Reader's Workshop Weekly Roundup: Week Nine (and part of week 10)

This will be my last post of the term, as my husband and I are soon off on holiday. We're heading overseas, and I'm really excited by it. I'll be back in about 2 weeks time.

Last week was a huge week in Reader's Workshop. We began focusing on informational texts, identifying the good ones in the class, making lists of more topics we'd like to know about and talking about the mechanics of informational texts. We also received three new books during the week - The Story of London, Amelia to Zora and Shelter Dogs, which helped keep the excitement up.

The students put up with being videoed and photographed for my professional development, with one kindly doing a conference on tape. They were thrilled with the short video I put together highlighting the Reader's Workshop, though I was told to make the music happier.

The professional development was a real success, and we had a visit from another class in the school to show how we did mini-lessons and book talks. They brought some new ideas with them, which added to our knowledge.

Popular books this week? Well Smile is still up there, along with Percy Jackson, but the latest is Conspiracy 365, which I managed to snaffle the fourth in the series on Thursday. There's going to be 12 all up and I cannot keep them on the shelves. There's a great trailer here.

Have a great two weeks, and I'll be back with more posts about Reader's Workshop, reading, book recommendations and links after I've rested and flown around a bit :)