Our teachers returned to work yesterday. It is a little odd to have a teacher workday on the last Friday of break. Oh well! Pick your battles. I was not able to be in my own building the whole day due to trainings going on in various locations throughout the district.
Conco Quarries is a community business that has a wonderful meeting room that they allow our district to use for district-wide training sessions. Our district is spread out over a few miles and this allows a “middle-ground” location for all 4 elementary staff to meet. It is soooo nice to have the collaboration of the district and for teachers to get to know one another. I hope that other districts have district-wide collaboration. It is very powerful. Our K-1 teacher had training in the morning, 2-3 in the afternoon and 4th grade met separately in the afternoon at one of the other elementary buildings. I attended the K-1 and 4th grade training.
You’ve got to start somewhere! Some of my upper grade teachers have mental road blocks to how to implement guided reading. Guided reading is such a powerful instructional tool. Just start somewhere! Do something! It doesn’t have to be perfect. Model learning and risk-taking. The students will love and benefit from this individualized instruction. There is always a laundry list on how something will not work but just dive in anyway. It’s called flexibility 101! I am anxious to see how it goes. Everything is in place it is just a matter of doing something and starting somewhere. Ready, set…………….
Flickr image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/judybaxter/115424637/in/photostream/
