Saturday, September 17, 2011
problems
I am having problems with this blogging thing, so I hope you can keep up with me. I am doing my blogs on wordpress now, but I am making my comments from this site using my wordpress adress. Confussing I know but my followers do not show up on wordpress and I can't comment using just blogger. I hope you can still comment on my blogs.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Life Can Be So Short!
My niece just past away from a massive heart attack. She was only 42 years old and never sick a day in her life. She leaves behind 3 lovely boys, 11, 13, & 23, and 1 granddaughter 2. Please pray for this family in the days to come.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Up Date
What to do? All of a sudden I can respond to other bloggers from my house! Go figure! So now I'm torn and don't know what to do, ugh!
Anyway, those of you who knew my granddaughter broke her leg in 2 places playing softball and after 3weeks of wearing a cast ALL the way up her leg, she got a shorter one today that is water proof. She is one happy child. Will wear this one until the 20th then get a new one for her trip to Ohio to see her grandmother there. Finally, when she comes home hopefully it will come off.
I have been reading about literature circles and I really want to try it with 1st graders. I think they can do it, made be after Christmas and a lot of modeling. Anybody have any ideas?
Anyway, those of you who knew my granddaughter broke her leg in 2 places playing softball and after 3weeks of wearing a cast ALL the way up her leg, she got a shorter one today that is water proof. She is one happy child. Will wear this one until the 20th then get a new one for her trip to Ohio to see her grandmother there. Finally, when she comes home hopefully it will come off.
I have been reading about literature circles and I really want to try it with 1st graders. I think they can do it, made be after Christmas and a lot of modeling. Anybody have any ideas?
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
FYI
Since I cannot respond to anyone using blogger unless I am on Chowan's campus I will be switching over to Wordpress this summer.
What I Have Learned During the Summer Session
Oh my! where do I begin! My head is spinning with so many good ideas that we have discussed in class, on discussion board, blogging, and reading. I plan to take the summer and go back through it all. The books were all very good and easy to understand. I enjoyed them all, I just need more time to let the information sink in this old brain.
Melber & Hunter's 25 strategies for Integrating has a lot of good activities that are easy to follow. I especially like the way they give suggesions for teaching each grade level and how the lessons meet the needs of ELL and EC students. The work is all done for you, all you have to do is adapt it to fit the needs of your students. I even used one of the lessons in my Transportation Unit.
Drake & Burns' Meeting the Standards for me was a great guide in learning how to design an integrated unit. The backward design is just what the name implies and it was not an easy task. By doing it I think I now understand what it means, knowing where you want the studetns to be at the end in the beginning is very important (I hope that made sense). When you know this, it makes it easier to develop the activities. The KNOW/DO/BE bridge was also very helpful. I really like the idea of the BE. While this part seems like it cannot be measured it really can because our AIM as teachers is to produce responsible citizens. When I see former students working or preparing for college I am proud to say that was my student.
Daniels & Bizar's Best Practice made me do a lot of reflecting (not my favorite thing to do). Chapter three Representing-To-Learn, I realized I have been cheating my students in the area of writing because I only do the story writing. I now realize that there is sooo much more to writing than just writing stories. Again oh my! art is writing I had never considered this, and writing for fun what is that! Maybe if I had experienced these when I was in elementary school, I would not be afraid to write. Yes writing was one of my weakest subjects. Everything was graded in red and given back to correct and I always got mine back more than once and the more I corrected the worst it got.
With all that said, I will be doing a lot of rereading this summer!
Melber & Hunter's 25 strategies for Integrating has a lot of good activities that are easy to follow. I especially like the way they give suggesions for teaching each grade level and how the lessons meet the needs of ELL and EC students. The work is all done for you, all you have to do is adapt it to fit the needs of your students. I even used one of the lessons in my Transportation Unit.
Drake & Burns' Meeting the Standards for me was a great guide in learning how to design an integrated unit. The backward design is just what the name implies and it was not an easy task. By doing it I think I now understand what it means, knowing where you want the studetns to be at the end in the beginning is very important (I hope that made sense). When you know this, it makes it easier to develop the activities. The KNOW/DO/BE bridge was also very helpful. I really like the idea of the BE. While this part seems like it cannot be measured it really can because our AIM as teachers is to produce responsible citizens. When I see former students working or preparing for college I am proud to say that was my student.
Daniels & Bizar's Best Practice made me do a lot of reflecting (not my favorite thing to do). Chapter three Representing-To-Learn, I realized I have been cheating my students in the area of writing because I only do the story writing. I now realize that there is sooo much more to writing than just writing stories. Again oh my! art is writing I had never considered this, and writing for fun what is that! Maybe if I had experienced these when I was in elementary school, I would not be afraid to write. Yes writing was one of my weakest subjects. Everything was graded in red and given back to correct and I always got mine back more than once and the more I corrected the worst it got.
With all that said, I will be doing a lot of rereading this summer!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Assessment Daniels and Bizar
Assessment is a word I have very much come to hate. The authors of this book have really showed us how politicians, state legislators, governors, and business men have taken over the education system by imposing so many meaningless types of testing. I wish they would read the research.
With the new formative assessment that North Carolina is going to start using with the Common Core and Essential Standard I hope we are turning the assessment piece around. Formative Assessment will allow us to use informal assessment to guide our instruction. That means we will be able to use conferences, anecdotal records, checklist, and rubics. In our units we have used guided questions, checklist to assess the students as they work. We have also included rubics for grading students work.
With the new formative assessment that North Carolina is going to start using with the Common Core and Essential Standard I hope we are turning the assessment piece around. Formative Assessment will allow us to use informal assessment to guide our instruction. That means we will be able to use conferences, anecdotal records, checklist, and rubics. In our units we have used guided questions, checklist to assess the students as they work. We have also included rubics for grading students work.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Integrated Unit
Our unit on transportation is really taking shape. We have been working very hard and I think our work is going to pay off. I am excited that we were able to create a unit that I can use in my 1st grade class next year. Since two of the group members also teach 1st grade with me we can tweak and add to it as we go. Dr. Long has also been very helpful in the process because we did not have a model to go by. She has checked over anything that we have asked her to and given us feedback. Feel free to look at anything we have completed so far. I am looking forward to seeing all the units!
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