Enough THINKING. Time for ACTION.

I spend a lot of time in my head about everything. My son broke his arm last week and had surgery to realign his bone, which gave me LOTS of time to sit and think about things as I nursed him in the hospital and at home.

I thought about what I am doing with my students. I have 6 computers that they only use when they are looking for library books. I have students for 50 minutes per week where 20 of those minutes are used for check out. What can I do with students for 30 minutes, 1x per week, that allows them to CREATE and PRODUCE, and allows me to TEACH. I am currently focused on retelling techniques. A few of my classes are doing puppet shows and some are learning to retell a story with string. I always feel that what I do is not enough. I want to have time to talk to them about searching the internet, taking notes, using reference sources, finding what they need in the library, current events, etc. etc.

This week I thought about focusing on those 6 computers and how I can engage the other 14-22 students in some other independent activity. I have been researching implementing library centers for a while. I think its time to stop THINKING about it and time to DO it and see what happens.