"All the leaves are brown...

This is why I love autumn. I went home over the weekend, where the trees outside my window are blushing all kinds of yellow & crimson.

Things are picking up around here! I'm totally buried in work at this point. In fact, I shouldn't be writing this blog. (But I just have to try out my brand new Macbook, you know.)

Monday was a great class, with a visit from none other than my mother. She did a read aloud with the class and we all sat up, spread out, and did much-needed stretches. I think the kids really loved it.

I was able to videotape Thursday's class, which was great. I'm so happy with the footage! We had a great discussion about book-choice. Instead of bogging them down with the jargon of "good readers do this" and "good readers do that" (well, I tried not to use it), I talked about what we really do when we make a commitment to a book. That's a great word. Several students had big ideas about what the word "commit" meant, and we talked about how relating to a book helps us understand + make a commitment.

More students have discovered their books, and we'll definitely start writing by Monday (I hope.)

I'm writing a ballad about Frederick Douglass as an example. It goes:

“A century and some years ago, when people were oppressed,

A candle in a cabin glowed for a man who had no rest.

He studied all the night, though it was disallowed—

His name was Frederick Dougless, a brave man who had vowed:

“I will learn to read, although

You tell me it is a danger.

I will learn to read, I swear

To knowledge, I am no stranger.”

It's been changed now by editing it with the students. We're still sticking with danger + stranger as our rhyming words.

This coming weekend I'll be with my family again, which is nice. Both of my little brothers are going to be in NYC tomorrow and need to be shown some of the cool things around here. Any ideas? I'm clueless for the most part, although I'd love to go to a museum. Don't know how into that they would be.

Off I go to do more work! I might stop and get some gelato in one of the delicious gelato places I spotted on my walk home today.