Kiker's Strength-Based Learning Cohort

It's felt like the week blew by, but we've got a lot accomplished in that amount of time. Our focus this week was effort, specifically in the area of asking questions. We've noticed that our effort in finding sometimes means that we just want to be shown the solution, rather than taking the steps to struggle through confusion and then climbing that ladder towards understanding. It's that process of confusion and learning where we need to be asking questions: for clarification, for help, for direction, and even out of curiosity. Finding in our minds where we last understood something...and then asking questions to move forward. It's fostered a lot more discovery and discussion in our classrooms, and hopefully at home! In reading and writing, we've been exploring our two Bluebonnet novels deeply, using them as models for our own writing process. We've been inferring, predicting, giving text evidence, and writing about the author's purposes for specific s

Welcome Back! We have had an exciting week! Our focus has been active listening. We've been talking about investing in the person by being a listener, and in that, we find that often we learn so much about the PERSON talking, that we are taking an interest in them, not just their words! Mrs. Mangels shared a wonderful book about how listening also can change our perspective of a person.  Our blocks have changed. We have two mixed Blocks of Second and Third Graders. It has been a week to adjust to our new groups, but we find that working shoulder to shoulder with a new friend is extremely productive and has given new energy to our learning. Fourth, because of some specific, discrete skills, will be mixing in just after STAAR. In reading, Fourth has focused on polishing their expository texts, WE ARE WELL PREPARED! I am excited for them to show their work on Tuesday in STAAR writing. They have been working so hard! Block One and Two (mixed groups) have been working on new reading

This week we worked on positively steering ourselves. We noticed that steering our minds, actions, and words helps in every situation, and protects relationships. In reading, Third Grade finished their novel, and in the ending, figured out that the character Gabriela, was based on the author's life. They used inference and interpretation to analyze each narrative poem, and then synthesized the narrative as a whole. They wrote beautiful daydream poems modeled after Nikki Grimes' book. Second Grade has bees working on new centers, which will begin the week we return from break. We know practicing insures smooth transitioning and maximizes learning time. Fourth Grade have been editing, revising, and even evaluating sample expository pieces in preparation for STAAR on the 28th. We are master sentence analyzers and look forward to showing what we know! Friday we wrapped up the week with Breakfast and the Paper and a reward video for the OVER 175,000 Learning Minutes we have accumul

This week's focus was believing the best in others. We found lots of opportunities to reflect on this, especially when there were disagreements. Perspective taking and positive thinking always provides a framework to protect and grow the relationship, even when things may not be going the way we think they "should" or the way we think people "should" act towards us. In reading and writing, Fourth is preparing with lots of expository, sentence analysis, and detail expanding! We know that we are ready for STAAR in a few weeks, and TEAM SBLC is so proud of all their hard work.  Third Graders are finishing their narrative poetry book, and are reinforcing skills as sentence analyzers. Second is working on a new skill, inference. We've seen how the text clues, plus our schema, gives us a way to see things that the text might not exactly say. It's a lifelong skill to have as a good reader!  We've all been brushing up on our responses to literature as well