Gigi facilitates one of her lunchtime author fan clubs, where everyone gets organized and brainstorms what they might explore in the group during this first meeting.
Andrea Smith realizes her normal reading routine will not work within the constraints of this year’s schedule. She makes some radical changes to ensure she and her students can have enough time to find the joy in reading and building a literate community.
Dana Murphy tries sketchnoting during professional development, and soon finds herself sharing the fun technique with students. They hone their skills during read alouds and while annotating texts.
Kate Mills and Tara Barnett provide some practical tips for connecting students and goals.
In this week’s video, Gigi McAllister helps fourth grader Aidan revise his writing on the computer to flesh out character development.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share suggestions for connecting with parents over the summer and early in the school year, including some fun uses of technology.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills use Monday Headlines to energize students after the weekend, and get a peek into what’s going on at home.
Gigi McAllister explains why you have to be a bit choosy about reading and writing events since there are so many possibilities. Here are some she values in her fourth-grade classroom.
In this week’s video, Gigi McAllister models writing in front of her fourth-grade class. She takes advice from students as she develops the characters in her story.
Gigi McAllister meets briefly with a group of fourth graders who are all exploring theme in picture books.
Megan Skogstad finds the right mentor texts can help her fourth graders move beyond acrostic poems.
Gigi McAllister helps a group of fourth graders evaluate questions for fostering good group discussions.
Andrea Smith shares the final installment of her series on the value of free-range learning in helping students explore nonfiction.
Andrea Smith's students explore nonfiction through free-range roaming. She explains how she sets up expectations and resources early in the year in this first installment of a two-part series.
Gigi McAllister gives a minilesson on engaging book talks to her fourth graders.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share the process of helping students set weekly goals and then reflect on their progress every Friday.
Gigi McAllister gives a brief explanation of how her thinking on goal setting has changed, as well as the ways she uses student goals to connect with parents.
Gigi McAllister has her fourth graders consider what makes a reading goal measurable.
Gigi McAllister shares a quick daily routine of asking students to celebrate books they have finished reading before she introduces a new book to the class.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills have a confession to make: in the first weeks of school, many of their fourth-grade students didn’t write much at all in workshops. It was only after tackling the issue of writing stamina head-on that they saw rapid progress.
Gigi MicAllister gives step-by-step advice on how she set up voice-recorded response as an option in her fourth-grade classroom.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills use the Sara Bareilles song “Brave” to help their fourth-grade students move from bed-to-bed stories to more emotive writing early in the year.
In this week's video, Gigi McAllister meets with two fourth graders who are reading the book Paper Things, talking about how using an audiobook can support comprehension.
Andrea Smith concludes her series on the power of branded student blogs in her fourth-grade classroom.
Ruth Ayres confers with fourth grader Nicole and reinforces advice from her mom about capitalizing proper nouns, as well as the importance of applying what you know about conventions in first drafts.
Andrea Smith uses a reading conference with fourth grader Zoe to preview a book.
Kate Mills and Tara Barnett share strategies for building bridges between intervention and classroom instruction.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills give three principles they use to help avoid the “charts as wallpaper” syndrome in their fourth-grade classroom.
Ruth Ayres shares some of her favorite mentors and mentor texts for developing good writing processes and habits.
Andrea Smith shares a sequence of lessons she uses to introduce the classroom library to her fourth-grade students.
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