Authors' Corner

Currently, we are writing literary nonfiction pieces on Life as a Sea Turtle. We have read a few mentor texts to help us in our writing process. We started the workshop by reading two texts and completing a noticings chart. Literary Nonfiction Noticings (Click on the hyperlink)


Our young authors started writing their introduction paragraphs during our Writing Workshop time.
We would like to share a few with you!


Tappity, Tappity, Scritch. I get out of my egg. The sleepy moon helps me find the ocean. Oh no! I see a crab, I better hurry to the ocean! Phew... I am safe in the seaweed.
-Holden


Click, click, click, tap, crack! He was one of the last turtles to break out of the smooth, cozy egg. He crawled up the slippery, sandy nest. When he made it out the first thing he saw was a beautiful setting sun. He smelled the salty air. He looked up and down the beach checking for hungry crabs or sea birds. No predators in sight. Then he started his long journey to the water following the sun.
-William


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Welcome! I am thrilled to add this NEW and EXCITING page to our site. This 'corner' is for our fabulous authors aboard our amazing journey. This section will highlight students' original writing. While I believe it is essential for teachers to model writing for our students, I will post my own personal writing as well. Be sure to check this 'corner' often! It will be a worth while click!

 

In honor of a new school year, I would like to share my writing of our sweet duckling that hatched in May. You can learn more about my kindergarten project, "Make Way for Ducklings" at http://clickclackquack.blogspot.com 

Having Hope

By Mrs. Daniel

May 2014

 

What’s in a name? I thought for years about my little girls’ names when they were just a dream. I wanted the most perfect, significant, and strong name that would carry them through their lives. As a teacher, I see the names of my students before I meet their precious faces and I wonder what they look like, their sweet personalities, and how their name signifies them.

        There are 23 smiling, bright-eyed faces in my classroom this year. Each one has taught me so much. As teachers, we believe that we are “Changing the World”, but in all reality, it is our students whom greet us each morning, eager to learn, that are changing us.

         I have a 24^th bright-eyed beauty in Room 202 now. Her name is Hope. We gingerly placed her fragile egg in the incubator 38 days ago. On the 28^th day, we anxiously waited for her and her fellow eggs to hatch. Nothing. We felt disappointed and sad. How could they not hatch?  We invested so much time and research into these warm and cozy eggs. We cared for them each day, turning them twice a day, adding water and insuring the temperature was just right. For the first time in six years, we did not have a hatch.

        Although we had almost given up hope, we did not throw out the eggs. If only one would hatch, our project could be a success. Yesterday, Thursday, May 22, 2014, we saw a peck in an egg. We were shocked, astonished, and in total disbelief! As I shared the miraculous news with the students, I continued to repeat ‘hope’. I knew that this would be the name of our survivor, fighter, and little feathered friend that would teach us more than she will ever know.

      Hope cannot be found in a text book or a scripted curriculum. At first sight, you will not see how she has taught us to read, write, research, count the days on a calendar, or even how to compassionately love just a dream, but she has.

    Hope has forever changed my life and renewed my love for teaching. The days are long, the work does not end at 2:15, and at times I feel I give more to the 23 students in my classroom than my own children. My prayer is that each teacher can experience Hope and teach children to read, write, research, and love compassionately, not from a text book, but from the heart. We all need a little Hope in our lives.