Wed, April 11

This week we watched a few videos of different students in classrooms doing more hands-on activities.  My favorite video that we had to watch was the Signs of Spring video.  In this video, the students were doing a hands-on activity in which they made observations and researched different signs of spring.  This was a great project for them to learn about season change and gave them a real-life hands-on experience through the way that they conducted all the research.  They did different things like look at different resources in stations with groups in the classroom, as well as got to actually go outside and measure mounds of snow that were melting due to spring time that was approaching.  I am a big advocate for kids doing more independent learning and taking a more hands-on approach.  I really think that kids will learn more through actually physically doing something.  I also think that kids tend to learn more when they are more independent and the teacher acts more as a guide.  I think that this activity with the students studying the signs of spring is a great activity for kids to be more physically involved and independent.  The children seem to have more fun as well, being outside and being able to conduct their own research. 

Wed, April 4th

We read a great article for class today!  It was all about integrating toys into the classroom.  I really enjoyed reading this article.  I never really thought about doing this, but it seems like a great method and incentive for writing!  Children in the article would use their toys as things to identify with and write about.  Also, it was a great incentive because children knew that during writing time they could get their toys out. 

I also really enjoyed reading about gender stereotypes among toys and in the classroom.  I thought it was so interesting that some boys were okay and didn't even think about playing with dolls as something odd, while some boys found it strange and tried to get them to play with something more "masculine".  I left this comment at the end of the article:

"I think that keeping boys' and girls' typical interests in mind is important.  However, there are some who don't follow these stereotypes, and that's okay, and should be supported to deliver the message that boys and girls don't have to play with certain things or act in a certain way." 

Wed, March 28

This week we watched three different videos based on read alouds in different classrooms.  The one that really stuck out to me was the very first one, where the teacher read the book Fly Away Home to the children.  I thought that this was a great book choice for the students to hear, because not only could they have connections to it, it brings up real world issues that they would really think about and reflect on.  I liked how the teacher stopped in the middle of the book and asked them what they thought was going to happen in the end.  I thought that was an interesting thing to do and the children had some good ideas and inferences as to what would happen.  Not only would asking this question make the children infer and predict, it would cause them to be metacognitive, because they would be back tracking in order to make that prediction, and thinking what was I thinking at that point?

Wednesday, March 21

I will be conducting a read-aloud, think-aloud in my E340 class on the book John's Secret Dreams: The Life of John Lennon.  I loved this book!  It was all about John Lennon's life and how he had a huge impact in music, culture, and world peace. It starts at the very beginning when John Lennon was only a child, and the rough childhood he had, all the way up through being part of The Beatles and meeting Yoko Ono, and finally his death.  It's a very inspiring book and sends the message that even though John Lennon has passed away, we should still set out to make the world a more loving and peaceful place.  

This would make an excellent read-aloud, think-aloud for upper grades, because for one, it's about a famous musician and I feel as though older students would really be into this and be really interested in it, increasing their engagement.  It's also a great book for upper grades because of their background knowledge.  A lot of younger kids would not know who The Beatles or John Lennon was, and therefore would not be very interested in knowing about John Lennon's life.  There's also a lot of deep concepts in this book, that could be a great discussion starter for older grades.  The idea of loneliness, world peace, love, and death is something younger grades wouldn't be able to handle as well as intermediate grades.  These concepts could arouse great discussion which would reflect their thinking.  

Using this book about John Lennon and his dreams could really help students to think about huge concepts like world-peace and love.  By reading about these very intellectual and deep concepts, students will learn how to reflect on big ideas like these, and express how they feel about them.  This is a great choice for upper intermediate grades.