Reading, Resolutions and Behavior

I love having a short week of school, and a long weekend.  It was SO relaxing!  I got to have some guilt free fun, relaxing and had some time to get some school work done at a more leisurely pace.  I felt I had some time to get back on track a bit, especially with my new year's resolutions.  Ive gotten off track with exercising.  We had a cold snap in Arizona for about a week and I was so unmotivated to get much of anything done.  It was nice to get back to yoga, now I need to work on getting into a running routine.  We had a big race this weekend and it motivated me to get back on track with running.

It also gave me sometime to planning and revamping my reading groups.  I feel pretty good about all my other groups, but I've been trying to figure out how to get my kids in groups and focus on differentiating more with their reading.  In my reading groups I have a variety of levels (even with six kids), so I really wanted to work on putting kids into groups, so I can work with them more individually and focus on their gaps.  When they're not with me I've been putting together packets full of work that's geared towards their levels-sight words, decoding skills and comprehension depending on their needs and their RIT scores (for anyone that does NWEA).

I also worked on brainstorming more about how to fully implement Class Dojo with my students.  I came up with some rewards for them that they can work towards and I will continue to add incentives as I go along and students suggest them.  Anyway, today was my first day of fully implementing the changes and Class Dojo with all my groups.  I thought it worked out great and made a huge difference.  I LOVE the way the students get such an automatic and visual reward for positive behaviors.  I'm having students earn points towards rewards their choose and I'll also chose some group rewards.  The kids really seem to enjoy it, love the positive attention (so do I) and I'm looking forward to the changes it will bring my students.

Hope you enjoy your short week!