Year 22, 2012-2013, Fourth Grade, First Four Days

All weekend I have been thinking about the first four days of fourth grade last week.  They were the best first days I've had in a long, long time.

Everything just felt so different, so unique, and so creative.  I've been wondering why I'm feeling so differently toward the beginning of this year compared to others.  No matter how I look at it, everything comes back to Twitter. 

It was energizing to be in the classroom with so many new books in my toolbox.  I can't believe what a difference it can make when I personally know so many titles to share with my students instead of just having a passion toward reading and books.

My students and I are extremely excited about our September "Breakfast with Books" book club selection.  For those students who choose to do so, will be reading The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.  Our first book club will be on Friday, September 28th.  It was fun to reveal our book club poster and pass out the Yoda bookmarks.  These little things built up the excitement for our book club!

The highlight of the week had to be the sharing of graphic novels.  This genre was new to me this summer and I have fallen in love with them.  I think they were the perfect books to share with my students during the first days of fourth grade.  All my students are excited to read them and to join our different clubs when they have read all the books in a particular series.  We are most thrilled about Babymouse, Squish, and Lunch Lady.  I know we will be adding more graphic novels as the year progresses.

During one of our first four days, I gave my readers the Donalyn Miller Reading Interest Survey.  I hadn't used it in a couple of years, but after following her on Twitter this summer, I knew I wanted to pull it out again and offer it to my students.  The students enjoyed filling it out and it was quite eye-opening to me how honest the 4th graders were.  I know these surveys will help me in guiding my readers to the right books this year. 

As I have stated before, it is amazing to me how an online community of educators, authors, and other professionals can make such a huge impact on me as a teacher.  It brings me such joy and satisfaction to be a member of Twitter and know that I'm actually learning new things daily that transfer to my classroom immediately.  This transfer of information is truly beneficial to my students!

Thank you Twitter friends for all of this new learning and for making my 22nd year of teaching one of the best yet...