Wordle Duck Surprise!

I am always up for a good challenge and I received one right in time for the new year. This particular challenge came as I was reading the blog of a fellow principal, Susan Phillips. Innocent and unsuspecting, I read with curiousity her description of casting her first Wordle. As I approached the bottom of Susan's post, she announced that she was now "tagging" colleagues to Wordle their blogs...maybe even once a month as a new year's resolution. "Great idea!" I think to myself. Moments later, my name appears as the second innocent and unsuspecting colleague on Susan's Wordle challenge list! Well, now that changes my entire blog-reading experience. I cannot just passively read and ponder the wonderful work of Susan Phillips, I have to DO something in response.

Here goes another fun and adventurous Web 2.0 interactive discovery. I followed the Wordle directions (they are very simple unless you have firewall issues or need to take a minute to update JAVA - as I did). I was eager to see what words would dominate my Wordle cloud. Would they define my work, my focus, my principles, and my leadership? Duck, no! The biggest word in my cloud was D-U-C-K. Is there anything redeeming about a duck that can offer me comfort or support as I waddle through my first year as a principal? You decide...

K-5 Students Respond to our November Book of the Month!

Students were extremely engaged in responding to this Book of the Month due to the fervor surrounding our nation's Presidential Election. It was a fun way to interact with students in Kindergarten through 5th grade about the electoral process and the idea of having a duck for President! Students responded to the text after a read-aloud through shared retellings, written responses, and making predictions based on the details of the text and their own personal knowledge. Enjoy our K-5 learning community's responses to Duck for President, by Doreen Cronin:

Reading Response Journals as Safety Net

Last month the Leadership Team launched a one-on-one safety net with 21 of our readers in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. After initiating the weekly two-way communication with an introductory letter, each member of the Leadership Team waited anxiously for a return letter from each student. The letters received demonstrated that each of the 21 students were deeply engaged by the opportunity to write about their reading lives and the meaning they were (or were not) making of the book they were reading independently. The second and third letters revealed that students were not only engaged, but they picked up on the language of a reading conversation quickly. Many initiated their own thoughtful interpretations, responded to questions posed, and asked questions generated by their own interaction with text. A few students even began to mimic the language that their Leadership Team mentor was using (i.e. signing off using creative phrases such as "Your Reading Buddy"). Stay tuned for posted student and mentor Reading Response Journal samples as this safety net demonstrates how readers can grow through a written conversation about making meaning, self-monitoring, and reading inquiry.