last blog of the semester

Well blogging was a lot of work, but I enjoyed doing this instead of writing a journal. We were able to see the other classmates thoughts and see it from their point of view. This semester has gone by so fast, hard to believe it's over. I really enjoyed this class. Ms. Pickett made the class worthwhile and fun. I have some friends that had another teacher for this class, and they told me that they had to read thirty books and made sure that they books mentioned in the textbook. I saw how stressed out they got just doing that assignment. We're lucky Ms. Pickett did not make us do that. This was my favorite class of the semester. We learned a lot about new techniques to engage children in reading.

I know a lot of you this is your first semester here at A&M, word of advice: Enjoy your time here at A&M. It will go by fast. I know I won't see any of you next semester, because I am student teaching in the Spring, so I just want to say Good Luck!

Who knows maybe I'll blog about my student teaching experience. It'll be fun.

genre presentations day 4

Today the last two groups presented. The first groups genre was Multiculture Literature. The book they chose was cute. The activity they did was reading the story with pictures of themselves acting out the story. That was a good idea. Children will love to see themselves in pictures going along with a book. The food they brought in was a good idea as well. The second group that presented did a mystery genre. The book they chose seems pretty interesting. I would like to read it. The activity was good. First they had small groups and then you needed the whole class to figure out the solution. Working together is always a good idea. Overall, everyone did an excellent job. I really picked up some new ideas to do with the students and make reading fun. This project was so much fun to do.

genre presentations day 3

On the third day of presentations, we had 3 groups present. The first group that went did their presentation on poetry. The book they used was The Giving Tree. I loved their display board with the tree. It was so creative. On the display board, they had their favorite poems by Shel Silverstein. The video they showed with one of the group members reading the book was so good. They did such a good job. The second group that presented was my group. Our genre was Traditional Literature. Hope you guys enjoyed our presentation with the Looney Tune clip with the wolf's side of the story, and our newspaper. The last group that presented did their genre on Fiction. The powerpoint was very interesting, it made me want to get the book and read it. They took their lesson with the hangman game. It's a old school game, but I never thought to use hangman to teach the kids about prefix and suffix. Great idea. Every group that presented today did such a good job.

author profile 11

One of my favorite authors when I was growing up and still is, is Mercer Mayer. He is best known for his series The Little Critter, which is favorite. Looking back on all the books he has written about the Little Critter, my favorite is Just Grandma and Me. This book is about spending a whole day with grandma at the beach building sandcastles, eating hot dogs, and the ride home on the bus. That book holds so many memories for me. My grandma gave me that book when I was 5 years. To this day, I still have it. Because it has so many memories for me, I don't think I am going to put that in my classroom library.

Mr. Mayer writes book about spending time with family. The Little Critter is constantly around family. Mercer Mayer has so many books about just normal family things. Another that is my favorite is Happy Easter, Little Critter. There is the Easter Bunny that drops off the kids easter baskets, they go to Church (and the Little Critter complains about the big hats), they get to dye eggs, and have easter egg hunt.

Mercer Mayer's collection of the Little Critter includes the Little Critter with his grandpa, mom, dad, little brother, Christmas, Halloween, dealing with a new neighbor, homework, a school project, going to bed, spending a day at the hospital, and etc.

Here is a website that you can find all his books and games. http://www.littlecritter.com/

chapter 11... shared reading article

From the many postings on Shared Reading that I have read from you guys, I take it you guys do not like shared reading. I was not in class that day when all of you did the shared reading. Shared reading is a collaborative learning activity. Shared reading is somewhat like read alouds. Of course one of the main reasons why you would do shared reading is the same reason for everything else, you want to provide an enjoyable reading experience to the students. I think shared reading is important just like the other types of reading. It allows the students to learn about new authors and reading can teach the students to better readers and writers.

genre presentations day 2

Today in class two groups presented their genre. The first group that went first did really well. I mostly enjoyed the powerpoint with the vocals at the end of the presentation. The powerpoint was very powerful. They are correct when they said that everyone has been afforded grace. I agree with what Ms. Pickett when she said that we should think about others especially during the holidays.

The second group that presented did thier genre on fantasy. They gave a lot of useful information. I didn't even know there was different types of fantasy, I just thought all fantasy was the same. The powerpoint with all the fantasy pictures was really good along with the music. The book they read was really good. It was cute how they bought in props for their chair and share what was behind it.

Both groups did a really good job today. It seems like they had a good time working on the project, and were able to work together. These presentations are so much better than having the students do a book report. It's so much more fun for the children to do something like this.

genre presentations day 1

The first group that presented on Thursday did such an excellent job. The genre they picked was Multicultural Literature. During their presentation, they stated that literature comes from all over the world, and it is such a learning tool for the children to learn about other cultures that they may not be exploited to. A lot of multicultural literature have such good morals that we should know. I really enjoyed the video the group did. They retold the story using stick puppets, and the music that was added was great. At the end of the video, they had a few bloopers which were funny. We got to see how much fun the group had with the project. They did a great job with the genre presentation.