Book Tree

In December, Harry and I made a book tree. Harry loves to read. I LOVE to read Children's Literature. I have thousands of picture books. I have two bins full of board books in the basement. I am obsessed. I cannot keep up with all the new books being published- there are so many great ones like Hair Love, Lovely, and Nothing is Scary With Harry.

Back to the tree.

I've seen these on the internet for years but obviously I don't own enough "adult books" to do. Harry told me this is going to be a challenge. He wanted to talk plans but I just dove in. A few minutes later I realized this is going to require some skill. After a few tree topples I decided to listen to reasoning. Harry explained why this is much easier with "adult books" but we didn't give up.

We rose to the challenge and this is what we got:

Lesson I learned from this book tree... TEAMWORK! Teamwork makes the dream work!

Metacognition

We've got metacognition running through our brain!

Sequencing

Today, we are going to learn about the beginning, middle, and end of a story. Let's take a minute to think of the beginning, middle, and end of our school day. (Write beginning, middle, and end on chart) Raise your hand if you can tell me one thing our class does in the morning. Great job! In the middle of the day, we eat lunch. What else happens in the middle of our school day? What happens at the end of the day?

As you can see, there may be more than one event that can be classified as the beginning, middle or end. That is okay, as long as the events are put in order. You wouldn't want to say you line up for the bus and then get ready to go home. That does not make sense. First, you need to get ready to go home, then you line up so you can be dismissed to catch your bus.

(Chart) Certain words and phrases in a story give clues about whether the event is at the beginning, middle or end of the story. 

Many stories have a sequence to them. Sequencing refers to putting events or actions in order. Let's take a minute to retell the story of the "3 Little Pigs" from memory. What happens first? In the middle? At the end? This is our sequence of events. First this happened, next this happened, and then this happened.

This morning, we are going to read my favorite story. It is about a boy named Alexander who has had a very bad day. What do you think I mean when I say, bad day? Raise your hand if you have ever had a bad day. (Call on a boy and one girl to explain why their day was so bad and how it made them feel.)

Over here, you'll see that I have some events from the story. I want you to really be listening to the order of these events because after we read, we are going to try and put them in the correct order. (Read events)

Read story and ask, "Why do you think Alexander's mom said, 'Some days are like that. Even in Australia.'" Can you avoid bad days by moving? 

Raise your hand if you can tell me what the word, "Sequence" means. That's right! Sequence refers to putting events or actions in order. As a class, we are going to recall the sequence of events in our story and work together to put them in order. (Recall 7 or 8 events)

I have a short sequencing worksheet for you to complete. I want you to write a sentence and draw a picture to show the correct order of events from the story. There were more than four events from the story but I only want you to write and draw four of them. It can be any four events that you remember, just make sure to put them in the right sequence. (Show my example)

Below are several of my students examples:

We also had enough time to play an Alexander board game which my 2nd graders loved. You can get your copy here.

Main Ideas and Details

I taught reading last week with a mini lesson on Main Ideas and Details. I write lesson plans and then I write a "script" so I have a better idea of what to say. Below is my script: 

We will open our reading textbooks in a few minutes, but for now, I want you to sit on your book. They story we are going to read today is called, At Home Around the World. This is a non-fiction text. Nonfiction is a type of writing that shares facts and information. Nonfiction is real and it is written to inform us. Nonfiction has photographs and text features like an index, glossary, and table of contents. 

At Home Around the World is written by Lucy Floyd. Our author wrote a little bit about herself and our story, which I would like to read to you. 

Stay sitting on your books. I am going to page through our story. I want you to start thinking what our story might be about. 

Raise your hand. What do you think the story will be about based on the title, key words, and pictures throughout the story?

These are all great ideas! Please open your textbooks to page 68. I am going to read but I want you to follow along. 

I have a few questions I would like us to discuss as a class:

1. What was one fact you learned from reading the story?
2. How do the words and pictures work together to give information?
3. Why is a tepee a good home for people who moved around a lot?
4. Why is it a good idea for people to build houses from things around them, such as clay or rocks?
5. Which house in the text would you like to live in? Why?

(Show Anchor Chart) Today, we are going to practice main idea and details. The main idea is what the text is all about. To find the main idea, we look at the title, pictures, and repeated words. 

As you can see on my paper, I drew a hamburger. The main idea is the whole hamburger. The details are the smaller parts like the lettuce, tomato, and meat. Details are the information that backs up or explains the main idea. Details tell us more. 

Take a minute or two to page through the text we just read. I want you to look at the title page, pictures, and repeated words. See if you can find the main idea. 

Raise your hand if you think you know what the main idea of our text might be? I agree, our main idea is Homes Around the World. 

Details tell us more. So, think about what we know about houses around the world. Take a minute to page through the text but this time, look for details. Tell me something specific about houses around the world. Think about the materials people have made houses from. Think about the different types of houses, theses are details we can put on our hamburger (Write 3 details). 

1st graders, you are going to make your own Main Ideas and Details Hamburger just like we did here.

Main Idea/Details Anchor Chart

 Student work was awesome but hard to read if they did it in pencil and so I only have 2 examples to share with you.

The lesson went incredibly well. My mentor teacher said she liked how I introduced the author first. She never thought of that. She loved my text to self connection. Our text was about homes around the world. I said I saw a pink house shaped like an egg when I was in South Carolina. The kids thought that was pretty cool. I talked about main ideas and details after reading the text. If I were to do the lesson over, I would do that before reading and go into more details after the read aloud. Oh well, there's always next time. My mentor teacher told me each time I teach my direction become more clear and more direct. My mentor teacher said I had an excellent explanation of main idea and she thought my poster and hamburger analogy was very helpful.

The lesson went great but I am totally kicking myself for not recording the second part of my lesson. We needed to split it up and when we came back from gym, my plan was to re-read the chart and explain the activity. That's not how it went. I spent at least twenty more minutes on the lesson. I had planned for none of that so it was activities off the top of my head and I was able to get each child to fully understand main ideas and details which is a hard topic for 1st graders. I had them use their thumbs to indicate their understanding. This lesson would have been great in my teaching portfolio but because I missed the application part on tape I don't think I can use it and that really bums me out. 

Reading Education Websites

http://www.readingrockets.org/

Reading Rockets has information on teaching reading, helping struggling readers and children’s books and authors. There is also a reading topics list. You can search topics from A- Z. Information can be found on Dyslexia, STEM literacy, oral language and more.

http://www.raz-kids.com/main/Login

Raz Kids is an award winning website where K-5 students can go to read anywhere and anytime. The books on Raz Kids are leveled and teachers can track and monitor student progress. Students will take comprehension quizzes after reading each story.

http://www.starfall.com/

Starfall teaches children to read with phonics. It is perfect for Kindergarten through 2^nd grade as well as special education and English language learners.

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/ReadingBrain.html

Kids, teachers, librarians and parents use Funbrain. Funbrain has games, online books, and comics. Funbrain was created for kids ages Pre-K through 8^th grade and it offers more than 100 fun, interactive games that develop skills in math, reading, and literacy. Kids can read popular books and comics on the site including, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amelia Writes Again, and Brewster Rocket.

http://www.jumpstart.com/

JumpStart is a groundbreaking evolution in children’s learning games and the first learning game delivered in a browser with high-quality 3D graphics and advanced play. It is a completely secure and safe online environment where kids can interact, explore and learn.

http://www.bookadventure.com/

Book Adventure is a free reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists, take multiple-choice quizzes on the books they’ve read, and earn points and prizes for their literary success. Book Adventured was created and is maintained by Sylvan Learning Centers.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/

Clifford the Big Red Dog is interactive on this fun website. This website has phonics fun, games, and stories for early readers.

http://storynory.com/

Storynory has published a new audio story every week since 2005.

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/

Teacher’s Corner has lesson plans for multiple subjects, bulletin boards, thematic units and many other teacher resources.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/

Read, Write, Think has lesson plans that you can narrow down by theme, grade level, lesson plan type and learning objective.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plans/free-lesson-plans

Scholastic has lesson plans for grades Pre-K through 12^th grade. This website allows you to search for a lesson plan or to view all featured lesson plans. Scholastic also has sections on resources and tools, strategies and ideas, student activities, books and authors and more.

http://www.jumpstart.com/teachers/lesson-plans/reading-lesson-plans

JumpStart offers free reading lesson plans as well as reading activities and worksheets for kids that teachers can use to add fun to any reading lesson plan. JumpStart has games for children to play to enhance the reading skills they are learning in the classroom.

http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/general_content/free_resources/teachers_corner/lessonPlans.jsp?f=m

Lakeshore has great lesson plans and the best part is, they update their lessons every month! They have lesson plans for Preschool to 5^th grade. The lessons are also aligned to Common Core, it doesn’t get better than that.

School Long Ago

In November, we started our social studies unit on life long ago. I taught a lesson on school long ago. I looked at our social studies book and it had two pages of information on school long ago. It was 3 paragraphs and I knew these first graders were capable of more than that. I kept the lesson objective the same as textbook, "Compare and contrast your school to one of long ago." I did research on Google and created my own PowerPoint. The PowerPoint was 20 slides long and covered Hornbooks, Dunce caps, quill pens, one room school houses, child responsibilities, subjects taught and more.

Here is one what my mentor teacher wrote about my lesson, "Ms. S taught a lesson in social studies about history. Our unit is comparing life long ago to now. She compared what school was like long ago to school now. She created a wonderful PowerPoint presentation complete with excellent photographs and visuals so students could compare and contrast school long ago to now. She also created an assessment where students had to write a sentence or two about school long ago and had to cut and paste pictures from school long ago into a school house. Both the PowerPoint presentation and assessment will be ones that I use in the future. They were so appropriate and engaging. After grading the assessment, we could truly see which students met the standard and which will need some re-teaching."

This is usually a lesson my mentor teacher skips so I was pretty excited when she asked if she could keep and use my PowerPoint and activity for the future. Below are some student examples of the assessment I created:

Date a Girl Who Teaches

I read a blog post called, "Don't Date a Girl Who Teaches." It had some really great points. I would have to say my favorite was, "She will bring home every strain of every airborne disease within a 25-mile radius. Hope your immune system's perfect." 

This blog post was written in reply to this blog post. Date a Girl Who Teaches was just as cute. I nodded my way through the entire article. As a future teacher who has over 300 children's lit books I especially enjoyed reading, "Date a girl who teaches children. Date a girl who enjoys more in a bookstore for school supplies and children’s books rather than in make-up store. She has problems with storage space because she has too many trinkets and storybooks to keep. Date a girl who has a list of stories that she wants to have and read, who has a collection of Aklat Adarna, Leo Lionni and Eric Carle’s books." I also really enjoyed this bullet point, "A girl who teaches won’t require much of your time. She will hardly see you on weeknights because she prefers to finish her lesson plans and worksheets and catch up sleep. Unless she had a really bad and long day, she will randomly ask you to have dinner or coffee with her. But if you insist, she will try her best and make it to the last full show of Inception even on a freakin’ Wednesday night just to be with you. (Please cooperate and pretend with her that she enjoyed the movie by not asking details of the show anymore.)" 

If you are a teacher or you are a future educator take ten minutes and read both of these blog posts. You won't regret it.

Planning Web

A few weeks ago in my Social Studies class, we had to create a planning web. I did mine on Lewis and Clark and I decided to post it here so I can reference it again at a much much later date.

A Case of the Mondays

Last night at 10pm I was scrambling to get all my stuff ready to go for today. I was printing off and reading all my methods class lab expectations because lets face it, I am a procrastinator so I hadn't even opened these documents yet. I showered and got everything ready to go because I am most definitely not a morning person. I thought I was set up for a smooth successful morning but I was wrong. I woke up at 6:40 but my alarm wasn't set to go off until 7:10 so I tried to go back to sleep. At 7:10, I rolled over to check Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, e-mail and of course my text messages. At 7:12 my mom came in, "Aren't you supposed to be there at 8?" Oh crap!! I don't know what I was thinking but I needed to be at the school by 8am. I quick got up and ready to go in 20 minutes (this is why I showered last night) and I was out the door. Thankfully, I didn't hit any traffic on the way but I got to my exit and went left. My GPS told me to go right but I was convinced I knew where the school was. My GPS kept telling me to make a u- turn, but I did not do it. I got to the school that I was sure was it and guess what? That was the wrong school!! Keep in mind now it is 7:52 at this point. I quick pull in to the parking lot to turn around and of course, I can't get out of the parking lot... Cars just kept coming. So at 7:55 I pull out and I now have 5 minutes to get to the school. My GPS is saying I'm only four minutes away so I stay hopeful but know I will hit every light along the way. Amazingly, I hit all green lights so I pulled into the right school at 7:59. I practically darted out of my car and into the building. I got there and the doors were all locked. I pulled on one and this lady came over and directed me to the office door. I was in such a hurry I didn't even notice that there was a door to my left with a giant sign that read, "OFFICE." The lady in the office needed to make my nametag and said she would show me around the school so it did not appear that I was late even though I pretty much was.

Thankfully, from this point on my day went up. My classroom teacher is very nice and I think her and I will get along. People in the office said she was VERY excited to have a student teacher in her room so that is a good sign. She gave me a tour of the school and introduced me to other teachers and specialists. Her and I got to talking and realized we went to the same grade school. She was in middle school when I was in elementary school (same building though). I didn't recognize her maiden name but for all I know, she was my spirit buddy. I also taught her daughter when I did childcare. She was like, "I knew you looked familiar I just couldn't place you!"

Pretty much all I did today was observe her teaching and their routine. During morning meeting we played a ball toss greeting game. I thought I should probably sit down but then I thought I really should play so it looks like I have enthusiasm (we get graded on that you know). I played and at the end it was me and two boys. The teacher said, "J, you can greet Miss. S or K." He had a huge smile on his face and greeted me. I was to toss the ball to the other kid who of course had a name I could not pronounce. I had no idea how to say it so I took a guess and it was wrong. Oh well, I tried. I am determined to get his name right next time and I will. After all, isn't everyone's favorite word their own name? I had a win in the classroom today though. The kids had the opportunity to listen to books, read with a partner, read silently or do word work. My classroom teacher had a reading group so I was just walking around talking to students, making sure they were on task and observing. One girl who was working on word work came up to me with a card that showed a picture of a trick or treat bag. She asked me what the words said. I told her to try sounding it out. I wasn't sure if that was the right approach because everything I am reading for school pushes away from sounding out words. Anyway, she tried sounding it out and she got it! I celebrated quietly with her because the room was quiet but I feel as though I should've been more enthusiastic or asked for a high five. Next time that situation comes across, I will be more prepared- I'll get that high five!

A Letter to the Legislature

To Whom It May Concern:

I understand the basic skills portion of the MTLE test is being considered for revisions. I am a student who has always been a horrible test taker. I find my MTLE test results being impacted by a lack of time, test anxiety, and a learning disability. I am having the hardest time passing the reading and math portion of the MTLE, but I have met all other expectations for the education program at my college. My letters of recommendation are excellent, methods class assessments have been good, my grades are A’s, and yet, I cannot move on to student teaching until I pass the reading and math portion of the basic skills test.

Math and reading comprehension have never been my strong points. I love reading, but I have struggled with reading comprehension since Kindergarten. My parents did everything from phonics programs to years of tutoring to boost my reading comprehension skills. Throughout fifteen years of tutoring I learned ways to retain what I read. Highlighting, reading out loud, and reading with an index card are three ways I learned that best help me comprehend what I am reading. I am not able to use these tools while taking that MTLE and that puts me at a disadvantage. For example, when I have to read an article silently, I know I will need to reread it at least three times before I am able to fully comprehend what I am reading. When tests are timed I know I do not have time to read each article three times and then try to answer questions. If I was able to take notes or read out loud I know I would be able to read the article one time and then answer questions about what I just read.

On top of struggling with reading comprehension, I struggle with math. I had tutoring year round in math throughout middle and high school. I did not enjoy this subject until I had a fantastic math teacher in my first year of college. He was very patient and knew how to explain the material in a way I would understand it. I would spend 2 hours a day in addition to class with this Algebra teacher, and it paid off. For example, my final for that class took me four and a half hours, but I only got three wrong and passed the class with an A. He has been a tremendous influence as to why I want to become a teacher. He showed me that you can influence a student’s life, make a difference, and be the one to help a student find love for a subject they thought they would never enjoy.

I am not a good test taker and I do not think the MTLE basic skill tests should be the one thing holding me back from being a future educator. Basic skill tests are a test that evaluates what students are currently doing in school. The difference is, in school, students are evaluated on math and reading by homework, projects, and participation not just tests. This allows each student the chance to succeed no matter what his or her learning style is. The reading and math basic skills tests are holding me back from achieving my career goals. Not everyone is able to perform his or her best through a test. Therefore, a new process involving all learning styles is needed to determine how to best assess or ensure the “basic” skills required by all teachers.

Sincerely,

Liz S------------