I Kinda' Sorta' Won the Teacher Lottery!

     Came into school yesterday a bit beat.  I'm packing up our school's leveled library as well as my room:  great thing...new construction, new library, new "space" next year!  Bad thing--hard on the back!  Anyway, I checked my mailbox and found a high school graduation announcement from a student I had in second grade ten years ago.  I didn't expect the personal note I found inside.  K. remembers how rewarding it was to be part of a serious and celebratory writing community in our classroom...10 years ago!  I was so touched by what she wrote, I literally ran around the school (not so beat after all!) sharing her letter with our teachers. 
     What a difference writing makes in the lives of our students.  Thanks, K., for tracking me down and for taking the time to WRITE! 
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Link for FREE download/printable POEM to send students off reading for the summer

Hello!  Here's the link I promised if you'd like the download/printable for the poem I posted May 3.  Hope you enjoy!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-POEM-To-Give-Your-Students-at-the-End-of-the-Year
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Simply Read: Send them off to read the world with this poem

I'm exhausted, but just couldn't go to sleep tonight without writing something...
At the end of each school year, like many teachers, I always give my students a book to send them off reading for the summer.  As I've marveled in watching my now 4 year old son learn to read in part by simply devouring the world, I thought, why not spread a sense of his wonder?  Below, is what came out.  I envision teachers giving students a book and a copy of the poem, telling them the greatest wish they have for them this summer is simply to read...


Simply Read



Read like the wind.

Read everything you see.



Read boxes and bags

blocks and

 socks

The names of cars

foods in jars

cereal boxes

calendars

bins

prices in aisles

labels on tins

or even people's skins…



Read thermometers

magazines

newspapers

scales

whatever it is that arrives in the mail



Read door signs

street signs

signs on stores

read where no reader has read before.



Reading’s all around you

all you need do is look

grow what you know about the world

and, yes, of course,

READ  BOOKS!

-Janiel Wagstaff, 2012

It's  very late, but I'll work on a printable teachers can use and post it for download soon. Have a great night...what did you read this eve? :)
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