During our break from school as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, my two boys and I have been using our morning to complete reading and writing prompts.  Yesterday, we pulled our inspiration from George Ella Lyon's poem "Kitchen Table." In an activity similar to one I do with my high school students, I asked my boys to read the excerpt, analyze the moves that the writer makes, and emulate the style in an original work of their own. Last year while attending the Michigan Reading Association conference, Penny Kittle engaged us in a very similar activity using an excerpt from Alice Hoffman's bo ..read more

  At this point, we are a couple of days into social distancing and staying at home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Michigan schools, like schools around the country, are closed for the next few weeks. In response, educators are sharing an abundance of digital learning tools and home-schooling suggestions. I must confess, even though I am an educator and consider myself digitally saavy, this is all just a bit too overwhelming.  Too many suggestions, too many lesson ideas.  It's just too much! I love the passion and collaboration that is growing as a result of needing to quickly address ..read more

Wow!  What a week this has been.  Things have been moving very quickly, and in my Michigan school district, we suddenly find ourselves out of school through April 12th, a full month away from school.  The impact of COVID-19 is unprecedented, and as a result, we are all in uncharted territory. During our time away from school, we have an opportunity to reconnect with our families and take care of ourselves and one another.  For those that are interested, I created the self-care challenge for my high school students.  Feel free to make a copy of this document for yourself and your students.  H ..read more

Fridays are our reading days. It's my favorite day of the week. This past Friday, as the temperatures dipped and snow swirled, we declared it our first "Snuggle Up and Read Day." We had hot water so we could mix up some hot cocoa, cookies to dunk, and we found a comfy place in the room to record our reading goals for the coming week and spend the class hour reading. We begin the class hour each Friday by adding up the number of pages that had read in the past week and added it to our weekly reading log. Students can select any style of text to read - realistic fiction, poetry, self-help ..read more

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