chose our topic by deciding what book we’d use from our classroom library:

I put many options of science books (animals, weather, force and motion, etc.) out on the rug and we dug in!

I put many options of science books (animals, weather, force and motion, etc.) out on the rug and we dug in!

Kiddos also chose from a variety of other nonfiction texts in our room to use as resources for their writing piece.

Kiddos also chose from a variety of other nonfiction texts in our room to use as resources for their writing piece.

After we had chosen a seed, decided if they would us an iPad or laptop, we got busy.  And it was great!  I love how the pictures speak to what was happening–lots of multitasking and hard working kiddos!

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And when we were finished, we breathed a huge sigh of relief and stepped back to see what we had done.

Look at all those words! Do you see all that we accomplished? I'm totally impressed! :)

Look at all those words! Do you see all that we accomplished? I’m totally impressed! 🙂

Here are some thoughts on the day:

And like the video suggested, give yourselves a hand, friends for a JOB WELL DONE!  YOU ROCK!!  I’m so proud and you should be, too!

Informational Writing Lessons

Remember when I wrote about what had been going on with Narrative Writing Lessons a little while ago? That post was actually one that I used in my class with my kids (an idea I stumbled upon last year in a grad class I was taking), and this one is instead a roundup-and-reflection type post that I do a lot around here after we try some new things.

We started our informational unit in a similar way that we ended our Narrative unit: with an on-demand writing piece:

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We began by looking at lots of nonfiction texts, recording what we noticed about them:

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Then we began a very exciting and learning-filled journey into the genre of informational text, focusing on how writers organize their writing, write for their intended audience and use text features meaningfully.  I’ll tell the rest of the story in pictures.  Be sure to check out the captions! (This is all about text features, after all!)

This was the first of two informational text units we're doing, and we focused on just things we knew alot about--that we were "experts" on. Here is our Rm. 202 Expert List, compiled from everyone's individual lists.

This was the first of two informational text units we’re doing, and we focused on just things we knew a lot about–that we were “experts” on. Here is our Rm. 202 Expert List, compiled from everyone’s individual lists.

After we built our expert lists, we spent some time working with some ideas on those lists to see which ones we liked best. We worked on deciding what our reader would be interested in knowing more about. This chart shows how we focused on questions that we could answer, as well as creating trees or webs to organize subtopics.

After we built our expert lists, we spent some time working with some ideas on those lists to see which ones we liked best. We worked on deciding what our reader would be interested in knowing more about. This chart shows how we focused on questions that we could answer, as well as creating trees or webs to organize subtopics.

This was one of my favorite (and impromptu!) lessons from this unit. As we considered what info the reader would be interested in knowing about, we had to think about who our AUDIENCE really was supposed to be. This chart shows a strategy we tried: we picked two completely different audiences and recorded how the subtopics/questions would be different based on the reader. Check out the difference between how you'd write about shoes for a fashion designer and a kid. :) They had some pretty great ideas, huh?

This was one of my favorite (and impromptu!) lessons from this unit. As we considered what info the reader would be interested in knowing about, we had to think about who our AUDIENCE really was supposed to be. This chart shows a strategy we tried: we picked two completely different audiences and recorded how the subtopics/questions would be different based on the reader. Check out the difference between how you’d write about shoes for a fashion designer and a kid. 🙂 They had some pretty great ideas, huh?

After we spent a couple of days trying out seed ideas and strategies for nuturing htem, we were ready to pick a seed, plan around it and then draft! Drafting was a quick process, and meant to just get the ideas initially down on paper. We would begin the work of cleaning up the messy parts as the next step! (and just in case you're wondering, I was out of the classroom this day and my sub made this chart instead of me. :) )

After we spent a couple of days trying out seed ideas and strategies for nurturing them, we were ready to pick a seed, plan around it and then draft! Drafting was a quick process, and meant to just get the ideas initially down on paper. We would begin the work of cleaning up the messy parts as the next step! (and just in case you’re wondering, I was out of the classroom this day and my sub made this chart instead of me. 🙂 )

 

After we had flash drafted our initial ideas, we worked on creating interesting leads...

After we had flash drafted our initial ideas, we worked on creating interesting leads…

...and then focused in on writing paragraphs to organize our subtopics into chunks that made sense to our readers. We did this over several days because it was hard, confusing work for many of us.

…and then focused in on writing paragraphs to organize our subtopics into chunks that made sense to our readers. We did this over several days because it was hard, confusing work for many of us.

First try at a paragraph with topic sentence, 3 details and a conclusion. We wrote this one together.

First try at a paragraph with topic sentence, 3 details and a conclusion. We wrote this one together.

Another paragraph. This one is colored coded to try to help writers see each part (although I wish I had written the topic sentence in green since it's how you GO...too late now, I guess.)

Another paragraph. This one is colored coded to try to help writers see each part (although I wish I had written the topic sentence in green since it’s how you GO…too late now, I guess.)

One more paragraph. This one was written several days later as another example to hang for kids to reference.

One more paragraph. This one was written several days later as another example to hang for kids to reference.

While there are lots of ways to describe the structure of a 5-paragraph essay (informational report, poster, etc.), the one I go to is always a sandwich or a hamburger. Excuse my really bad attempt at art. It did the job. :)

While there are lots of ways to describe the structure of a 5-paragraph essay (informational report, poster, etc.), the one I go to is always a sandwich or a hamburger. Excuse my really bad attempt at art. It did the job. 🙂

Before we published, we planned out what our posters (which they made under my suggestion) would look like. They each created a "map" of where each paragraph and text feature would go.

Before we published, we planned out what our posters (which they made under my suggestion) would look like. They each created a “map” of where each paragraph and text feature would go.

One last step before we published was to edit (which we had a chart for, too, but I didn’t have a picture of just now).  We focused on how editing is a COURTESY TO THE READER so that they both read and understand our intended message.  Final posters were made and then we had a 5th grade writing celebration to showcase our hard work!

But wait–that wasn’t it.  Yesterday, after our celebration was finished, we sat down to do a post assessment version of the on-demand writing assignment.  It was AMAZING to see how their writing changed from the beginning to the end.  That led them to the post here,  where writers were reflecting on those changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Info Text Writing Reflections

Ok, friends–here’s the post you needed to work on your blog reflections tonight!  Remember, this is the EQ we talked about in class:

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Your job is to explain the whole on-demand writing thing (because not everyone that reads your post will know what we’ve been doing!), as well as find as many ways that your writing is different as you can–using evidence from your writing to explain.  I hope to finish writing a post all about all the things we’ve learned, but here’s a quick list of things you might mention in your post:

  • paragraphs
  • length
  • use of interesting language or domain-specific vocabulary
  • how you added subtopics of more information than the first time around
  • how you used text features (more of them, more thoughtful, how you decided what to use)
  • if the writing experience was easier/harder for the post assessment than the pre assessment
  • anything else you notice about how your writing is different!

When I get the other post done, I’ll link to it here, to check back soon! Oh, and if you need a link to your blog, here’s one. 🙂

Can’t wait to see what you figure out!  Happy reflecting!

Mrs. Bearden

What an HONOR!

I have SO much to write and am SO back-logged with posts and pictures that I need to share around here, but undoubtedly the most important thing I need to write is a big

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to my friend Tam at 5SK in North Queensland, for the AMAZING news she shared with me the other day.  I got a tweet from her with a link to her blog.  It looked innocent enough, but then I looked and it led me to a nomination for a Edublog Award she’d written for me!  WHAT?!  How amazing is that?  I honestly didn’t know what to say (and still don’t think I have the right words to say thank you!).

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It seemed funny how really the words that came to my head first were “it’s an honor just being nominated.”  It sounds so cliche’, I know, but when I look at the list of other blogs in my category and see that they’re all blogs I READ too, it’s so cool.  We’re all in this together and no matter who wins, it’ll be great!

But…since I have you here reading this amazing news, can I ask you to vote for this blog??  I mean I might as well ask, right? 🙂  It’s super easy, and you can get to the Edublog page by clicking here.  I’d really appreciate it!

And I hope I’ve said this before, but if not–THANK YOU for coming and reading what I write here.  It really is a work of the heart and it wouldn’t be what it is (even the tiny ‘ole thing it is) with out YOU!!

Fractions with Fosnot and Flex Time

Remember last year when I told you all about Feast Week?  Well, it’s that time of year again, for fractions at least, but not–it seems–for Feast Week.  Instead, we’ve begun using some AMAZING new resources from Cathy Fosnot, that have helped our mathematicians think of fraction parts in a whole new way.

My favorite part of math right now is the addition of Fraction Flex Time (man, it seems like we need to add a cute name to every thing fraction related…).  After we finished the investigations in our Fosnot unit (which included figuring out the Best Buys, Oatmeal Problems and Gas Tank problems), our team sat down to figure out how to divvy up our kiddos between the 7 teachers we have (Yes, I said SEVEN!! Isn’t that FABULOUS!! ??), based on the information we’d gathered during our first few weeks of study.  We made the groups small and intentional, and we planned for intense teaching and practice.

Although the pacing and strategies are a little different based on the groups’ need, the goal is the same (based on our district rubric):

Screen Shot 2013-11-19 at 9.03.25 PMJust like I shared in my post about our visit from Kara Imm from Mathematics in the City, number strings have become our new best friend.  I mean, honestly, before this year I really didn’t spend much time on them, but now I am not sure I can go a day in math without one–they just have such HUGE bang for their buck.  Just the other day we spent 45 minutes doing a number string together.  It sounds like a long time, maybe, but in that 45 minutes (during which my small group of friends was TOTALLY ENGAGED!), we were able to touch on the clock model, common denominators, reducing fractions, equivalent fractions, improper fractions and mixed numbers.  So cool!

I have heard such positive feedback from my class since we’ve been doing flex time. Most mention that they love the small numbers, the focused nature of the lessons and the time they get to spend with the teacher.  I agree, friends, I’m loving all those things, too!

My favorite thing from our lessons lately  is all of the “lightbulb moments” that I can actually see happen.  It’s so great to see that look of AHA! on a kiddo’s face, and how often these moments even have a sound.  All of the “ahs” I’ve heard lately have definitely made my days.

What do you think about fractions?  How do you think you would react to Fraction Flex Time?  Do you think you’d like it?  Please leave your feedback. 🙂

 

Torn

Yep.  It’s been almost a month to the day that I was last here.  Whoa, right?  And so as I begin, I feel like I should warn you now–this might turn into a real-life post, not one of those typical “here’s-what-we-did-and-here’s-why” kind of thing that you usually see around here.  I think I’m about to get real honest.  But don’t worry.  I’ll keep it clean.  There are kids around here, after all (well, and I guess if you really know me, I’d keep it clean anyway. 🙂 )!

So here’s the thing…right now I feel like I am being pulled in a million different directions.  All of them good directions, mind you, but different nonetheless.  And me being me, I want to do my absolute best at all of them.  And so…I’m torn.  What’s the most important thing?  How do I manage my time and resources to have time for that thing?  And then  how do I decide what that thing is?  Priorities are hard for me.  To me, they’re all important things.

In this season of life, I find myself being a wife, mother, teacher, grad student, blogger, ball juggler, plate-in-the-air-keeper, friend, daughter, and probably lots of other things I can’t even think of (because that list is already so long)!  And like I said, it is in my genes to want to do the best possible job I can in all of those things.  But that’s so hard!  Case in point: this blog.  Poor neglected blog.  Blog that I love. But because I’ve been working like crazy to do a great job at the other things on the list, the “blogger” part of me has been moved down the list of importance.  Also insert the fact that there is often just enough time to actually do the things I want to write about, and then no time to do the writing about those things!  I have at least 10 blog posts waiting to be written, pictures to accompany them, and loads of fabulous stories of the amazing things happening in my classroom right now, but again–where do I find time to tell you about them?  Probably the hardest part of this scenario is that besides writing for you, I write for myself–it’s like therapy, you know?–and so that part is missing for me right now, too.  But…I’m torn.  What has to give for that time to be made?  I can’t choose not to be a mom.  I can’t choose not to finish the homework for my school law class on time.  I can’t not get the plans ready for tomorrow at school.

I know what you’re thinking: stop whining.  Figure out how to make it all work in the time that you have.  Take some things off your plate.  Heck, you might even tell me to sleep less so I have more hours in my day (although, I hope that’s not your answer, because I’m really tired right now!).

But really–how do you make it all work?  How do you find time to do all the things you need (and want) to do without really just feeling like you’re doing  a crummy job at them all (and I’m really asking here, so hopefully you’re compiling the answer you’re going to leave me in the comments in a second when you’re done reading this)?  I want to work less, but when there’s a meeting before school, at plan and after school more days than not in a week, I have to bring my work home in order for it to get done.  But once I get home, I obviously want (and need) to be a wife and mom–dinner has to be made (as well as lunches for the next day), dishes and laundry have to be done, and if I’m lucky I will find time to snuggle with my favorite 2YO before she scoots off to bed at 7 and read with my favorite 1st grader before he’s asleep at 7:30.

Alright….I have lots of other things tumbling around in my brain right now, but every time I start to write them they seem like I’m just complaining–which is really the last thing I want to do.  Because really I don’t find any of this troubling in itself; many of the things on my list of “busyness” are things I do by choice.  I just want to find a way to do them all well, so that I don’t look back in the years to come and regret anything.  I don’t want to miss anything along the way or let anyone down….and so, I’m torn.  Is it possible to have it all?

I’m going to ask again, just so we’re clear that I want some feedback here (does it help if I say “please?”): How do you find the time to fit all the things you want and need to do into the time you have?  What structures do you have in place to help you be efficient with your time? How do you decide what’s important?  (And no, I can’t just quit my job and run away to Disney World.  But don’t think I haven’t considered that!)  What advice do you have for me as I sift through my long list of have-tos to find balance?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.  🙂  And yes, someday soon I hope to be able to come back and actually tell you about all those fabulous classroom-happenings.  But you know, by then the list will probably have doubled!

 

On-Demand

Writing is a subject that is important to students–to everyone, really–and the teaching and assessing of it are ever-changing.  I LOVE the topic of writing (wait–you knew that already didn’t you?): I love doing it, reading about it, teaching about it, everything.  And above all, one of my favorite things about writing is helping kiddos get to love it, too.

So…this year our district is implementing a new writing curriculum, one that I have had the privilege of spending the last year rewriting to better match the Common Core State Standards and better help every student become college and career ready.

In some ways, writing in our school district was already aligned with CCSS, and we have always had really high standards for what students should be able to do.  But there are also some things that have (and will) changed in response to the new standards:

  • Students will now be required to learn about and then demonstrate their knowledge of argumentive writing.  This is much different than the opinion pieces we’ve done for years–the heart of the argument is staking a claim, anticipating counterarguments (and answering them) and using valid evidence to support the claim.
  • The ability to write in every content area, while included for years, is more highly expected now.  Writing is expected to be thought of as something you do every day, in many ways and in many places.  It is not just something you do at school for an hour a day.  Students should be writing in reading, writing in math, writing in science and writing in social studies.
  • New listening and speaking standards have been introduced, and are emphasized in all areas of student learning, not just in writing.
  • Students are expected to be writing for a larger audience and making global connections via the internet.  Thank you KidBlog for your help with this one!  Luckily I started this one years ago. 🙂
  • Students are expected to be able to produce an entire piece of writing in one sitting.  Yep, go all the way through the cycle in 45 minutes. 🙂

And so that’s why this post is called On-Demand (glad I finally got to that explanation, huh?).  We did our second on-demand writing piece today.  And boy is there a story to tell. 🙂

This year, as a part of our new curriculum, we have access to Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study.  The newest version of them is aligned with CCSS expectations, and gives teachers many ideas of how to help kiddos achieve these more rigorous standards.  Included in each unit is an on-demand writing assessment (well actually there are two–one as a pretest and one at the end of the unit).

We just finished up a narrative unit, and today was the day we sat to do our on-demand piece, in 45 minutes.  Here were the directions I gave:

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Now, we have done this before.  Only once, though, at the beginning of the year before we started this unit.  I wish I had pictures of their faces when I first told them what we were going to do and how long they had to do it.  I don’t.  Boo. 😦

But I do have pictures of what it looked like today.

Some friends sat with me at my table to work on their pieces.

Some friends sat with me at my table to work on their pieces.

Max needed to stretch out on the floor to get the juices flowing. Totally how it rolls in our room! Love how he looks like he's really thinking!

Max needed to stretch out on the floor to get the juices flowing. Totally how it rolls in our room! Love how he looks like he’s really thinking!

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There are definitely many friends with their heads in their hands for at least part of the session. Again--lots of deep thinking happening here!

There are definitely many friends with their heads in their hands for at least part of the session. Again–lots of deep thinking happening here!

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I set a timer for friends who needed to monitor how much more time they had. Although, not surprisingly, this really stressed some people out more than it helped them. :(

I set a timer for friends who needed to monitor how much more time they had. Although, not surprisingly, this really stressed some people out more than it helped them. 😦

For as hard as it was, though, I was so glad that in a very short time, everyone was busy and writing.  Everyone got a piece written and everyone turned something in!  It was very cool to see what they are now able to accomplish in such a short amount of time!  I think they’re amazed, too.  And the best part is that the more we do this, the easier it will get!