New games, Writer's Workshop and Lego boys

So sorry I have not updated since the beginning of January.  I seriously can't believe how fast this month went.  We have been writing up a storm in class and soon I'll have photos of our Writer's Workshop sessions.  We started making books.  We had to take time to learn the mechanics and sentence structure first.  In past years I had the kids making books from September, and the creativity was there, but all the other components were not.  I, personally, have a hard time conferencing with my students on one skill at a time.  I was editing at all the mistakes.  So I decided this year to take the book writing slow and spend more time on directed lessons in writing for the first half of the year.  Really spend time on what writing is and how to become a skillful writer.  It has paid off.  This group is having a blast writing their own books and I am enjoying reading them instead of correcting them all the time.  The focus on skills has transitioned them into strong mechanical writers as well as creative authors. Wheew...glad that choice worked out.

I posted some new games and web sites on the reading, math and science/social studies tabs at the top of this blog.  Hopefully, the kids have time to use them at home.

Below you will see the creation the boys made last Friday during free play social time.  There were some definite leadership qualities being developed during this session.  The boys were so proud of their final product that I had to take a picture.  Still not sure what it is exactly, but it's cool all the same!

Looks like a Space Station to me.  What do you think?