Harry Potter saves the day!

Friday Park Day with the ladies :-)

Fifth graders Meonni and Katana received Student of the Month and the Good Citizen Awards

Gustavo Linares received a Reading Award at school!

Hello to all and very belated Happy New Years! Program kicked off again January 18^th and although a great deal of our students moved out of the homeless shelter and thereby out of our program, we have several new kids that have quickly captivated my heart J Because we have acquired a new teachers position for Spring 2010, there are now three of us with the elementary school kids- huge blessing! Currently I’m working solely with the 4^th and 5^th graders. Because my class size is now a bit smaller, I can go deeper with the kids and facilitate more enrichment activities whereas before, getting homework done in the mist of keeping the peace in the classroom was more than overwhelming.

One of the new and exciting projects going on in the 4^th- 5^th grade class is focused on motivating the kids to read more in the hopes of improving their spelling, writing, reading and comprehension skills. A recent ‘facilities grant’ allowed me to purchase 2 full sets of the Harry Potter collection and in very little time, over half the books were “checked out” of my library. The kids earn a point for every page they read and at the end of the month, the 2 top readers get a pizza and movie night at my apartment. Giving the students incentive to read in conjunction with weekly spelling bees has been VERY well received by my class. They run off the bus everyday (much to the dismay of the bus driver trying to maintain order) and proudly hand me their torn pieces of paper decorated with the tallies of how many pages they read the night before. I do not ask for a parent signature because I trust my students and want to show them I “believe them” although I often I ask for “pop quiz” chapter summaries just to keep them on their toes!

Much to my excitement, the new reading club has proven effective in their test scores at school!! Not only have their vocabulary, writing and reading scores improved, but the kids have become even more motivated because they have seen the fruit of their studies. Like a proud parent with one of those “My Child is an Honor Student” bumper stickers… I have posted all their tests up at the front of the classroom. J