It's been awhile, Blogger

The life of a first year teacher. It's pretty crazy. Thank goodness it's not as crazy as grad school. I actually have time to have some resemblance of a social life on Saturdays. If I didn't have that, I would probably go insane. Don't get me wrong ... I love every piece of it... well almost everything (I could do without the mountains of grading that I don't get to look at until the weekend because of exhaustion during the week.) I love finding new lessons that will hopefully inspire most of my students. I love seeing them get 100 % on their spelling tests. But, mostly I love when my low level boy readers shout "YES!" when we start reading to self. Seriously, this makes my day, everyday. Finding those just right books really makes a world of difference. They are learning to love to read, to read for fun, to be inspired by new characters, and to be taken to new places. It's amazing, when they come up to me and retell the exciting parts of a story because they are in love with the book that they are reading. They read their books in the car on the way to soccer practice, they read it on the bus ride home, and they read it, willingly, in class. They love daily 5 so much, and it makes me excited for that hour and a half we spend each day without textbooks. That's why I created a donor's choose project to help build my library ... I am a first year teacher, and while I have shopped extensively for cheap books at bargain stores and yard sales, I don't nearly have as many books as I need to keep my students inspired all year long ... so here's my selfish plug for some money ...

http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=645486

I think that the love for reading is something that we can teach our students, and through that love for reading, they will be inspired to be better learners. Hopefully, I can reach my students through just right books with your help.