Day 17- Three day weekend already??!!

Started off a little slow Friday morning.  Most of us were at school until 8:30+ for back to school night and returning by 7:15 makes for a pretty quick turn around.  I propose ( or will at next Cabinet) that the day after Back to- school night or Open House, school starts at 9 - so we an all sleep in a little. A colleague of mine also suggested that we have our teacher work day the next day, so at least we aren't tired for our students. They both sound good to me.

Its the Weekend!!!!! Play!!!!

My highlight on Friday was watching students help each other and witnessing this desire to do well begin turning in to a desire to learn and grow.  This year I am emphasizing that growth mindset and focusing on modeling metacognition as often as possible.  I think students hearing me talk about my thinking process will spark them to listen to their own thinking process and enable them to witness their own growth consciously- without focusing on a grade or only counting a grade as important.  I did tell all my students this year, if it was up to me we wouldn't have grades. Stop obsessing on grades and lets look at how we grow and learn!  That means I need to be on top of feedback in a different way.  SO we are all learning and growing in this process.  My feedback is getting more specific and more timely.  

We also signed up for Newsela, which allows me to make text sets of current events and track their reading growth all year.  

A-ha:

It gets easier to love students every year.

Reminder:

Eyes on the prize: its the learning, not a grade.