OK, so it’s still holiday break, but we can celebrate the third #teachersunday in a row, especially to get more teachers on board after the New Year (just post a pic of your Sunday in the Twitter sphere, and/or FB). Even though it’s still break, I’ve already heard teachers beginning to plan their upcoming week. Not me; I took care of that work—at work—before I left work. In fact, I’m not even sure what’s been planned, and don’t really need to know until school begins Wednesday. Come to think about it, I don’t even really have to plan for Mondays at all because the options are bountiful. Having some Monday routines on hand are a must for teacher sanity…
Before you check out my #teachersunday activities from this week, here are some favorite no-prep options for every Monday so you don’t have to think very hard on a Friday, and definitely not during a holiday…
- Weekend Talk/Holiday Talk/Card Talk + Simple Survey (e.g. “What was good? What was bad?”)
- Calendar Talk
- Special Person Interviews
- MovieTalk (always have the next one cued & printed)
- One Word Image (OWI)
- Free Voluntary Reading (FVR)
Also, whatever you do, make sure it’s something without printing (do all that by Friday). Heading to the copier Monday morning is about as bad an idea as driving back to any major city on a Sunday afternoon.
- Making some house compound gin (i.e. legal infusing, not illegal distilling)
- This ambient music show is free on Sundays, and you can stream the show all week free on the app.
- OK, so watching double bass videos isn’t exactly relaxing, but #teachersunday is more about not planning for school than it is about chilling out. #teachersunday is about making sure you retain free time, and doing what you want with it.
- Calm Quincy water from a cozy corner at Aunt Pat’s.
Magister P. 
Hey Lance! What do you mean when you say for Movie Talk to always have one cued up (I get that) and printed? How printed?
1) an embedded reading of the story, and 2) a parallel version if you have one.
MovieTalk without an accompanying text is only half as effective.
Not to mention the questioning and interaction during the MovieTalk itself is likely to expose students to language beyond what is in its text you have ready to go. The combo results in some rich input, and a wider net.
Gotcha. Do you a level or two of the the embedded reading before watching the movie? Would love to read about how you do movie talk!
I do hideously simple 10-sentence version 1 in big font on the front page, then versions 2 and 3 on the back. Lately, I’ve been projecting a single screenshot and asking kids to See|Think|Wonder, read that version 1 Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) for one minute, then MovieTalk. “Assign” version 2 to read at home (most kids don’t), then read 2 and 3 over next day or two using different reading strategies.
Perfecto! FYI you are one of my top favorite bloggers. I love your no/low prep approach to EVERYTHING and that you have organized all the CI Activities for us. A true guru. Hope 2019 is a great year for you!
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