Dear Readers,

Alright, alright!

I keep getting questions and emails asking why this classroom blog is no longer being updated. Clearly an explanation is in order.

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support of this blog. Your clicks (yes, we watched how many visitors we had to this blog) and comments made this space what it was meant to be—a place to share what was happening in our classroom and a place where my students could showcase their work and know it was being seen by others beyond our classroom. The children were also able to receive feedback from relatives, friends, former students of mine and from people they didn’t know from places they would probably never see. We read each and every comment aloud together. Thank you for your contribution to our learning.

Now, about that explanation. Last June, I retired from classroom teaching. People always told me that I would know when the time was right to do this and they were correct. I did!

This change has given me the opportunity to put more time into other things that I love. It’s a joy to be able to spend time working one on one with students learning to read. There was never as much time as I wanted for this in our busy classroom. It’s also a delight to mentor teachers and to speak to teachers at conferences as part of their professional development. I have done this for several years, but I love that I now have more time to put into the preparation that I want to do for these sessions.

I speak about ways to connect your classroom with the world (such as this blog) and how those connections can help you to teach literacy and math. I also speak about using robotics with young children and about using iPads to create and learn. You can check out all my presentations and the resources I share here.

So, if you’d like to get together for a coffee, for a chat or for a conference let me know!

This blog and the thirteen years of student blogs the children created will remain online as an example of the power of connected learning and as a way for my former students to continue to access their six-year-old learning.

Thank you again for your support and for making this blog the community that it has been. It became more than I ever dreamed it could be.

Kathy Cassidy