choice
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Children Need Choice
Source: Freepik Giving choice in the classroom gives students opportunities to learn to make decisions, even if it’s about what tools to use when they are working on a math problem. Making a wrong choice in a safe space, like the classroom, allows for risk-taking, which is a critical component to making good choices and Read more
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Student Engagement in Writing and Reading Workshop
This is the second in a series of blog posts about different strategies I use to help my students take ownership of their learning. The first post was about class meetings. Today’s post is about giving kids opportunities to determine their own writing and reading plans every Friday afternoon. (Coming soon is the third post in this Read more
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ESL Ruminations, Take #2
On May 7th, I wrote a post detailing concerns I was having about the activities that my ESL students were engaged in during our class time. I surveyed the class and got some interesting responses about what was going well and what changes we could make to improve these assignments. What follows are some of Read more
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Big Nate
I would have never predicted I’d be writing this post today. But, I’m concerned. No. I’m worried. But, before I go any further, a little background information and a disclaimer. My 7-year-old son, soon to turn 8, is very adept at the computer. He uses it primarily for entertainment and can spend hours checking Read more
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Writers’ Notebooks and More
As I walked around the room during writing workshop, I noticed most of the children had no sense of what they were writing about and why they were writing about that topic. In fact, many of them seemed aimless in their writing with little energy and interest to write. Instead, they were drawing or cutting Read more
Elisa Waingort 