A few months ago, I was in a Zoom call with Deans of Students at various Quaker schools. One of the questions asked, to which everyone took turns responding, was basically, “What does it feel like at your school right now?” And what I said, a few months ago, was, “It feels like we’re trying…
Right now, during this Omicron surge, the question of whether schools should be in person or remote is in the news and in public debate. With the infection rate going ever higher, we have been forced to close classrooms for the first time in the pandemic. Today, the Waves are back in school, after finishing…
In the middle school writing rotation, fiction writing came up on my unit map this year. While I have a curriculum that I regularly use to teach writing, I had a crazy idea- what if my students participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? NaNoWriMo is traditionally an adult-led tradition where people worldwide commit…
A date, a salutation, at least five sentences, a picture they’d like, a closing, and your name. It’s good to ask at least one question so they have something to respond to. These were the parameters of a buddy letter, as a few complaining middle schoolers explained to me. What were they complaining about? Not…
Our class has been doing an author study on Andrew Clements, and we’re entering the final phase. We started with a read-aloud book: the first day of school, I opened up Clements’ book Extra Credit and started reading it aloud to the class. It’s a slightly higher reading level than many in the class would be…
Today in the face of off-and-on rain, I gave the Rockets, our middle school class, a choice of indoor recess or chancing an outdoor recess where rain might fall. They chose indoor recess, and we left behind the normal class-level set of recess sports equipment and trooped up to the gym, where a set of…