Winter Blog..... Curating your topic project.... 3/22

Over the last two quarters I wanted to spend time looking into “how to involve more room for creativity in curriculum in a context of more scripted curriculum.” What I was looking into was how to get more creative with the activities that my students do. Looking through their workbooks and the teacher guild there was not really “fun” activities that the students are able to do. Before we had to, I was spent time on Pinterest. But now that I had a purpose in mind I started to look for pins that would add creativity to the lesson that I was teaching.

What I found was a overwhelming amount of activities, worksheets, websites, games, and more that I could use. That best part of it was that it came from other teachers. Many of the pins that I have come from a website called “Teachers pay Teachers,” the great part about this website is that it is teacher created materials. I know that these are going to be reliable because it came from a teacher who has/had used it with their students. The other part that I really like about it, that it gives one tools that they can send home for parents to use with their students. For example one of the pins is “Free sight word apps,” this can a great tool to tell parents about.

One of the negatives to this is that there is so much stuff out there. It can be really overwhelming to look back through all the pins and remember what you have. The link may not work, or really end up not being what you want. One of the positives is that there is so much available. That one is going to be able to find some fun creative way that can add to the topic you are teaching about!

Winter Blog.... Technology Inquiry project Reflection 3/15

The technology that I use for personal use and classroom use are very different. The technologies that I use for personal use are my IPhone, IPad (personal), and my computer. For personal use I am using to connect with friends, family. I am going on Facebook, Pinterest, emails, games, or watching Netflix. Normally when I am using these resources I am not always working or doing work for school. I try and make time so that I can just have. But there are times when I am writing papers or using the internet to look up information that can help with my homework. I have really started to use technology in which I hope can help me in my future classroom. There are so many connections through Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and Pinterest. I have found that there are many great interactive worksheets, ideas on Pinterest that I would love to take into my classroom. This is a great way to connect and share ideas about other teachers are doing.

The technology that I use at my main placement school are very different from what I personal use (i.e. active board, document camera, copier). When I am at school for my main placement the technology that I am using is mainly used for the interaction and basis that it is going to help the students. The active board is used for the students to check in on. They have to come in, put their things away, and then put their name in A lunch, B lunch, C lunch, or home lunch. Then we also use it for the morning message where they have to put together the date. Then we graph the weather for the whole month. Then we also do math, we use the days of kindergarten. We are learning about hundredths place, tens place, and one’s place. It is a great way for the students to use the board. My CT is always using the document camera for modeling what the students are going to be doing in writing. For math we use the interactive board, my CT pulls up the student page and then work through some of the problems with the students.

I think that incorporating technology is going to be really important, and something that I want to do when I have my own classroom. I feel that it can really benefit the students in many ways. It will allow students who are visually learner’s maybe see examples in different ways. Also there are many great resources out there that one can access. For example, we have started learning how to infer, there are many great poster pictures that my CT has choice to use that students relate too, but can use to practice their inferring skills. But on the other hand it can be really overwhelming by how much technology is out there. So one does need to be careful about how and what we are using technology out there.

Short-term goal: I would like students to have more of a personal interaction with the technologies in my classroom.

Long Term goal: I would like to have a comprehensive set of flip charts to use year after year. 

Winter Blog.... 3/8

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of principles for curriculum development that gives all individuals equal opportunities to learn.  Principle one provide multiple means for representation. In this principle outlines ways in which students can receive information where they are non-auditory learners or visually impaired learners. This principal provides ways in which these learners can receive alternative forms or representation.
A tool that can be used too support non-auditory learners would be the library of signed stories. Which use British Sign Language and caption words. This can be used for students in Grades K-4th. Content area would be literacy cost is free, and all you need is internet connection.

http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl

http://bookbuilder.cast.org/

Winter Blog.... 3/1

This week I had to complete and 3 series lesson plan for Literacy. I took a small group of students (three students, two of them where ELL students. It was a really interesting experience to see and get the feel for you plan lesson that build off of each other. Over all I think that the lesson went really well. By the end of the week the students were able to verbal explain what question marks, and exclamation points were. They were also able to identify the punctuation on a page of text.

I know that after the three lessons, they know what the different types of punctuation are. So for the next lesson I would start of work with them on how we read with a question mark, and exclamation point.

It was a been a great time, I have really been able to see my students grow. Students who were only saying one word, are now saying full sentences. Also students who could not write and only draw pictures are now asking if they can write more than we asked them too. It has been wonderful to students come out of their shells! It has also been great to see when students who were struggles are excited when they get the answers right! I am really looking forward to the end of the year and see how much more the students will grow.

Winter Blog.... 2/22

I have been able to see several different styles of how teachers teach vocab. In my dyad experience (3^rd grade) the teacher had posters all over the room. It would have the word and the definition written next to it. To help support their learning she had a half sheet of the most common words and the proper spelling. To help assist in their learning, in the morning when they came in the students would have to look up two words, write the definition (this always ended up being the first one), page number, the words that were on the top of both pages, and 2 synonyms. This was a good way to get the students exposed to how use a dictionary, also what we can learn from a dictionary. Looking back I am not sure that it really made that much of an impact on the students. I noticed that many of them did it as fast as they could or just took the first definition they found. This means they did not see words could have more than one meaning, or really look at what it said.

            In my main placement (kindergarten) the teacher likes to take a different approach. While we have not used the dictionary (nor do I think we will use it), we still teach new words to the students. When teaching the students a new word we tell them the kid friendly version, but also the “big college” word. They really seem to like that we do this; it makes them feel important and cool that they are leaning the words that I am learning in college. One thing my teacher has learned from working in kindergarten for so long is that when you put the words with movement and actions, the students have a better success rate for remembering the words. We have a word wall for the sight words, and have posters with words and definitions that we bring out when we want to remember what the definitions are. 

Winter Blog.....2/15

I got to teach today!

9:00-9:40

            We started the day off with normal calendar routine. After reading our routine we read a few poems. Then we moved to sight words. After saying, spellings, saying I had each student spell one word without seeing the word. We also did some zoo phonics.

Reading workshop

           

            We continued with our center work. I worked with both Pink, and Purple groups. In Pink group: we read “The Chocolate Cake,” during the book I would pause and have them summarize (or retell) what was going on. I told them for the next time, I want them to focus on reading with expression. I noticed that they were not reading the ?,!. So we re-reviewed what those symbols meant.

In Purple group: we read the book “Blizzards,” and worked on retelling what we had read. Then they picked out new books.

Writing workshop

            We reviewed how to write a letter and the different components of a letter. Then the students went back to their desks and wrote their own letter.

Math workshop

            We did student page 131. We worked on if two numbers are equal or not. Then representing numbers with circles and then finding our five groups and circling them.

End of the day

            Someone pulled the ear off one of the stuffed bunnies. So tomorrow NO ONE CAN play with the stuffed animals, I did talk to them about how that is not how we play with others toys, and you would not like it if I am into your house and broke one of your stuffed animals.

Other than that they did really well today!!

It was a really great experience to see what it would like to be a sub/ teacher. I had to plan my day when I got to school. During our specialist I sat down and wrote what I had to do, and then how much time I was going to spend on each subject. It really helped that I put the exact times of when and what we were going to do. I am really looking forward to when I can get to full time teach!!!

Winter Blog.... 2/8

At the beginning of the year, we started off by telling your students how we read books. As the where in kindergarten we look at the pictures and try and read the words we know. My CT started off by having the students “reading” for about five minutes. Now that we are about half way through the year, they are reading for about 20-30 minutes. Routman talked about how you have to build up to reading for a long time. Which is very true in kindergarten, they start off with very small reading workshops then build up to longer times. As they learn how to read, you can give them more time to explore books. I know that my CT had a bin for where she put books that she has read out loud to the class. Then when it is reading work shop the kids always “fight” over those books, and then may “read” (most of the time they have memorized the book) the book.

Another point that Routman brought up was Independent reading. Based on how Routman described Independent reading this is what my CT does during her reading workshop. On Mondays she has the students come over in their level groups pick new books, (the books are separated by level) so she had them pick from the boxes that will “just right” books for each group. While each group is picking out their books, the other students are independent reading. Before the independent reading time she will give the students reading goals. Right now the students are working on Character, setting, problem, solution. At the end my CT will ask a few students to share what their books were about. If the students are not picking out books, she will work with the different groups.