3321 M&W Author Profile: Mary Ann Hoberman

Mary Ann Hoberman is a wonderful children’s author who writes books and poems. She was born on August 12, 1930, and says that since she was a little girl she knew that she wanted to write and be an author. Some of her more famous books include the You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You series. These books are fun stories to read any time, but especially for one on one reading like at bedtime. You can take turns with the child, you read one page, and they read the next. There are four books in this series, all which are delightful! I really did enjoy her website http://www.maryannhoberman.com. There you can easily find all of her books she has written, her poems, a biography, and other links. I really like how the book section is put together; it is a picture of the cover page of all of her books. This makes it especially easy to remember the book whenever you go to the bookstore! I remember seeing so many of her books at Barnes and Nobles whenever I was there last :)

3321 M&W Author Profile: Frog and Toad Are Friends

This week’s author profile is on the book Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel. This is such a great book for children ages 4-8 and is about the two wonderful friends who are great role models for children. The duo goes on all sorts of adventures together through out the five stories and they experience many embarrassing things. Things like being seen in your bathing suit (we all were embarrassed when this would happen to us), looking for lost buttons, waiting for mail, and waking up after hibernation. Children will be able to relate to these stories with friendships of their own and experiences that they have been through with their friends. A really cool website that I found, http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/frog/frogtg.html, has all sorts of activities and lessons that go along with the book. There are activities such as making an origami frog, activities about friends, and children will make their own description of what a frog looks like. It’s a good resource for teachers to use and tweak to make their own!

3321 M&W Author Profile: Mercer Mayer

Mercer Mayer has published over 300 children’s books, which he not only writes but illustrates as well. He is best known for the Little Critter books that he writes and illustrates, and these are books that I absolutely loved as a child! They are so much fun! On his website I read that most of the books he writes are about things that happened to him whenever he was a kid, and also about things that happen to his children now that he is grown up. The little critter books are about a family of critters, there are Little Critter, his mom and dad and little sister and little brother. My personal favorite book of the series is Merry Christmas Mom and Dad. In this book, Little Critter gets ready for Christmas and is very excited about being a good helper. He tries to do all sorts of things like help wrap the presents, buy presents for his parents, and hang up Christmas lights. But even though he means well, he ends up getting overwhelmed and tangled up in everything. It’s a very funny book, and great for around Christmas time.
The Mercer Mayer website that I liked the best is http://www.littlecritter.com. Here there are interactive games, an art gallery, coloring pages, sing-a-longs, and interactive read and plays. Children will love this website!

3321 Group 2 Presentation 11/30: Pink and Say

The second group to present today did their presentation using the book Pink and Say. This story was definitely a tearjerker, but it was such a wonderful tale of the courage and friendship between the two characters. This would definitely be a great book to use with older kids, middle school for sure, whenever studying the Civil War. I loved how the group members each took turns reading different sections of the story; it made it easier to pay attention since everybody did it a little different. I also enjoyed the activity that we did, and it they had us write about the character Pink in a creative way. They did a great job!

3321 M&W Author Profile: Lois Lowry

The author that I am writing about today is Lois Lowry. A book that she is very well known for is Number the Stars, and is the tale of a young little girl who lives in Denmark in 1943 during World War II. The young girl, Annemarie Johansen, has to courageously help her family smuggle the Jewish out of Denmark, and amongst these is her best friend, Ellen Rosen. This book shows us how even in a time of war and terror there is still a sense of pride that we all have, as well as human decency. This story obviously isn’t for young children, but it is a great book to have in your classroom for the older classes.
This author’s website is http://www.lowry.com and has a lot of neat things contained in it. Her biography of course can be found there, along with descriptions of her books, and speeches. You should go take a look!

3321 M&W Group Presentations 11/30: The Empty Pot

This group did their genre presentation over the Chinese folktale The Empty Pot and how that book tied in with integrity. I especially enjoyed how they had the book projected up on the screen so that we were able to all see the detailed illustrations. It was a nice change from your usual read aloud. I thought that it was great how they took the time to do a book walk before reading the story; this gave us time to take a look at the beautiful illustrations, and would have been a great way to get the children interested in the story if this was in a real classroom. I enjoyed how the activity that the group gave us to do; the worksheet with the empty pot and we wrote our definition of integrity in it and shared with the class. I think that this is an activity that students would have enjoyed doing. They did a great job!

3321 M&W 11/25 Presentations and Author Profile on Marcia Thornton Jones

I was absent and missed the first day of presentations, but I did hear that the groups did a fantastic job. I was told that there was a skit acted out with masks and all, and my fellow group members were a little scared after seeing this presentation. That means they did a great job!

For my author profile this week, I am focusing on Marcia Thornton Jones. She is a best selling children’s author and has over 126 books published! She is best known for the Adventures of the Bailey School Kids series. This series is made up of over 80 books, and children just love to read them (I know I did whenever I was a child). In each of the books the Bailey School Kids encounter a seemingly innocent character, like their teacher or school custodian, who might be a mythical character like a vampire or ghost! Children will read this and the whole time be wondering if the character really is mythical or not, and of course finds out at the end.
These chapter books are fun for 5th graders, and there are now the Bailey School Kids “Jr.” chapter books series for 2nd to 4th graders. The URL to her wonderful website is http://www.marciatjones.com/

3321 M&W Author Profile: Tomie Depaola

For this author profile I decided to focus on Tomie Depaola since the read aloud video was on one of his books. Tomie Depaola is a well known children’s author who had been published for over forty years and not only writes but illustrates as well. All in all he has written and illustrated over 200 books in his time and is still giving us more. His works have been recognized with numerous awards including the Newbery Honor Award and the Caldecott Honor Award.
Probably his most famous book is titled Strega Nona, a book that he illustrated himself as well. It is about an elderly lady who always helps out the people of her village by doing things like curing headaches, getting rid of warts, and helping single ladies find husbands. She needs help doing some chores, so Big Anthony comes to help her do them. She warns him not to touch her magic pasta pot, but he doesn’t listen and whenever she is away he uses it to serve pasta to the community. He doesn’t know how to turn it off, so the whole town ends up getting flooded with pasta, and as a punishment he must eat all that pasta. It is a very cute book!
The website that I found is his official website and the URL is http://www.tomie.com. There is a biography about Tomie, his artwork, his stories, and information on being an artist. It’s very interesting and you should check it out!

332 M&W Reply to Good Read Aloud Video

This teacher performing the read aloud did a wonderful job! I loved how she reminded her students of the text-to-text connections before she began the book, this way they could be thinking of them while she is reading. Something else I really liked was how she obviously has taught her students about the different parts of the book and she asked them what the dedication page was and they raised their hands and knew right away. She did a great job of keeping the book and illustrations in view of her students, and didn’t read the book to herself and then show them the pictures after she read the page (I’ve seen this many times). The one thing that I know you told us never to do when reading to our students was sit above them and that is what she is doing. She isn’t eye level with them, and she could have sat on the floor with them. She did a great job of explaining what the Italian words were to her students, and didn’t just ignore it and assume that they knew what the word meant. I loved how she interacted with her students throughout the book, this was a great way of keeping them engaged and interested in the story. This video was a great example of how to conduct a proper read aloud and I am glad I was exposed to it. Thanks :)

3321 Author Profile: Hans Christian Anderson

The author that I decided to speak about this week is Hans Christian Andersen. This Danish author wrote classic children’s stories and poems. He is an oldie, born April 2, 1805 and died August 4, 1875, but definitely a goody! Some of his most famous fairy tales include “The Little Mermaid”, “Thumbelina”, and “The Ugly Duckling” just to name a few. His stories are readily available to us and can go well in the classroom especially since many have been made into motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films and they have been translated into 150 + languages! A great gook that I found is called Hans Christian Anderson: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories and it is an accumulation of all of his works into one book. Due to the fact that he has written so many pieces, it is over 1,000 pages but I think that it would be a great piece for a teacher to have that could be used for read alouds and story time. You can purchase it for only $16.32 off of Amazon! Here is a cool website that I found on Hans Christian Anderson http://hca.gilead.org.il/ and it has all sorts of information varying from his life, to detailed information on his works and links to the actual stories. It was pretty neat and could be used for all sorts of things!

3321 M&W Guided Reading Websites

A great website that I found that was great for guided reading resources is called www.readinga-z.com. They had quite a large amount of options that you can choose from, and there were literally thousands of books, lesson plans, worksheets, assessments, etc that you could print off right from your own computer. But there was a BIG problem that I did not really like in this website…you had to pay to access this information; $59.95-$84.95 per class for one year! This was a major turn off so I went and found a different website :) but I did decide to blog about it anyways in case any of you are willing to spend that type of money!

So the next website that I came across was absolutely amazing! It is called roythezebra.com and I tried out some of the different links on there and had so much fun, children would definitely enjoy this website. It is an interactive reading website for emerging readers and there are interactive reading games (that are actually fun :0), guided reading stories, literacy worksheets, and songs. And these are only the free things that this website has to offer. They have a reading store that you can purchase reading software off of. The reason I enjoyed this website so much was because this would be something that children can do not only at school but at home as well to help their reading skills. And it is fun so they will be excited about learning! You should really go check it out the URL is http://www.roythezebra.com.

3321 M&W Nonfiction

This week we learned all about the nonfiction genre of literature. I have got to say, I look at nonfiction in a completely different light now. Yes, I am one of those people who has always immediately categorized anything that is nonfiction as boring. I know that this is completely wrong, but before this class I always thought of nonfiction as things like our history text book (gag!) and I don't have any good memories concerning my old history text books!

I loved the examples that our professor brought to class! It especially interested me whenever we talked about The Magic School Bus. I was OBSESSED with The Magic School Bus growing up; I had every single book and never missed an episode of the show! I never actually stopped to think "hmm, is this fiction or nonfiction"? Without thinking it through the first thing that I want to answer is fiction, because "fiction is fake" and since it is a cartoon I don't automatically think of it as real. But the things that these books and television episodes teach are scientific facts and children really learn a lot from them. I suppose this is where the "faction" category comes in, and I think that it is quite a catchy word that is very much common sense. It is perfect for teaching children about important things, and the small fiction or cartoon (I'm not saying they're the same thing) portion is what draws children in.

After reading and discussing chapter 9 I'm no longer afraid of being bored with nonfiction books. I definately want to have a lot of nonfiction books in my classroom, and I thought that the nonfiction/fiction scavenger hunt was a great idea; especially to introduce children to the nonfiction genre and break those horrible stereotypes. I plan on using that activity for sure in my future classroom!

3344 MGP Expository Piece

My topic for my MGP is pets! My narrative is a story about a dog who finds her perfect family, and my persuasive piece is about trying to convince my students and their parents to adopt a pet. For my expository piece I was going to do a "how to play fetch with your dog". I had a couple of ideas like "how to give your dog a bath", "how to feed your pet", and "how to take your dog on a walk" but I thought that "how to play fetch with your dog" would be the best to do. It is simple enough for first graders, and I have to keep it to just a couple of steps so it shouldn't be that difficult.

What I plan on doing is making some sort of visual (I haven't quite decided which kind yet) and have pictures of me actually doing the steps with my dog. Of course, first I thought of doing a poster board but that is way too generic and I want something different and creative. I've thought about making a video that actually shows me going through the steps of playing fetch with my dog, but I'm not sure if I'm good enough with technology to accomplish that! I would love to hear from ya'll to see if you might have any other ideas as far as which format I could use : )

3344: Stiletto Stoners

Since Dr. Harris wasn't in class on Wednesday, Mrs. Pickett told us to blog about the "Stiletto Stoner" article and how we feel about it. Personally, after going online and reading the whole article myself it was written in a light that made it okay that these women were going home every evening and getting baked. Then you scroll down to the bottom of the page and read the reply's and it's all these women saying things like "we need more women like this in control" or talk about how they are only 22, 23, etc. and saying that they are "successful" and smoke weed every night (hahaha....successful to them was $20,000/year). As an educator, this article was telling all of the children who read it that it is okay to be a stoner and if you smoke weed that you will be successful and empowered like these women. That is not the right message to send to our children! We spend a whole week, "Red Ribbon Week" talking to children about staying away from drugs, and "just say no" and have programs like the D.A.R.E. program and this article is going against all of this. I personally look at the Marie Claire magazine in a completely different light, and I don't plan on purchasing their magazine any time in the future. It's funny how much one article can change a person's mind about a particular product.

M & W 3321: The type of books I love to read!

We are supposed to talk about the types of books that we like to read, and the one thing that all books have in common that I enjoy reading is romance! I am a sucker for love and right now I am in love with the Twilight series. Oh my gosh I read these books and it is like nothing else is going on around me. I become one of the characters, and just get so wrapped up that the story becomes real. I consider a book to be good whenever I don't want to put it down, and I haven't found that in a very long time until I started reading the Twilight series. The thing is, I want to keep reading and reading but I don't want to read all of them and it will be over! Then I won't have anything to look forward to :( however I still have 3 books left! So maybe you guys will have some suggestions for me to read, just remember that I love the romance!

A woman who I babysit for shares my Twilight obsession and she recomended a book for me to read called Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. She loaned me the book but it is still sitting in my backseat! I was told that it was a love story about a prostiture and a farmer in the 1850's and it is based off of a story from the Bible; all in all it is about the unshakeable love of God. I can't wait to read it! If any of you guys have any suggestions then please tell me!!

EDRG 3344 What is a Narrative?

What is a narrative?

A narrative is a type of writing that is distinguished by having a clear beginning, middle, and end. The author of a narrative has a goal to get his/her story across to readers and in order for them to successfully do this their narrative must have great detail that makes the reader get lost in the story. A narrative also has specific story elements such as a plot, setting (time and place), central characters, and usually a conflict and resolution. An example of a narrative is Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter. A couple of other examples that I personally LOVE are The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Willams, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, and Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. Each of these books have a very well defined beginning, middle, and end as well as vivid detail.

EDRG 3321 M&W Chapter 7

Today in class we learned all about picture books. I wanted to discuss some things that were brought up that I never really thought about before whenever I read picture books. It really made me think whenever we talked about how every single part of the picture book is meaningful. The artwork in these books are so detailed that many people take them for granted and it is a shame that they don't appreciate the complexity and detail. I personally never thought that the different colors used had any meaning or symbolism to them, I just thought that the pages were filled with simple drawings. The fact that these books that are so commonly labeled as "only for children" is so unfortunate. Something that I do love about picture books besides the artwork is the lines of text and how they vary so much depending on the mood that they depict. In my opinion whenever the text is printed in these ways the children become more engaged and focus more on reading the words because they are so eye catching and interesting.

For my author profile this week, I chose two books/authors to talk a little about; both are actually mentioned in chapter 7 of our text and I did further research on them. The first I want to share with you is What Do You Do With a Kangaroo? by Marcer Mayer. This book is about a little girl who has to figure out what to do whenever a bossy kangaroo jumps through her window and starts telling her what to do. The book has a very cute ending, but I don't want to give it away! Mercer Mayer is a great author who has been writing books for children for over forty years and I recomend that as teachers you own some of his books in your classroom library. Another great book is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. This book is about a little boy Alexander who is having the absolute worst day. We get to follow him from waking up in the morning with gum in his hair, to all sorts of little things happening to him throughout the day. Children love this book because they can relate to Alexander, after all everybody has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. As adults we too can relate to this story because reading it will remind us of little ones that we know and how they can sometimes blow the littlest things completely out of perspective......and so do we!

3344 MGP Narrative

There once was a beautiful dog named Callie who wanted nothing more than a family to love her and take care of her. But the man who owned her was mean and scary, and always left Callie tied up to a chain in the front yard. Callie always saw the other dogs walking by with their families, and she decided that she would do whatever it took to get away and find one of her own. But how would she break free from her chain? Day and night she chewed and gnawed and tugged until finally, it broke and she was free! She ran and ran like she never had before, she wanted to get as far away as possible from that mean man and never go back. Suddenly a truck with cages in the back came up behind her and a person put a leash around her neck and put her in one of the cages. “Oh no” said Callie, “I’m never going to get to have a family now”.

That truck took her to a place where there were tons of other dogs and cats, all in bigger cages and all very sad. “Where am I” asked Callie to the dog in the cage next to her. “You’re in what humans call the pound; all of us animals without a home have to stay here until a nice family comes along and wants to adopt us and take us home” said the old dog. Callie stayed in this “pound” for weeks and watched different families come and go; they usually wanted the cute little puppies and never the big dogs like her. Even though the odds didn’t look good, she never gave up hope and was always prepared whenever visitors would come.

One day a little girl walked in and Callie could tell there was something special about her. She ran over to Callie’s cage and said “Mommy, mommy, I want this one! She’s so pretty, can I please have her?” But her mom said “Don’t you want this cute little puppy over here instead sweetie? Look how little he is!” The little girl had her heart set on Callie, and was already in the cage petting her and scratching her belly. As they put a brand new collar and leash around Callie’s neck, she said bye to all of her friends at the pound and got into the car with her new family.

They took her to their home, and walked her to the biggest backyard that Callie had ever been in! She ran in circles, fetched the ball, and had never had so much fun in her whole life! “This is it” thought Callie, “I finally have a home and have a family that loves me as much as I love them!” Every morning the little girl would take Callie outside to play and go potty, and then she would give her some breakfast before she left for school. Then in the afternoons she would come home and play all sorts of games with Callie; they went on walks together every day, and Callie absolutely loved whenever it was time to get a bath! They spent every second they could together, and were each other’s best friends. At night Callie no longer dreamed of finding a family because her family found her and loved her more than anything in the world.

3344: Memories!

Well, today in class we all took turns sharing some of our memories. There were some reallllly funny ones, and then there were extremely sad ones and I think we all got a little closer and understand each other a little bit more because of this. It was hard for me to decide which memory to share, but instead of explaining my sad memory I'll do this on a happy note and talk to you guys about my warm memory.

In class to represent my warm memory I brought an old card from my boyfriend that he had written a very special note to me in. Like I said today, we have been dating since I was 14 years old and he really is one of the most important people in my life (after all family is first and I do consider him family). I know we aren't married, but we have been through so much together and I really don't know what I would do without him. He has stood by my side through my toughest struggles and has seen me hit rock bottom, and then he has also been there and been the reason for many of my best memories! Whenever I am depressed or feeling down, he is always there supporting me and just is so caring that when I think of him and know he is there for me I just know everything is going to be alright. This is exactly the reason that I chose memories of him to represent warmth! He is my best friend, and he just feels like home to me....there isn't really words to describe it.

These memories really mean a lot to me because whenever he leaves for the Army in February these memories are all I'm going to have to keep me going and to give me faith whenever I know we aren't going to be able to talk to each other. I have a huge box full of things that represent our memories together....things from movie ticket stubs, to letters, to put put golf score cards, to old cards. You name it, and if we've done it together then I have some little something from that day or event in that memory box! I know to some of you, it may seem like "Oh my gosh, he's just her boyfriend calm down girl" because I am not married and I don't have children like many of you do, but if you have ever shared a love that is pure and great then you know exactly how I feel, and exaclty how Josh makes me feel <3

(I put two pictures of us at the top of the post....the one on the right was a goofy one when we were playing with my webcam our heads aren't really shaped funky like that lol)

3321 M&W: Author Eric Carle

This week I am going to focus on the great children's author Eric Carle. I grew up absolutely in love with his books, and to this day can remember being in first grade and reading his stories like the classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Many of you are probably already very familiar with Eric Carle, and know about his books. His first book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was pulished in 1967, and was a collaboration of his work and author Bill Martin Jr. whom I talked about last week. He is an author of over 40 books, some of which aren't even available to purchase in bookstores anymore. He not only writes his books, but also illustrates all of his work. His art work and illustrations are very distinct and stand out from all others. He uses a collage technique to create his artwork, and his books are all full of an array of colors. A couple of his books, such as The Very Lonely Firefly and The Very Quite Cricket come alive at the end with an "added dimension" such as a yellow light that lights up in The Very Lonely Firefly, and real life sound of a cricket at the end of The Very Quiet Cricket.

Some of his most famous stories, and my personal favorites, are Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Do You Want To Be My Friend?, The Mixed-Up Chameleon, The Grouchy Ladybug, The Very Busy Spider, The Very Quiet Cricket, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, and The Very Lonely Firefly. I know that was a long list, but trust me.....these are CLASSICS that all children love! I truely believe that if you are teaching the lower grade levels that you should include these (or some of them) in your class library. His stories teach children about animals and nature as well as life lessons. There are so many of his books that I don't feel it is necessary to go into detail about them because that would take forever, and I am sure you are already familiar with many of his books!

3344 Personal Writing

I constantly do my own personal writing every single day, and in more way than one. Just to name a few I blog (for school of course), I write letters, text, makes to do lists, label my things, and make wish lists as well as keep a planner. The one that I would say I do the most is text, and I think that is because it is the easiest for me and my phone is always right there in my hand. It is a fast an simple way to communicate with the people that I love, or anybody I need to talk to. Besides texting I love to write letters, and have actually been writing a lot of letters this week. My boyfriend just joined the army so I have a lot of letter writing in my future!

Today in the all about me book, one of the things I wrote about was how I am an animal LOVER :) any stray that needs a home, I will take in and I feel like I have a special connection with animals. I wrote about my baby girl Callie (our picture is at the beginning of the post), who is a pit bull that I rescued from the pound two years ago. She is my life, I treat her like she is my little kid and I would do anything for this dog! So, for my creative personal writing I am going to write a letter to her!

My baby Callie,

I was doing my homework and I heard you barking outside so I had to take you on a walk just now, and you are tied to the tree until I finish this and can come back out! I wish you could come inside with me, but since I moved back home Aunt Cyndi and Uncle Charles won't let you stay inside with me anymore :( I just wanted to say that I'm so so sorry that I haven't been spending as much time with you these last couple of weeks as I usually do because I have been so busy with school and work. I'm so sorry I haven't forgotten about you I promise!!! I'll make it up to you and take you to go get a new toy or a big bone soon :) I know how much you would love that! I also just wanted to remind you how much you mean to me and how much mommy loves you....you are the best little girl ever! Although not everybody loves and understands your high energy levels like I do, I don't listen to what they say ;-) they just don't understand the bond that we share! Well I'm sure your attention has wondered off to something else by now, so I better say buh bye. Thank you so much for always being there for me, I love you so much Callie Bear!

~xOxOx~

Mommy

3321 M&W Ch. 3

Today in class we discussed chapter 3 from our book which was about understanding what we read. The big thing that I am glad Mrs. Pickett made a point to stress was the fact of how important comprehension is whenever it comes to reading. I have always known that comprehension was important, but after she talked about how comprehension really is the point of reading. Without comprehension we are simply decoding print, and nothing more, and I never thought of it like that. So at educators we have to make sure that our children are comprehending what they are reading.

I really enjoyed the part about the role that the teacher must take on, and that is the role of a facilitator. I feel that there are too many teachers who believe that because they have that name tag and desk that they are the boss, and they too often play the role of dictator whenever that is the exact opposite of what we are supposed to do. We are merely facilitators, and like she said in class, the magic happens inside the students minds.

Something that I plan to use in my classroom that this chapter talked about is structured retelling of the reading. A method that I believe is effective and plan to use is what some might call the popcorn method. This is where I would call on one student and have them tell me about one part of the story and then pop over to another student and have them tell me what happened next. Eventually all of the children in the room get a chance to talk about one part of the story and it is a lot less stressful for them than calling on one poor child and putting them in the hot spot in front of the whole class to retell the entire story. We could also make this fun by having something like a beach ball that the chidlren pass around the class and whenever you catch it you have to say what happened next in the story. Another way to do it is to write on different parts of the beach ball words like "who, what, when, where, why, etc" and which ever word their right hand lands on is what the child has to talk about. These are different methods that are testing and helping the children's comprehension in a manner that is fun to them :)

The book that I chose to share with you all this week is called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Jr. Martin and John Archambault (the picture is at the beginning of the blog because I had no idea how to get it go be down here with this paragraph and could not figure it out!!). You guys may or may not be familiar with this book but it is a hit with children! I remember reading it whenever I was young, and I have it in my classroom at the daycare I work at. It is a book about the alphabet and each letter is trying to get to the top of a coconut tree. It is a book that is good for children Pre-K and K but can be read aloud to children even younger. The wording is almost like a chant and it is so fun for the cildren to read, even those who can't read the text yet love hearing it. It goes "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Will there be enough room?" and the children just love to say this line over and over again! I was babysitting a little boy just last night who is almost three and right before dinner he started saying that line from the book, and kept repeating it! It is the cutest thing, and I do recomend this book for younger children. It is very fun, and a colorful book that they will love looking through as they read!

EDRG 3344 "If I won..."

All my life I have dreamed about actually winning the lottery some day, after all don't we all fantasize about that at one time or another? I couldn't even imagine how it would feel, but if I won the Texas Lottery there is one thing that I am sure of and that is that I'll be smart with my new found fortune. It is very frightening to think of the kind of trouble that you can get yourself into with $55 million, and how fast you can completely blow that $55 million is even scarier!

I would try to be as responsible as possible and first things first I would meet with a financial adviser. I sure as heck would have no clue what on earth to do with that amount of money, so professional advice would be a must! After all, I would be able to hire somebody to advise me on what is the smartest thing to do. I would want to invest a majority of the money, maybe a little bit in stocks or what not. I honestly can't say right now because I haven't the slightest idea about investing, but I would definitely invest a large portion of it and my financial adviser would tell me where to invest it.

After putting away some in investments, I would want to of course put enough away to cover the cost of my future children's college tuition, as well as some for retirement. With the remaining amount (which should still be millions) I would build my dream home on acreage out in Texas and get those horses that I have always dreamt of having. I am an animal lover, and have always had a passion for horses but have never been able to afford one myself. I would have all sorts of animals on my ranch, and I would take in abandoned animals that have nowhere to go. It would be a dream come true if I could open up some sort of refuge for abused, abandoned, and mistreated homeless animals. Being able to give them the life and love that they deserve would be such an amazing feeling, and my money would be spent helping a good cause.

I would also give the money, and not keep it all for myself. I would help my family with financial troubles, help out my friends (although it might now be a little sketchy who my true friends are), and give to those who are in need and cannot fend for themselves. Giving is the best thing that I could do with this money, and I would try to be as unselfish as possible by giving those help who truly need it.

I could go on and on about all of the little bitty nick knacks that I would love to buy with my $55 million, but that would take forever! All I can say is that if I won the Texas Lottery I would pray to have the strength not to blow it all on meaningless things like so many do with their money. Living in luxury is not something that I plan on doing, and I would never let the money get to my head.

EDRG 3344 Blog #3: WRITING IS A PROCESS!

As we are all aware.....WRITING IS A PROCESS!!! In order to create a well written piece of writing, you must follow the five steps that are involved in the writing PROCESS . A lot of times students don't like to drag through all five steps, they just want to write the paper last minute and get it over with. But with doing this, they write something that could have been much much better if they had taken their time and gone through the PROCESS.

Step 1: Step one in the writing PROCESS is pre-writing. The is the starting point, and first things first you have to organize your thoughts. If we don't organize our ideas, then our papers can turn out to be a whole mumble jumble mess of mixed thoughts. A great way for students to do the pre-writing stage is by making semantic map or some sort of graphic organizer. There are so many different graphic organizer templates out there floating around, so make this creative!

Step 2: The next step is the writing PROCESS is drafting. Durnig this step, this will be the first opportunity that students have to put all of their thoughts onto paper. It will by no means be a completely error proof and amazing piece of writing, but the is the entire point of writing drafts! Think of it as the "sloppy copy" of the paper. There are many different ways that students can compose their first draft including by pencil and paper, on the computer, in a journal or composition notebook, etc. However, the best way to do it is the old fashioned way and have them handwrite it out on paper. Doing so will help the students be more focused on content than on editing, and content is the most important part.

Step 3: The third step in the writing PROCESS is revising. Many times people get revising confused with editing, and they are two entirely different steps so do not combine them.....always revise before you edit. In the revising step, students will focus on the quality of the content and maybe clear up some thoughts or expand on certain parts of their paper. They can change sentences, delete them or add completely new ones. The whole purpose of this step is to improve the content. A great way to do this is by having your students get into partners, groups, etc. Having their peers read what they have written will allow them to have a chance to bounce back ideas and ways that they can improve their paper.

Step 4: Our next step in this PROCESS is editing. Now this is the step where all of you red pen fanatics can go to town and mark away. Just remember that too many red marks on a paper is very discouraging to writers, so don't go overboard. You can have students get into pairs again as in step three, but it would probably be a good idea to have them pick a different partner than they had in the revising part. This way a fresh set of eyes will be of better help, and the more people you have read your draft, the better your final peice will be. Tell the students to focus on grammatical errors such as spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

Step 5: Finally we are at the last step of the writing PROCESS, and it is publishing. If you are telling your students to write this paper, then you better give them some imspiration and let them know that it isn't going to be for nothing. Do not let their pieces be read by you once and then handed back with a simple grade on the top; publish them! This allows your students to be proud of what they have written, and most likely if they know that a lot of different people are going to be able to read their final piece then they will do a better job. You can do this by hanging up their papers on walls, out in the hallway for anybody to read, make a class book.......just do ANYTHING other than simply reading it once and handing it back.

As successful teachers, we should always have our students perform all five steps in the writing PROCESS whenever we have a writing assignment for them to complete. Going through with these steps will help them become a stronger writer, and they will therefor excel in their school work.

3321 M&W Ch. 2 Culture

Before being introduced to this chapter about culture in class, I wasn't aware of how big of a role culture plays in the classroom. It wasn't really something that I put much thought into before, but now I am well aware of how important each student's individual culture is. Whenever Mrs. Pickett gave us the example of how her friend helped the student who was from Germany (I believe), the teacher's actions were something that I would have thought of doing myself. After all, our first instinct as teachers is to help the students in any way that we can! But if you are not aware of the different cultures of your students, and the beliefs that they hace, then it is very eary to step on the toes of them and their famiy members. Even doing a kind act can get teachers in a tremendous amount of trouble, so we need to be aware and take the time to learn each of our studne's cultures and backgrounds. I am getting certified in EC-6, so because the number of children in our elementary classrooms is not too big, this shouldn't be too difficult of a task. However, it must be very difficult for those who are going to teach from 6-12 grades due to the vast amount of students these teachers have.

A simple way to learn our student's cultures is by doing the "All about me" projects the first week of school. Without directly asking "what is your culture", we are able to obtain information about our children in a manner that is fun for them. I know that whenever I was in school growing up, I loved to do the projects what were about me, my family, and my life. Like Mrs. Pickett said, it won't be a problem getting the children to talk about themselves and their lives, the problem can actually be getting them to stop! I look forward to doing these sorts of activities in my classroom once I become a teacher, and I know that every year I will have more and more ideas that are going to progressively get better :)

This week I chose three books that I recomend you read to your students! The first book on my list is Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary. This is a book about a kindergartenet named Ramona who is quite the little firecracker! This is a great beginner chapter book to read aloud in the class every day, and they will be excited to find out the adventures that Ramona will encounter next!

The second book that I chose is the classic Charlotte's Wed by E.B. White. Now I am sure we are all familiar with this story, and I personally couldn't imagine never having been taught it! It is quite the tear jerker, however it is a novel about friendship and the children are going to learn how they should treat their friends from reading this. There is also the move Charlotte's Web, so after finishing the book your calss can have a movie day to wrap it up!

The last final book I chose is Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atawter. This is a classic children's book that has been around since the 1930's! This is just one of those fun silly stories that is really fun to read, and is great for first graders as well!

And last but not least, a great website I found is http://www.greatschools.net . There I found a tremendous list of books that are organized by grade level. I plan on going back to this site to learn more about which books are going to be good for me to incorporate intor my teafching, and I hope you will go take a look around the site. It is very easy to navigate especially since they organize it by grade level!

EDRG 4433 Blog #2 Part 2: Circular Stories

Well, since I didn't have the updated syllabus printed off, my previous blog was only about chapter 4 from our book, so now I will address the questions given to us in class today =)

Circular stories are fantastic!! My personal defination of a circular story is one where a noun, for example a mouse, pic, moose, etc., is given any particular object and giving them this object leads to other events that are all attached and it keeps going in a round pattern. The main character always wants more and is never satisfied! However the main point is that at the end of the story, your character ends up with the same object that was first given to him or her. The story that we read in class today, If You Give A Pig A Pancake is a great example of a circular story. Laura Numeroff is an increduble author who has written a handful of these circular stories including If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, If You Give A Moose A Muffin.....and the list continues. These are books that I already own and I do read them to my students and they have so much fun with them! I plan on having these available for the children in my future classroom to enjoy on their own, and to do curriculum with them as well. Children LOVE to read these stories, and they are the type of book that are easy to get the children involved in. We saw firsthand in class today how Dr. Harris got every single one of us involved right at the get go with the bubbles. Children have a blast reading these stories, and that is EXACTLY the response that we need from our kids whenever it comes to literature.

If a child, or adult, doesn't think reading is fun or enjoyable then they just flat out will not want to read at all. This is exactly what, as educators, we need to help stop! As a future teacher I value reading, and think so highly of it and plan on doing my best at making reading fun for my future students. First things first, if you expext your students to have fun reading and want to do it, then YOU have to be enthusiastic about literature. I plan to show good reading habbits, and whenever it comes to language arts time in class, get the children excited! The first step I am going to do in making that happen is by getting them up out of their seats and getting them involved in the story. Just like today, before we were even introduced to the lesson, Dr. Harris had us blowing bubbles and that was FUN! We as students didn't know that is was connected to a book that we were about to read, we just knew we were having fun! We can do this by bringing toys or objects that are connected to the book that the children can play with before we even begin to read. I also am going to make a promise never to just pass out a piece of literature to the students and tell them the reading assignment and go sit at my desk. That will not work! We have to show good reading habits! Other things like stopping throughout the story for illustration breaks, predictions, feedback, etc. are going to make the children stay involved in the story and help them to better comprehend what is being read. These are just a few things to start off with making reading fun, and as I become more experienced my list will grow and grow!

EDRG 3344-350 Blog #2: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of our text was incredibly interesting, and as many of you said, this is a book that I am most definitely going to keep throughout my teaching career! I absolutely love how it constantly gives examples of how to incorporate the numerous literacy activities into different lessons. Right at the beginning of reading the chapter, I had such great esteem for the lessons that Mrs. Kirkpatrick did with her students involving the book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. It is of such significance that as teachers we realize that you cannot just read a book aloud to a child (of any age) and expect them to comprehend and retain any valid amount of knowledge; it just isn’t that easy. While reading this, my mind kept referring back to the lesson in class where we listed out the pre, during, and post reading activities to do with the children to enhance any story. In order for children to preserve the story, we must get them ACTIVELY involved, and relate the story in ways that are significant to them. I definitely have the boxes on page 110 and 111 stared and will in some way use the ideas presented in my classroom!

I found the section about incorporating literacy play centers in the classroom to foster reading and writing so interesting. As a child I remember always playing teacher, doctor, grocery store, etc. and I especially remember how I just LOVED to get my parents old check books and pretend that I was writing out checks. Little did I know then (and had no clue until just now) that this was teaching and introducing me to reading and writing, and like the book said, the important role that they both play in our lives. It would have never occurred to me that such simple things, that are playful and about having fun, are really teaching children the value of literature. As educators of young children (first grade and below) we “teach children to sing the ABC song to that they will have a strategy to use to identify a particular letter”. I have found firsthand that doing this, and keeping it consistent in a routine manner is a very important strategy that is affective in introducing young children to reading and writing. In my classroom at work (I remind you I teach 2 year olds), I taught my children the ABC song, and once they had it memorized and can sing it on their own, I introduced them to the print letters. Then as we sing the song, I point to each letter and they are starting to recognize which letter is which in print. Don’t get me wrong, they by no means have the whole print alphabet memorized! I then took it a step further and matched pictures with the print letters (“A” apple, “B” bear, etc.). After repeating this daily over a period of time, I noticed that they were starting to, for example, see the letter “C” and say cat because they remembered that every time we look under the “C” it is a cat! This method was talked about in the book and it really does help the children learn their phonics. This experience of mine definitely supports the data in the book saying that children start learning literacy as young as 12 or 14 months of age. Well I better stop here before I write a whole paper about this chapter because I could go on and on! I look forward to reading everybody’s thoughts on chapter 4!

3321/ M&W: Chapter 1

Seeing how I still haven't gotten my text book in, I have no way of talking about information that I found useful in chapter 1! Therefore...it's on to my internet research. I have only really focused on two different websites so far, and I am loving the information that I'm finding! The first website that I looked on was not the greatest, its url is http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/child_lit/authors/, it does list about 65 authors however I just didn't find it very helpful. A few of the links that I clicked on were either not up and running yet, or they just didn't give a whole lot of information on the author.

Now the useful information; I am loving the website http://www.childrenslit.com/childrenslit/mai.html because they have so many different resources. The list of authors to choose from and get information on is incredibly long, so you are sure to find the right one for you to do your Author Profile on! This site is very easy to navigate, and everything is labeled to direct you exactly where you need to go! As you can see, I am pretty excited about this site and am pretty positive that I will find my author on there. If you are having trouble finding an author, visit this site and I am sure you will eventually find somebody that you are interested in! Good luck :)

EDRG 3344-350 Chapter 1

Whenever it comes to learing anything to me, I have realized that the best way for me to retain the new knowledge is by using rehearsal. This is the strategy that works the best for me, and whenever I have a test/quiz/presentation it never fails. I read the information or facts over and over until I can recall them in my head without looking at my piece of paper or note card. Without doing this, the information that I am told in class or anywhere for that matter doesn't really stick and I don't retain much (if any) of it. Aside from rehearsal (which is better for studying), I also learn very well in social contexts. Whenever I am interacting with others and doing things hands on I am able to get a different perspective on the topic, and therefore can learn it better than if I were just reading the information out of a book.

Talking about motivation, I have personal experience with both extrensic and intrinsic motivation. I am a two year old teacher at a daycare, and a big part of my job is to potty train the children...this is where extrensic motivation kicks in. Using a reward system motivates the children to go on the potty instead of their diapers because they know "If I go pee pee in the potty I get an M&M, and if I go in my diaper then I don't get the candy (or whatever reward it is for that individual child)". This type of motivation is pretty successful in most cases, and I have found that it does work well with the younger kids. I know growing up, and even now, I have always been driven by intrinsic motivation. Getting good grades was something that was important to me, and I never got money or rewards for it besides the satisfaction of knowing that I am able to accomplish a certain goal or grade. I know how I was brought up, it was just expected of myself and my siblings to do our best and always give 100% and nothing less. That has always been instilled in my head, so now as an adult if I don't give it my all and earn that "A" then I will be dissappointed in myself.

In my intelligence profile, the two categories that I am strongest in are my Kinesthetic strength, and my Intrapersonal strength. This does reflect exactly how I learn, and I thought it was kind of interesting how this survey predicted that. I do work very well whenever I am alone and do things by myself, and whenever I can do anything hands on I usually gain a deeper understanding of the particular subject.

3321/ M&W

Hey guys this is my blog and I'm new to this whole blogging thing so hopefully it isn't too dificult and we can have some fun with it!