Week 3

We were once again impressed with your enthusiasm and participation last night, we had some pretty heavy information to share with you and you all did a great job!  Linda and I realize that next week we have only 2 days of school and you will probably be doing some special Thanksgiving activities, so you may not have the time needed to prepare for and tackle a Collaborative Story Retell. So....

Please try some of the Language Warmup activities that we shared with you in your class and let us know how it goes.  Perhaps you will want to start with the ABCs and Numbers and see how that goes at first, then move on to other activities as you and your students become more comfortable with it.  

We would also like to ask you to reflect on the Collaborative Story Retell process and compare it to what you currently do in your classroom. 

• How are the two processes similar and how are they different? Student roles and Teacher roles?
• Does your current practice offer the same vocabulary and sentence support as the method we showed you?  
• If not, do you believe that these extra supports will help your students to be more successful? Why?

Please plan on trying a Collaborative Story Retell after the break!  Enjoy your time off and we will see you in two weeks!!

Week 2

Thanks for another wonderful class!
I really have to applaud all of you for your enthusiasm and willingness to participate, especially tonight when I know you were all anxious to get home and begin enjoying your extra day off tomorrow.
It is obvious from your questions, responses, and the ideas that you contribute, that you are really focused and are taking the time to really think about what we are trying to share with you, for this we Thank You!

Please plan on teaching a Verb Tense Study with your students next week. Even if your students are still learning what a noun and a verb are, you can use the simple present tense lesson to reinforce those two concepts while teaching them of what a sentence looks like. These students may require a lot of support at first, but they CAN do it! Let us all know how it went and any celebrations or suggestions you may have discovered.

**If you need help finding pictures, check out these websites:
http://compfight.com/
http://www.iconfinder.com/

or my favorite:
Google Images

Week 1 Question

We discussed the SEI Strategies and why they are important for all of your students, not just your ELLs.
Please reflect on your own current classroom practices and assess which of these strategies you feel you are already doing a good job of using with your students. 
Then think about the strategies that you may want to make a conscious effort to increase the use of in your classroom and how you will make sure that you are reminded to do that.
Please share your thoughts with us.
Again, Thank you for a great class last night!

First Class

Wow, what a great night! Thank you all so much for coming.
I am looking forward to our next meeting, I believe that we are all going to learn a lot from each other!