Search results matching tags 'reading' and 'lesson plans'

my brain is overloaded

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:30:04 GMT

On the one hand, spending a morning with preschoolers can be lovely and simple. Read stories, play, follow routines, talk, play outside, learn about interesting things.

On the other hand, spending a morning with preschoolers can be made frustrating and complicated. And that can be from outside forces, or it can come from me.

I had my second data meeting today, and the main idea was to meet with our teams and talk about how we can plan for small group instruction to work with children on their areas of need. I talked with the afternoon teacher (how rare is that opportunity!) and one of our literacy coaches about how to do it in our short period of time. With their help, I have a tentative plan to do a short small group time every day after morning meeting, starting on Monday.

Here are some of the many things I am thinking about — so that they are crowding my head and I can’t think straight, let alone prioritize and figure out how to get it all done:

How can I get the breakfast kids (14 out of 19 kids) to eat faster and get back to the room sooner, so I can start morning meeting earlier, so we have time for small groups?
When will I (and how will I) place the kids into 4 groups? I need to find the time to look at the data I have so far….
How are we going to manage the Americorps volunteer getting all of her IGDIs (Individual Growth and Development Indicators) done? Especially when I keep needing her in the classroom? Especially when the kindergartner from across the hall spends a good part of his day out in the hallway, sobbing loudly, so that she can’t get our kids to pay attention to her, let alone hear what she is asking them?
How are we going to manage my assistant getting all the portfolios done, especially when she is gone for 45 min of the morning on her morning and lunch breaks?
Story time is going badly, for the first time in ages. I need to back up and stick with short, funny, engaging books. That means more Mo Willems, more Pete the Cat, and that also means abandoning richer, more challenging texts that have content and vocabulary related to our themes.
Which is more important: teaching content via themes, working on basic skills like letters and colors, or working on classroom skills like taking turns, listening to teachers, and cutting with scissors? I can’t do all of them; how do I choose?
When am I going to look at the teaching rubric, figure out what I want to focus on, notify my observer, and plan for my first formal observation?
How will I plan for my daily small groups? How will I manage materials? When will I do the planning/organizing?
Should I come back to school one evening to work? Make my family order a pizza for dinner, since I won’t be there? Maybe then I could get caught up?
Why am I having to come so early every day? This hasn’t happened in years. Why is this year so much harder?
What is the right thing to do for the kids?!

I am disappointed in myself, and feeling internal pressure to do better. I also have very tense neck and shoulders, and am worried that I am basically going to give myself another migraine.

High Interest Low Read Ability Help!

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:30:00 GMT

Hola mi amigos and amigas! This is going to be short and sweet! I need your help. I teach third grade, so my kiddos should be reading a 28 DRA or Fountas and Pinnell M. I have a ton of readers on a DRA 10-12 or Fountas and Pinnell G-H. The problem is they don't want to read "baby books" as they call them and no matter how awesome or cool I make them seem, they don't want to read the books... Do you know of any high interest low readability books for third graders reading at a first grade level? I need suggestions!

Also, I have had some questions about my class schedule, so I decided to include it here. I have also attached my lesson plan page which you can edit to your liking. In math I do center rotations. Read my past blog post about that here.

Thanks for your help and advice!

Blending Art, Literature, and Problem Solving at the J. Paul Getty Museum

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:08:25 GMT

Common Core Standard 7 for Reading presents teachers with many possibilities for mixing all kinds of art forms with literature. Music, photography, painting, sculpture, and many other media are easily brought into the classroom today because of the internet…the important thing is to use these resources heuristically. 7. Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus). Teaching students to analyze subjects or scenes in comparative forms gives us an opportunity to explore with them the traditions of storytelling—the many and various ways stories can be told and have been told throughout history. Poetry, short stories, plays, and even novels and epic tales have important connections to art and present new, thoughtful ways to analyze and evaluate themes. To start, you … Continue reading →

Common Core Reading Standard #5—Analyzing Plot

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 16:24:41 GMT

Looking at CCS standard for reading #5, I am encouraged to see critical thinking required of our students. It is important to ensure that skills like problem solving, analyzing, and evaluating are at the core of our reading, writing, and speaking skills curricula. It is also essential that we keep in mind the goal of generating independent, self-directed (and self-reflective), life-long learners. 5. Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. For standard #5, the key term is “analyze.” In Bloom’s taxonomy, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are the top tiers we strive to reach. A lesson plan from teacher Patricia Schulze provides some excellent opportunities to use technology for this standard. The technology for the lesson comes from a site you are probably familiar with—Read, Write, … Continue reading →

Online Resources for Analyzing Character

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:12:27 GMT

This week we look at the last of three standards under “Key Ideas and Details” in the “Reading” section of the Common Core: Standard 3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. For students to understand how a character develops over the course of a text and how his or her interactions impact plot and theme, they first need to know where to begin. A good place to start is to help them get into the mind of the character. The idea is to help students take a character and, to borrow a quote from Atticus Finch, “climb into his skin and walk around in it.” The internet offers many ways to facilitate this creatively with technology. Here are a few ideas and sites that might work … Continue reading →

MONDAY QUESTION: Post A COMMENT, PLEASE:)

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:12:00 GMT

My friend Meredith Landis posted this on her Facebook page:

Question of the Week: Picture books to teach characterization protagonists, antagonists, and changing characters.... Who has ideas?

My vote: An author study of one of my favorites: Eve Bunting!

I chose three of her many, many books with characters that change in some way with themes that older elementary students can dig deeper into.

Which picture books would you suggest?

Technorati Tags: comprehension,reading,literacy-based classroom,literacy,Eve Bunting,characterization

Animoto: Another Great Tool for Adding Music and Video to Your Lit Plans

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:40:48 GMT

Summer has finally arrived here in Maine. I hope many of you, like me, have finished up the school year and can now take some time to recuperate. Looking forward to a productive summer, I am planning a series of blog posts focusing on the Common Core State Standards Initiative. My plan is to post regular articles with a simple goal: each blog post will take one specific CCSS outcome and demonstrate a resource and/or method for utilizing technology to meet that standard. Essentially, I envision a CCSS curriculum map for Language Arts, based completely on technology integration. I’m hoping to begin this series the first or second week of July. Meanwhile, I have found a website I think will be fun to use with students in the fall…Animoto. Animoto is a basic online tool that allows you to create “video slideshows” or montages with music and text. The basic … Continue reading →

What if Your Textbooks Were Free and Customizable?

Anonymous — Tue, 31 May 2011 22:40:22 GMT

As the school year winds down, you might be thinking about what new or different books you hope to use in the fall. If you are, I encourage you to check out Open Educational Resources (OER) textbooks. OER or “Open Source” textbooks are digital, often customizable, textbooks published and available on the web. Many of them are quite comprehensive and are written by highly-qualified professionals with advanced degrees. These books also often include interactive elements and multimedia such as sound and video. Best of all, they’re free. In the Classroom Here are some OER sources you can explore. Since these are open and free, you’ll see that you can pick and choose from multiple sources for your students instead of having to commit to one textbook from one publisher. Many of them are also available in PDF format for download and to print either for free or for a … Continue reading →

What if Hamlet Had a Facebook Page and Tweeted?

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:06:43 GMT

Ok, so the days are finally getting longer here in New England and the end of the school year is within sight…but I still feel like there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done and the students are growing restless by the day. So, as usual, I’ve been digging about on the web, looking for resources to keep my students busy and learning as the weather grows warmer and their attention spans shrink. While digging, I came across a site from the UK that is an impressive social network for teachers called TES Connect. TES Connect … Continue reading →

New “Epic Comics” Lesson Explores Epic Simile with Comic Creator Technology

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:32:20 GMT

Last week I wrote a post about using online comic creator applications to create comic strips based on scenes from Homer’s Odyssey. Today I’ve published a lesson plan based on this idea. This plan explores Epic / Homeric Similes, vivid word choices, and tone in the Odyssey based on Common Core Standards for Literature–Craft and Structure. I tried to keep the lesson basic and easily adaptable, so there is plenty more you could do with these resources but this plan will get you started using online comic creator applications. I hope you will explore the lesson and share your classroom … Continue reading →