Job Application Day!

I decided to try something a little different this year with our classroom jobs. The kids have been really wanting their official job titles but I have been waiting to get a real feel for what each and every one of them are truly "good at". I decided that this year my students would have ONE job for the fall semester and then ONE job for the spring semester. I'm thinking that this will allow the kids to get really, really, AWESOME at their job. Changing jobs weekly is something I've done for 8 years and it just seemed like a lot of the jobs got lost in translation and a lot of friends would forget their job that week and it was just not as successful and productive as I'd hoped. 

So I went through a list of the jobs and explained each job description and the kids picked their top two jobs. They filled out a "Job Application" and then I will "hire" them for their fall job! They seemed SUPER excited to fill out their applications and honestly they took their choices VERY SERIOUSLY! 

Launching Our Workshops!

Readers' Workshop started out so smoothly this year! Our first couple of weeks we worked HARD on the routines and atmosphere of readers' workshop. They are really in the swing of things now! Ask your child when their assigned "book shopping" day is! I told them that I would go around and take a picture of the readers who were demonstrating exactly what readers' workshop looks like and sounds like! 

Writers' Workshop has been running very smoothly as well! The kids are loving the freedom of writing with their preferred "writing tools". Right now we are focused on three types of writing. Writers can write:

1. Stories with illustrations

2. Lists (any kind of bulleted list)

3. Webs 

They are doing so well! 

One very special thing about writers' workshop in second grade is the start of keeping a Writers' Notebook. It's a very special place for students to keep their writing over a long period of time. I explain the writers that this is a private place to write...they get to choose what they share with the class and they will eventually choose what pieces come out of the notebook to be published and shared. We had a great day about a week ago creating the "heart maps" for our writers notebooks. 

We also talked about how sometimes writers get "stuck". All writers get "writers' block" at some point in their writing life. So we listened to the book Ralph Tells a Story on YouTube. I may remind myself a little too much like Ralph's teacher prancing around saying "Stories are EVERYWHERE!" but it's just SO TRUE!

The kids really loved this story and how realistic it is of our writers. And yes a lot of times my boy writers are very resistant at first but eventually figure out that they have hundreds of stories to tell! They just have to learn how to get them on paper!