Adventures in Literacy

We are nearing the end of the first month of school.  I have to rank this class as one of the most challenging of my career.  We are moving forward, but at a slower pace than I am accustomed to. 
     During Daily Five we are still working on building stamina.  Many students still just get up to get more books in the middle of it or talk to each other.  Most of that talking is innocent and impulsive, but the fact that they are still doing it shows that they are still working on stamina.  Normally I would be starting reading groups next week.  I still will, but many students will also begin the week with assigned seats that put them where I can see them and more than a single arms length from others (which is what we typically do).  This is the first step I take with students who are not building stamina.  After a week, they can have their choice back.  Make poor choices again and there are no more choices of where to sit.  This is how the CAFE Menu looked half way through individual reading inventories.  The "thumbs up" on the black paper represent the goals of each student.

      After a rough start (again-building stamina), Writing is going well.  I have seen some real improvement already using Lucy Calkins Units of Study.  Her techniques are simple enough that they are easy for students to implement.  They are very concrete as well.  This is how our Writer's Block looks as we are transitioning to from stamina lessons to craft lesssons-

There are lots of resources for students who need ideas to write about, including laminated pages from a costume catalog.

I also saw these descriptors for the four levels I used for Writing.  I thought I would add them to the display: Keep "TRI"- ing, Coming A-"ROUND", "SQUARE" Deal, and Love It!

     In the front of the room I added the class rules (below the board) and a cursive alphabet (above the board.