Last week, I had the great fortune to coach research and information writing in Melanie Jones’s kindergarten class at John T. Waugh Elementary School in Lake Shore, New York. We were most interested in taking the Next Generation English Language Arts Standards for a drive by diving into play-based learning and exploring the effect that it had on rigor. First things came first, though: we needed an audience for students’ work! Thanks to my vibrant…
Fellow literacy coach Sheri Barsottelli and I visited with Heather Bitka and her kindergarten students at Roy B. Kelley Elementary School today, and when we got there, we learned that THEIR CHICKS WERE BEGINNING TO HATCH! As you might imagine, this made for quite an exciting start to the morning. What was even more fun was watching the kids’ reactions when they learned that they could Skype into Molly Koelle’s first grade classrooms to announce…