author profile 4

We all know how popular the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer is. So that means, even if you are not a fan of the movie or the book, you still should read it because your students will be talking about it. The teacher needs to know what is popular and knows what his/her students like. I decided to look online for some lesson plans on Twilight, and I did not realize that there was so many. The Twilight Saga is popular among young teenage girls, but with the right lessons, boys can get into the series as well. Twilight has four books in the series: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. I have read the Saga, and each book is great. It makes you keep wanting to read. With the Twilight Saga being turned into movies, I would like to have the students compare and contrast the book and the movie. Here's a website where there is a lot of good lesson ideas for the book.

http://novelnovicetwilight.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/twilightunit.pdf

Besides the Twilight Saga, Stephanie Meyer has written other books as well. She has written Prom Nights from Hell, and The Host. I haven't read those books, but I have heard that they are good as well.

chapter 4

Chapter 4 was a review for me. I learned all this when I took 3344 with Barker last semester. Just like the book we had used in her class, this book also has a lot of good ideas for activities the teacher can use to deepen children's responses to literture. Instead of making the students read the book and then write a book essay, the textbook as other activities. You can make them do a response journal (it's when the teacher and the student go back and forth writing to each other about the book), a reader's notebook (same thing as a response journal), retell the story, book talks/discussions, reader's theatre, and other things. By doing other activities with the students, you can check if they can comprehend what is going on in the book, and their writing skills. This morning Dr. Ferguson had said that we could grade two subjects in one lesson. It can save us, as the teacher, a lot of time, and we could use that time for more guided reading or math or even the subjects that seem to get lost during the day, for example: science and social studies. A fun activity that is mention in the book is the graphic organizer. Instead of using the same old graphic organizer that's just boring, make it fun, like Mrs. Pickett did for us. Let the students choose which way they want to do their graphic organizer. I also enjoyed reading Figure 4.3 Selecting Books by Development and Age. They gave a lot of good book examples for each grade level, and age. This data will be helpful in the future when I become a teacher.

author profile 3

This book is probably my favorite book of all time... Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Sendak is best known for this book. This book allows the students to use their imagination about where the wild things are. Believe it or not, Where the Wild Things Are was not very popular among adults when it came out because they thought Max was a bad role model for kids, and the wild things were a bit scary. But over the years it became more popular. One of the activites I liked that you can do with your students, is allow them to use their imagination and draw a wild thing. Since the book is now a movie, which by the way, comes out on October 16, 2009, you can have the students compare the movie with the book. I'm so excited for the movie to come out, I'll be there opening day with my 2 year old nephew, he loves the book as much as I do.

http://newteachersupport.suite101.com/article.cfm/teaching_with_where_the_wild_things_are

Maurice Sendak is also known for his illustrations in the Little Bear series. The Little Bear series is written by Else Homelund Minarik. I would use the Little Bear series as a transition from beginner/picture books to chapter books. It can also be great with guided reading.

http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1139.html

chapter 3

After I finished reading Chapter 3, a lot of the information from the chapter was coming back to me. I remember learning a lot of this stuff in 3314. One of the things I really liked reading in the chapter was on page 39, the last paragraph. It says, "The last important aspect of a reading transaction is that whenever these three parts- the reader, the text, and the message- come together, there is a change in the reader." In one student, the change can be very small, while others the change is going to major and big. With the change, it brings back with what Mrs. Pickett said today in class, it doesn't matter what the author thinks about the book, the only thing that matters is what the reader thinks. I really enjoyed all the ideas that are mentioned in the chapter about assessing comprehension. Comprehension is being able to understand and make meaning of what was just read. Like the book says: COMPREHENSION IS THINKING. It might be hard to assess a child's comprehension, but it has to be done.

author profile 2

Yesterday morning, my nephew and I were awake really early, so we decided to watch t.v. I was flipping through the channels, and we came across Martha Speaks. It's about a dog that talks and everyone can hear her. My nephew, who is 2 years old, really enjoyed the show. At the end, it said it was based on a book series. So I decided to look it up later that day. Martha Speaks is written by Susan Meddaugh. http://pbskids.org/martha/parentsteachers/program/author.html

We also watched Curious George on PBS kids. I didn't even know that the book was turned into a tv series. Curious George has always been my favorite books to read. George always got into some kind of trouble. Curious George is written by Hans Rey and Margaret Rey.

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/cgsite/

chapter 2

Culture is a difficult topic to talk about at school. The teacher wouldn't want to leave any culture left out in the discussion. As I was growing up, I was lucky enough to experience different cultures besides my own. But today, I noticed that schools, well teachers, do not talk about culture. The schools I have done my Field-Based have been in the South San Antonio ISD, and the majority of the students share the same culture. So I know they have not had the opportunity to experience other cultures while in school. I thought my first semester of Field-Based I was going to see how the teacher handles the different cultures to teach during the holidays, but all they seemed to talk about was Christmas with the trees, lights, Santa, etc. Teaching culture to the students should be taught, so they would know how act in a mannerly order towards other cultures, if they become face with another culture.

I remember in class, Mrs. Pickett mention something about the kids not taking home the sight or spellings words on Monday, like they do every week. That reminded me of last semester in my Field-Based. I was in a Kindergarten class, and one week we were really busy, so we didn't have enough time to pass out the words for the week to the kids. The next day, we had parents calling the teachers, and there were parents dropping by the classroom just to see what happened to the words. At that point, I didn't realize how much the spelling words meant to parents. But now that Ms. Pickett said that spelling words is the last thing that parents feel they could help their kids with schoolwork, I now understand why the parents made such a big deal about it. I know to make sure I send out the spelling words every week.

author profile 1

I have so many favorite author's, it's just too hard to pick a few to talk about.

One of my favorites would have to be Peggy Parish. She wrote the Amelia Bedelia series until she passed away in 1988. In 1995, her nephew, Herman Parrish, started the series back up again. I was looking through the publisher's website on the book, and I learned that they now have an Amelia Bedelia picture book about when she was a young child. It didn't say if it was out already, but I'm going to have to look for this book, and find out why she was so confuse.

http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/kids/gamesandcontests/features/amelia/

Another favorite of mine is Eric Carle. He's the one that wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar. His books can be used for kids of all ages. For my lessons that I have to do for my field based, I always turn to Eric Carle, to see if he has a book I am to use for a lesson.

http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

Another one is Shel Silverstein. The poems that he has wrote are all funny. My favorite is The Giving Tree. This particular has two meanings, it could be about the tree, and from my perspective it's about a parents love.

http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/home.html

I have many favorite author's, but I'll post a few more next time.

chapter 1

While I was reading Chapter 1, I realized that half of my elementary school years I was in a Literacy Literature classroom. For grades K- 3rd, the teachers I had believed that reading was very important in a child's life, so we would have lots of books around us. For 4th- 6th (I moved to a different district), we didn't have a class library at all. Not having a class library was a big change for me. I was used to reading when I had nothing else to do. So I had to take my own book to read. I know the teachers I had knew that reading was a very important skill to acquire to get by in life. I always wondered if they believed that, then why didn't they have a classroom library? When I was in those grades, I always thought the school would buy the books, and the school I went to was within one of the poorest districts. But then I realized that the teacher has to buy them.

As a future teacher, I want my classroom to be filled with lots and lots of books so they can read. I want to teach them to read for fun, not just because they have to. I want them to imagine what's going in the book, and get lost in it. I was looking at the pictures in the textbook, and i admire that the teacher has a lot of book. I should be collecting books already, but I just haven't and I don't know why. I know that I have to start, and I will, since I'm student teaching next semester.

My author profiles will up later on... I'm behind on these blogs already, and the semester barely started.