This year may mark the final year Gigi is at Hilltop.  For a variety of reasons, we have concluded that third grade MAY just be the year to make the transition to Moorlands and into a neighborhood where she can start making local friends.  Playdates, when one lives away from the school area, are surprisingly difficult to arrange…  This year’s ending is drastically different from others as well since I have the fabulous Ms. Troske as an intern in my classroom this year.  Presently she is in the middle of her solid three weeks of student teaching, so I am encouraged to be out of the classroom quite a bit.  What’s a teacher to do who is left without a classroom, you may ask?  She is left to spend the remainder of shared schooling in her daughter’s classroom as a volunteer!  So the other morning I spent Daily Five time in Gigi’s classroom with her, watching all of that great thinking in action and, of course, sneaking a few pictures (low quality ipad camera pictures, just as a head’s up).

The second graders in Miss Jansen’s class start out with a morning meeting where a lesson is taught, previous thinking is reviewed and everyone gets ready for the day.  Miss Jansen has done a really good job of setting routines and expectations, so when they are released for their various activities each student has a ‘sense of urgency’ to get to their spot and right to work immediately.  It is obvious they have practiced this skill because ALL of the kids know what to do and they follow through.

All of the kids had a comprehension assessment to make sure their brains were doing all of the right things while they read.  After Gigi took her little quiz, she moved onto the next activity which was her reading group.

I love how engaged ALL of the learners look and how Miss Jansen is quietly speaking to the student next to her.  The feeling in Miss Jansen’s class is a peaceful and quiet one.  It is the perfect environment to grow as readers and writers.

Gigi’s class has places to do word work, study science and little nooks and crannies to read or write around the room.

Gigi’s turn to read in her group.

Lastly, Guinevere worked in her fractured fairy tale.  Her tale is the story of Rapunzel, the twist, or fracture, was that the father kept Rapunzel in the tower instead of the other way around.  The previous day we wrote a story together all about the time she went to a Justin Beiber concert and her mom wore ‘skine’ (skinny) jeans and a halter top and a huge pink bow in her hair.   It didn’t happen.  (yet).

All in all it has been such a pleasure to take the time to serve in Gigi’s classroom.  While she has been at my school for the last three years, my interactions with her have been pretty minimal.  I don’t have very many opportunities to go into her classroom in a real authentic capacity.  So I am grateful that her teacher, my friend Miss Carly Jansen, is willing to let a parent, who is also a teacher, come spend extended times in her classroom.  It has been so much fun to see my daughter acting like a second grader (they really DO act different at school, even when you ARE there) and it is so nice to know the kids she goes to school with.  If she is at Moorlands next year I will miss her terribly, but the trade-off of friends close by will far outweigh my little lonely heart that misses my girl.


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