Monday, November 23, 2009

Monday-11-23-09-Class Presentations

Presentation 1: Water, Sun, and Moon
I really enjoyed the presentation and the use of the costumes. The costumes helped keep me focused and interested in the lesson. The group demonstrated that they were able to work together. It appeared that they collaborated very well. I also liked how they had the class participate by holding up a fish. This would keep the students focused and listening so they would know when to hold up the fish. The would be actively engaged in the lesson. Good job.

Presentation 2: Recycling
I enjoyed the powerpoint presentation of the book and the music. It was a good lesson on recycling since we are trying to take care of the world. I liked how we had to sort out pictures of objects and place them in the correct recycling bin. This is a good hands on activity to get all the students involved. Good lesson.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Guided Reading Websites

I looked up several websites for Guided Reading. Since my wife started using Guided Reading last year but the last half of the year. She has the book "Guided Reading: Good Frist Teaching For All Children" by Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell (1996). They have had training and this year used the Fountas and Pinnell Assessment and CD ROM to input all their data. She says that the Assessments pretty much were even with how she had grouped her students. The following are some interesting websites about Guided Reading. A lot of good information.
Guided Reading Websites
A. http://www.readinga-z.com/
This website has everything you need to teach reading. It has leveled readers, benchmark books and running records, reading lessons and worksheets, fluency passages, and assessments and much more.

B. http://www.mrsjonesroom.com/teachers/guidedreading.html
This website gives you a whole list of Guided Reading websites.

C. http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/guided_reading.html#ResourcesandReferences
Gives you a lot of information about shared and guided reading. Has a link to skills and strategies to focus on, leveling books, running records, where to find leveled sets of emergent readers etc.

D. Websites with Emergent Readers to download:
http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/printable_booklets.html
http://www.kinderbeesprintables.com/printablesindex.html#september
http://www.marcias-lesson-links.com/VeryEmergentReaders.html

E. http://www.lindaslearninglinks.com/gdrdgkdg.html
This website gives you a peek at how to do guided reading in kindergarten. She gives you exactly what you have to do Monday through Friday. She includes some neat Literacy Center Activities.
There are many good websites out there but these are just a few.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Read Aloud

I watched the video on the read aloud and found it rather interesting. I found the concept of text to text connections interesting. It makes the students think of how the book the teacher was reading makes them think of another book they have read. This is good to discuss similarities and differences between books. This is a good comprehension tool. Students were given an opportunity to share their text to text connection. Student's are asked to predict what is going to happen in the story. Then they read to see if their predictions are correct. The teacher had good classroom management. I liked the way she brought the class back together by stating,"come back to me in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." Great way to get them back to focus on the lesson and book. The teacher kept the students actively engaged by asking questions througout the reading of the story. I liked how she would say "a good reader would" then she would state something a good reader would do and she would model it. This is good because students need to see that the teacher is doing it. I think this has more of an impact on the student than just telling them what to do. Great video.