Last Thursday we conducted our school-wide Spelling Bee. Thanks to Ms. Williams and her team, Ms. Jones (announcer), Ms. Moan, Ms. Welker, and Ms. Anderson (judges) the event was a great way to kick-off our week back to school.
I must extend congratulations to fifth grader, Garrett Saulnier from Ms. Brame's class. Garrett will represent Durham at the district spelling bee. In the event that Garrett cannot make it, our first runner-up, Alejandro Ortiz Escoto from Mr. Lister's class will represent us. I am super proud of you both. I am also very proud of our budding spellers who were the grade-level winners in 1st and 2nd grades; they attended to see what is in store for them if they continue on their current path.
Through the years, I have noticed that great spellers are avid readers. I am struggling with finding the time to read as much as I used to, I wonder why, but know that it is a must for the new year. I do not usually make resolutions, for fear of not living up to my own expectations, but I am committing to reading more this year.
My Reading Commitments for 2013 are:
1. Use Goodreads to track my reading. I've been convinced by Donalyn Miller to use Goodreads to track my books, keep a to-read list, and connect with others on books I'm reading. I spent time today exploring this site and can already feel a blog post coming on about how neat it is!
2. Have family "Read-to-Self" time with my kids. Read-to-Self is one of the components of Daily5 that I would like to introduce at Durham next year. This will be a chunk of time (at least 10-15 minutes, because that's what they can handle right now) that they can read whatever they want (not to me) while I also read myself. This will be a win-win for all of us! (I realize I did say kids plural--I'm hoping that 2 year-old Sawyer can be focused that long looking at books or listening to books on the iPad).
3. Read 1 professional book a month. I will probably end up reading more, but I want to focus on reading more fiction so I'm not so boring!
4. Read 280 books. I'm not as crazy as I sound, I swear! As I was exploring Goodreads today, my son thought it was cool and asked if we could keep track of the books I read to him (and his brothers) on there too, so out of the 280 goal, I expect 225 to be for picture books and 55 to be for novels, professional books, and kids' chapter books.
What can you commit to this year? Start small and build upon your successes. Remember that a home without books is like a house without windows.
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