Celebrate This Week~ A Primary Perspective!

Thank you again Ruth for the opportunity to gather and share our weekly celebrations! If you'd like to read more celebrations or add your link visit Ruth Ayers Writes. 

This weeks celebration could again be about #NCTE13. I think it will take me months to sort through all the fabulous experiences on my first national conference, being surrounded by people who share my passion to an extreme level. But today I choose to celebrate what #NCTE13 meant to my class.

THE BAD NEWS and the GOOD NEWS
The excitement in my class began the morning before I left for NCTE. During our morning meeting I shared with the kids that I would be out for the next 2 days. This news was met with a chorus of groans and questions.  I quickly told them I would be out for a GREAT reason! I told them about all the authors, twitter friends and teachers I would be seeing and the groans instantly turned into calls of can you, will you? Will you take pictures? Will you tell them about our work? Can you get new books? And my favorite, Can we go too?
The excitement lasted all day, as the kids worked they shared new ideas that I could (should) share at the conference. I love that my students see our class as bigger than our classroom, our building and our neighborhood community. I love that they see the value in their work and see the value of sharing it with others. I love that they know I am working to better myself for them.

ANTICIPATION and EXCITMENT
The Monday after the conference was full of the same excitement and anticipation! I stood at the door as the kids entered the room greeting me with hugs, drawings, a few new rainbow loom bracelets and QUESTIONS! We were excited to see each other and I am pretty sure we were both feeling RENEWED! As the kids settled in I posted a few pictures to share my experience (I didn't take nearly enough, I had to borrow a few).




#NCTE13 FROM the PRIMARY PERSPECTIVE

The kids quickly gathered for our morning meeting full of questions and eager to hear more! Did you really meet all those authors? Did they remember tweeting us? Did you get new books? Did you order the new monster book yet? (I love the yet.) Can we order more Peter Brown books? Peter Brown looks different with the hair on his face. He didn't wear that  hair in his You Will Be My Friend trailer.  Can we watch the Creepy Carrots book trailer again? Can you put it on our web page? Can we read all those new books at workshop? Can we take them home for book selection? Mrs. Frazier that is so cool! And with this excitement at it's height I showed them the ARC's the publishers so graciously put in my hands. The kids eagerly offered ways we could staple and tape the ARC's making them easier to read. They were honored to have an advanced copy of a book! When I explained that the author and publisher might want to know what we think of the book they were ready to dig in! (Look for more on this in the weeks to come.)



GIVING THEM JUST ENOUGH…
In the session Literacy in the Digital Age @frankisibberson talks about giving kids just enough to make them want to play. Stretching this idea just a bit here, but here's where the kids took the excitement of the conference in the short two day week. Looking forward to the weeks to come!

Ryan has a question for Jarrett Krosoczka~




Kids start a digital book talk on Creepy Carrots~



We would love to hear where your kids are taking all you brought back to share with them! Please share links and comments below.