What I Loved About Last Week

It has been a great week.

• I loved that my new found professional learning network (aka Twitter!) helped me find a link to listen to the ALA awards live Monday morning while I was making lunches. When they announced that the Newbery award would go to Kate Dicamillo's Flora and Ulysses I got some serious goosebumps. I was right in the middle of reading it and was thoroughly enjoying it. Then, reading people's blog posts throughout the week got me thinking about fun things I could do next year with the Caldecott's. Kids would get a little excited about the Caldecott's if they had read a few of the nominees and debated which should win. Imagine how fun that would be?! I especially loved Travis Jonker's post about things he loved about being involved with the awards.  It reminded me of how excited I was to go to the Kaleidoscope conference last year. 
• I loved watching my kids get excited about writing. When I taught in my BK years (before kids), the school I worked at had the kids write every morning as their morning warm up. It was a beautiful thing. We used the stories they wrote for spelling lists and tests and for the jumping off point for language arts lessons. I won't do all that at this point, but I was thrilled to see how natural it was for my kids to just write and write. We will definitely continue.
• I loved having Learning Conferences. These ones were student led and it is so interesting to stand back and see how children explain the learning we do in class. I really had a great group of kids. I love them all and always get a chuckle out of their antics.
• I loved having Friday to get a little caught up on life. It will make for a better week next week!