We may have talked about this briefly before in class-- why do some teachers/schools feel that spelling tests are not useful? Just wondering. I am sure some teachers/schools think spelling tests are more about memorizing and that students aren't actually learning anything by memorizing.
I could always research this on my own but I am just wondering if anyone has any thoughts about this.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Beliefs and Understandings Concepts
Beliefs and Understandings
Methods
Guided Reading -students are in small group instruction, based on similar reading levels, skills needed, kids read quietly while teacher monitors and guides reading experience, while teacher is working with small group, other students are in literacy centers.
Reading Workshop - Teacher teaches a minilesson ("literary gossip," management, skills), students engage in independent practice, teacher monitors through conferences with children, students share their work to get other opinions, to reteach and break into "kid speak."
Writer's Workshop - Teachers have a mini-lesson, students engage independent practice, teacher monitors through conferences with students, students share their work.
Working with Words (Phonics) - letters, sounds, combinations of letters and sounds, word walls, word activities (making words, tongue twisters, read my mind, brand name phonics, rhyming games, WORDO, big books - looking for patterns)
Concepts
Strategy Instruction
Critical Literacy
Informational Texts
Fluency
Visual Literacy
Book Clubs / Groups
Literacy Centers - specialized places for specific activities, kids are working independently on specific skills in specific spaces of the room, tend to be kid-driven.
Technology - used where appropriate and in spaces that will help children learn literacy.
Assessment
Kidwatching / Observations
Writing Samples
6+1 Traits - a way to talk about and assess writing, it is not a curriculum, use this with writing samples and vocabulary in minilessons. Developed by Ruth Culham, Vicki Spandel.
Running Records
Retellings
Interviews
Methods
Guided Reading -students are in small group instruction, based on similar reading levels, skills needed, kids read quietly while teacher monitors and guides reading experience, while teacher is working with small group, other students are in literacy centers.
Reading Workshop - Teacher teaches a minilesson ("literary gossip," management, skills), students engage in independent practice, teacher monitors through conferences with children, students share their work to get other opinions, to reteach and break into "kid speak."
Writer's Workshop - Teachers have a mini-lesson, students engage independent practice, teacher monitors through conferences with students, students share their work.
Working with Words (Phonics) - letters, sounds, combinations of letters and sounds, word walls, word activities (making words, tongue twisters, read my mind, brand name phonics, rhyming games, WORDO, big books - looking for patterns)
Concepts
Strategy Instruction
- Connections and Background - schema (what you know about the world and how you act in it), connecting schema to text (T-S), Text to text (T-T), Text to world (T-W).
- Questioning - Reading to answer questions, questioning the reading, how reading creates more questions.
- Visualizing - text puts pictures in our mind, how to create them, how to change them.
- Determining Importance - What is the most important piece of the text, what is second, etc.
- Summarizing and Synthesizing - Paraphrasing, what is the text about?, merging ideas to create new schema.
Critical Literacy
Informational Texts
Fluency
Visual Literacy
Book Clubs / Groups
Literacy Centers - specialized places for specific activities, kids are working independently on specific skills in specific spaces of the room, tend to be kid-driven.
Technology - used where appropriate and in spaces that will help children learn literacy.
Assessment
Kidwatching / Observations
Writing Samples
6+1 Traits - a way to talk about and assess writing, it is not a curriculum, use this with writing samples and vocabulary in minilessons. Developed by Ruth Culham, Vicki Spandel.
Running Records
Retellings
Interviews
Sunday, November 16, 2008
field trip
I seem to always have questions on here but I was somewhat thinking about my Belief and Understanding paper and I just wanted to know if we add to our old paper or do we start fresh? anyone know?
also...
Leslie and I got to go on a our kids field-trip on Friday and it was an experience. I felt like I learned a lot about my kids outside of the classroom. It was also great to see how my teacher handled the children not in school. So if any of you guys have the chance to go on a field-trip, I would recommend going because it is a great experience.
HOORAY! WE SURVIVED THE PRAXIS 11.
also...
Leslie and I got to go on a our kids field-trip on Friday and it was an experience. I felt like I learned a lot about my kids outside of the classroom. It was also great to see how my teacher handled the children not in school. So if any of you guys have the chance to go on a field-trip, I would recommend going because it is a great experience.
HOORAY! WE SURVIVED THE PRAXIS 11.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Sight Words and Name Brand Phonics
We recently talked about fluency and the role of sight words in developing fluency for elementary students. Research ascertains that kiddos who know a lot of words automatically read in ways that are smoother, understand more of what they read, and succeed more (although it is never really stated what that last one means) than kiddos who are not fluent readers. Here are some resources I've used from the web that will help you think about ways to use sight words in your classroom:
Sight Word From Ms. Ross's Class :: Lots of information about sight words here, including flashcards, word lists and connections to additional web resources.
Mrs. Perkins' Dolch Resources :: Sight words are also sometimes called Dolch words. This site contains a similar array of resources, definitely worth looking through.
Zwolle Elementary Sight Word Fun :: Some of the links are dead, but it's a good collection of sight word resources as well.
Here's another site that features Name Brand Phonics lessons: 4 Block Literacy. There is a ton on this page, so take a few moments to look through and download freely!
Sight Word From Ms. Ross's Class :: Lots of information about sight words here, including flashcards, word lists and connections to additional web resources.
Mrs. Perkins' Dolch Resources :: Sight words are also sometimes called Dolch words. This site contains a similar array of resources, definitely worth looking through.
Zwolle Elementary Sight Word Fun :: Some of the links are dead, but it's a good collection of sight word resources as well.
Here's another site that features Name Brand Phonics lessons: 4 Block Literacy. There is a ton on this page, so take a few moments to look through and download freely!
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Inquiry Project
I started researching my inquiry project and I just had some questions. From my understanding, we are not writing a paper. Right? The only thing we need to have is a one page handout (?) and something to show the class on presentation day. And what is a good amount of sources?? I found about 4 articles and I did 3 interviews so I think that would be enough but I am not sure.
I really enjoy these projects. I think we can all learn a lot from each others presentation and I am excited to see everyones!
Also, for the lesson plans for the LAP. Are we making up our own lessons or looking online for lessons?
The semester is almost over!!!
I really enjoy these projects. I think we can all learn a lot from each others presentation and I am excited to see everyones!
Also, for the lesson plans for the LAP. Are we making up our own lessons or looking online for lessons?
The semester is almost over!!!
Monday, November 3, 2008
Organizing a Classroom Library
So I've been building this blog post for a while now, attempting to collect pictures and stories from my friends who still teach to show you examples of classroom organization of books. It's interesting that the more people I talk to, the more I realize there are many similarities in how we have organized our collections. This could be because I tend to seek out teachers who share the same philosophies I possess or perhaps because our organization methods are just that good. I'm kind of hoping it's the latter.
Before we talk about organizing the physical texts, let's address how to obtain them. I had been a children's book collector for years, so I had several boxes of books to move into my classroom when I began, but I realize not everyone wants to collect children's books (relatives do begin to give you strange looks when you request the latest Kevin Henkes for your 18th birthday) and books are expensive! So what to do?
My thoughts:
1. Make friends with your local library. In Bloomington, we are fortunate to have the Monroe County Library Friends of the Library Bookstore. When the librarians take books out of circulation, they send them to the bookstore to be sold. This means the books have been well-loved, but you can obtain a hardcover of superior library-grade quality for a mere dollar. They tend to have a decent selection most of the time - I have walked out with armfuls of books one visit and nothing the next - and the books come fitted with snot guards already. (Snot guards are what my kiddos called the plastic wrapping libraries put on the books to protect them while being enjoyed.) They are open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday - for hours, check their website. It's a great way to get good books into your classroom while supporting the local library.
Other civic institutions also have books sales throughout the year, including the Red Cross. I've never been to the Red Cross books sale, but I hear it is amazing.
2. Book orders are a pain in the rump. Collecting money, making sure you don't lose the money, tallying up orders, sorting the orders once they come in: it all takes time, time that is valuable and could be spent doing other things, like lesson planning or reading a book yourself. There are the upsides, though: book orders provide low-cost books to your kiddos and their families and they also award you, the teacher, points for doing all the work. These points accumulate and can be redeemed for books in the book order, classroom supplies and other various goodies. Keep in mind that anything non-book takes what seems like forever to collect enough points for, but I found myself spending them on guided reading book sets and big books quite a bit. The big book club (the PC name for book orders) is Scholastic. When you get your first classroom, sign up.
3. Think alternatively. These are some other methods through which I have procurred books for my classroom: I had a lot of dietary restrictions in my room, meaning that regardless of what the caregivers sent in, not all of my kiddos would be able to enjoy the treat. At the beginning of the school year, I sent home a note explaining that due to the diets of my kiddos, I would not be able to have treats in the classroom but they were encouraged to send in a book in honor of their child's birthday. I would read the book to the class on their child's birthday, place a special sticker in the book to designate that it was donated for their child's birthday and place their birthday picture in the book as well. For kiddos who did not come to school with birthday books, I kept a stash of them in my desk drawer, purchased with those bonus points I referred to earlier.
I sent home another note right before Thanksgiving, asking caregivers to think about donating supplies or texts to the classroom rather than buying a present for me, if they were thinking this way at all. While I appreciate them, there can only be so many #1 Teacher mugs in my cupboard and if the teacher across the hall has the same mug, one of us has to be number two. I found that parents appreciated a list of things needed in the classroom - it was more helpful to them to buy something that would be used by all the kids rather than just myself. On the day before break, individual kiddos would open up their presents and show the class new glue sticks, glitter gel, and books.
Okay, so there are some options to persue when bringing books into your classroom. Be picky - don't let just anything in. Use your resources wisely as you only have so much space and so much time. This is the first thing I notice about the classroom libraries of my friends: we don't just let anything into our classroom.
Organizing the books in your room is a matter of personal taste. You want think about several things when putting together your system:
* How will student use the books?
* How will they keep them - in their desks, in their book bins?
* What can you get away with in your physical space?
* What will be best for instruction?
* What materials do I have to organize them with? (Baskets, bins, etc.)
For myself, I put my books in groups based on several factors: author studies, topics, genres, series and favorite characters. I found my kiddos were overwhelmed, as was I, by the sheer amount of books in my classroom. I began to rotate the books through the library - one the first school day of the month, I would introduce the new book bins (Sterilite baskets I bought at Target) and we would look at the contents. It kept them excited about the classroom library and ensured they would not be bored. It also reduced the amount of books in the classroom kids and had to manage. If a child took a particular shine to a book and the end of the month was approaching, I would allow them to hold onto it. I'm not that mean.
Students would select books in the morning while getting their backpacks taken care of, before starting writer's workshop. My kiddos worked with book bins, cheap magazine files I bought at IKEA. On the first day of school, they decorated the outsides of them and got to take them home at the end of the year. The rule was they needed to keep eight books in their bins at all times: three leveled texts and five enjoyment texts.
Which brings me to another point: I had multiple libraries in my classroom. The above described the general classroom library. I also had a guided reading leveled library, collections of single-titled leveled books, for students to access, as well as a teacher-only library filled with anchor books for writing and reading lessons. I moved to the teacher-only library after never being able to find my anchor texts in the general library or having to take them from a kiddo who was enjoying them.
This is a lot of information on classroom libraries and doesn't begin to cover it all. Since my fingers are beginning to hurt from writing, here are some links to explore:
Mandy's Classroom Library
Tips for Organizing and Managing Your Classroom Library
ProTeacher Discussion Thread on Library Organization
Scholastic: Creating Your Classroom Library
Happy Internet surfing!
Before we talk about organizing the physical texts, let's address how to obtain them. I had been a children's book collector for years, so I had several boxes of books to move into my classroom when I began, but I realize not everyone wants to collect children's books (relatives do begin to give you strange looks when you request the latest Kevin Henkes for your 18th birthday) and books are expensive! So what to do?
My thoughts:
1. Make friends with your local library. In Bloomington, we are fortunate to have the Monroe County Library Friends of the Library Bookstore. When the librarians take books out of circulation, they send them to the bookstore to be sold. This means the books have been well-loved, but you can obtain a hardcover of superior library-grade quality for a mere dollar. They tend to have a decent selection most of the time - I have walked out with armfuls of books one visit and nothing the next - and the books come fitted with snot guards already. (Snot guards are what my kiddos called the plastic wrapping libraries put on the books to protect them while being enjoyed.) They are open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday - for hours, check their website. It's a great way to get good books into your classroom while supporting the local library.
Other civic institutions also have books sales throughout the year, including the Red Cross. I've never been to the Red Cross books sale, but I hear it is amazing.
2. Book orders are a pain in the rump. Collecting money, making sure you don't lose the money, tallying up orders, sorting the orders once they come in: it all takes time, time that is valuable and could be spent doing other things, like lesson planning or reading a book yourself. There are the upsides, though: book orders provide low-cost books to your kiddos and their families and they also award you, the teacher, points for doing all the work. These points accumulate and can be redeemed for books in the book order, classroom supplies and other various goodies. Keep in mind that anything non-book takes what seems like forever to collect enough points for, but I found myself spending them on guided reading book sets and big books quite a bit. The big book club (the PC name for book orders) is Scholastic. When you get your first classroom, sign up.
3. Think alternatively. These are some other methods through which I have procurred books for my classroom: I had a lot of dietary restrictions in my room, meaning that regardless of what the caregivers sent in, not all of my kiddos would be able to enjoy the treat. At the beginning of the school year, I sent home a note explaining that due to the diets of my kiddos, I would not be able to have treats in the classroom but they were encouraged to send in a book in honor of their child's birthday. I would read the book to the class on their child's birthday, place a special sticker in the book to designate that it was donated for their child's birthday and place their birthday picture in the book as well. For kiddos who did not come to school with birthday books, I kept a stash of them in my desk drawer, purchased with those bonus points I referred to earlier.
I sent home another note right before Thanksgiving, asking caregivers to think about donating supplies or texts to the classroom rather than buying a present for me, if they were thinking this way at all. While I appreciate them, there can only be so many #1 Teacher mugs in my cupboard and if the teacher across the hall has the same mug, one of us has to be number two. I found that parents appreciated a list of things needed in the classroom - it was more helpful to them to buy something that would be used by all the kids rather than just myself. On the day before break, individual kiddos would open up their presents and show the class new glue sticks, glitter gel, and books.
Okay, so there are some options to persue when bringing books into your classroom. Be picky - don't let just anything in. Use your resources wisely as you only have so much space and so much time. This is the first thing I notice about the classroom libraries of my friends: we don't just let anything into our classroom.
Organizing the books in your room is a matter of personal taste. You want think about several things when putting together your system:
* How will student use the books?
* How will they keep them - in their desks, in their book bins?
* What can you get away with in your physical space?
* What will be best for instruction?
* What materials do I have to organize them with? (Baskets, bins, etc.)
For myself, I put my books in groups based on several factors: author studies, topics, genres, series and favorite characters. I found my kiddos were overwhelmed, as was I, by the sheer amount of books in my classroom. I began to rotate the books through the library - one the first school day of the month, I would introduce the new book bins (Sterilite baskets I bought at Target) and we would look at the contents. It kept them excited about the classroom library and ensured they would not be bored. It also reduced the amount of books in the classroom kids and had to manage. If a child took a particular shine to a book and the end of the month was approaching, I would allow them to hold onto it. I'm not that mean.
Students would select books in the morning while getting their backpacks taken care of, before starting writer's workshop. My kiddos worked with book bins, cheap magazine files I bought at IKEA. On the first day of school, they decorated the outsides of them and got to take them home at the end of the year. The rule was they needed to keep eight books in their bins at all times: three leveled texts and five enjoyment texts.
Which brings me to another point: I had multiple libraries in my classroom. The above described the general classroom library. I also had a guided reading leveled library, collections of single-titled leveled books, for students to access, as well as a teacher-only library filled with anchor books for writing and reading lessons. I moved to the teacher-only library after never being able to find my anchor texts in the general library or having to take them from a kiddo who was enjoying them.
This is a lot of information on classroom libraries and doesn't begin to cover it all. Since my fingers are beginning to hurt from writing, here are some links to explore:
Mandy's Classroom Library
Tips for Organizing and Managing Your Classroom Library
ProTeacher Discussion Thread on Library Organization
Scholastic: Creating Your Classroom Library
Happy Internet surfing!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Shaun Pluta's Text Set for Summarizing and Synthesizing
How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long and David Shannonhttp://www.lee-knight.com/Main/images/cover_art/how_i_became_a_pirate.jpg
Long, Melinda, and David Shannon. How I Became a Pirate. New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2003.
Synopsis: This is an imaginary tale where a young boy named Jeremy Jacob is spending a day with his family on the beach. All of a sudden a pirate ship comes along the shore and whisks Jeremy away to spend a day as a pirate. Along the way Jeremy learns to do things like talk like a pirate, eat like a pirate, and even gets the chance to bury some treasure. Jeremy loved spending the day with the pirates. The pirates say that Jeremy is welcome back anytime, but for right now he is ready to go back to his normal life... and to soccer practice.
Strategy Connection: In focusing on summarizing and synthesis, I would probably have the students do one of two things with this story. Having the students do as i did with the synopsis would demonstrate what the two skills are used for, but there are more interesting ways to engage the students so that the learn the lesson. For this story a good activity would be for the students to choose one to two sentences from each page of the story, and retell it. If the story still makes sense, they are doing a good job of synthesizing by shortening the story and summarizing picking out the most important details.
The Bug Cemetery by Frances Hill and Illustrated by Vera Rosenberry
http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/Tilted/9780805063707.jpg
Hill, Frances, and Vera Rosenberry. The Bug Cemetery. Boston: Henry Holt & Company Books For Young Readers, 2002.
Synopsis: This book is about a group of children that find a dead ladybug and decide to bury it, and make a headstone out of a rock that they decorate. Before long, all of the neighborhood kids want to join in the fun of burying dead insects and having funerals for them. The funerals are full of speeches and fake tears. At the end of the story, one of the childrens cats really dies and they have to have a real funeral. The students began crying real tears and they realize that "Funerals are not fun when they are for people that you love."
Strategy Connection: This book is very short but has a lot of good functions. As it is short I feel that it would be very good for mental sumarizing and synthesizing. In order to do this i would have student read through the story and do a mental retelling, where they write down the story as best they could remember it in their own words. By doing this, I would point out to the children that more often the not the parts of the story that they left in their story are very important. Students use these important sections in order to make sense out of the story. This essentially is sumarizing and synthesizing.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger's Why do you Love Me?
http://cdn.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/large/0/9780064436540.jpg
Schlessinger, Laura, Martha L. Lambert, and Paul Meisel. Why Do You Love Me? New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
Synopsis: This is the story of a little boy named Sammy. Throughout this story Sammy is trying to figure out why it is that his mother loves him. Is it because he is good at Karate, because he helps others? Are there times when Sammys mother does not love him like when he screams, or after he hits someone? It must be because of these things that Sammy's mother loves him. In the end Sammy's mother reassures him that she loves him all the time, good or bad, because he is hers and there is only one of him.
Strategy Connection: This book is full of important material and other material that could left out when retelling the story. This book would be great for students to begin to learn how to synthesize and sumarrize by figuring out how to draw out important details. For this book I would have the student read the story. Following, I would have prepared a worksheet with different sections of the story. The students job is to selcect the passages that are most vital to retelling the story. This builds on their skills and helps to refine their reading.
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