What's Your Opinion?

Summer.... Oh how I love you!  It makes for laaaaazy days where we stay in our jammies well past when we should, have late breakfasts and lunches, clean out and reorganize our pantry (super fun), and watch America Ninja Warrior every week!  We are a *little* obsessed with that show and we may or may not chant "Beat that wall!" with the crowd, squeal with delight when they do and give each other high fives.  I'm not going to lie... I want to be an America Ninja Warrior.  Maybe when the knee fully heals. Anyhoo....

Last week we had our three curriculum days.  We are planned and partially copied for the Y.E.A.R.!  Em and I had some great conversations about what we were planning on doing next year in writing.  Once she gets back from her vacay (lucky lady) we may, just may share with you what we came up with. :)  We were able to use lots of resources to help plan out most of our minilessons for next year because after much, much, much reflection, we realized this is where we were lacking.  So.... we're pulling from Lucy,   , , , and I think that's it.  :)

At the end of the year we were also starting to work on using visual pictures to help our students organize their thoughts.  We noticed it helped our students A TON!!!!!  They were able to use the pictures to help them remember which step they were on which meant less reliance on us.  :)  It meant not asking us, "What am I supposed to do next?" "I don't know what to do." Have you ever heard that before?  We also had students who would draw each step at the top of their papers and cross them off once they were completed. 

Em enlisted the help of her ever-so-talented hubby to help us with pictures.  Have you ever seen his website?  Be sure to visit him by clicking here.  These are just a few pictures he drew for us:

 

I used Ben's images as well as other fun frames and borders to make posters to go along with each.

You can check it out

by clicking on the cover.

 What do you think?  How do you help your kiddos remember each step in the process?  Do you use visuals too?  We'd LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to hear from you! 

ps... Informational (Animal Research Included!), Narrative, and How-To are coming.  :)  I'm trying to be productive on these rainy Cincinnati days.