I like worksheets about as much as the next guy. The stories are obviously supposed to be springboards for conversations. But sometimes as a TPRS teacher, our ideas bomb a lot because we just can't tell what will be funny on a certain day. It all depends on the classroom energy.
Today in the classes, student had a really strange energy. They had a desire to be goofy but it wasn't working well with the reading. I didn't scrap the reading because I thought it was necessary to go through with it. But I noticed through reading Ben Slavic's materials that he usually has a story one day, a reading the next. Then on Friday there is another sort of activity. I like the way that sounds.
But if I want to substantially change the format I'll just wait until after Christmas. For what I have right now, I think it's working well enough. The students are getting used to the format. Currently the format is something like this with the weeks alternating:
week 1:
M- weekend activity
T- new story
W- finish story
Th- song + finish story or story retells
F- story re-tell and writing story or game
week 2
M- weekend activity
T- reading
W- extended reading
Th- song + finish extended reading
F- reading, game, children's book, freewrite, etc
But I do like the idea of reading the day after the story. I also like the idea of sticking to a story for one day and not trying to resurrect it. The reason we tend to stay on a story for two days sometimes two and a half days is because of scheduling problems with early out days or because I might do a lot of circling and we throw in some silly details that help the kids feel more like it's there story
Food for thought.
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