10 Books: Making Connections

The ability to make connections while reading is an important part of comprehension. Good readers are constantly making connections. The books that popped up when I searched included: 

1. The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. This story relates the anticipation and joy that comes from relatives coming to visit.

2. Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber. This story helps students make connections to having their first sleepover/using a stuffed animal at night to sleep. 

3. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. This story helps students to put things into perspective when they, too, have a bad day. 

4. No, David! by David Shannon. This story follows David, who gets told no quite often for doing things he should not be doing. 

5. The Girl Who Hated Books by Manjusha Pawagi. This book would be great to connect with the students who do not enjoy reading. They just have to find the right book to be hooked. 

6. Earrings! by Judith Viorst. This author, again, is great at helping students make connections. This story is about a girl who desperately wants to wear earrings. Kids can connect to the idea of wanting something so badly and doing whatever they need to do in order to get it. 

7. I Hate English! by Ellen Levine. This book would be great for the students who are trying to learn a new language and are struggling. 

8. Ruby The Copycat by Peggy Rathmann. This story would be great for students who are copycats, or students who find themselves being copied by other students. These students will learn all about how awesome it is to be yourself. 

9. Waiting by Kevin Henkes. This book gives children a different perspective on waiting and being patient. Great for making those connections.

10. Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes. This book is great for making the connections to the teachers and relationships to teachers in schools. 

Word Walls in my Classroom

I loved our discussion on all the different techniques and ideas that revolve around word walls. Naturally, I think we picture a wall in the classroom that is designated for words to help the students. But I think the possibilities are endless and it does not have to be limited to a designated wall. Personally, I think my "word wall" will be on a wall, and I am leaning towards a Scrabble themed classroom. If this is the case, I will definitely make the large-scale Scrabble board that students can play with and make words out of with bigger Scrabble tiles. I also want the students to be able to touch the words or recreate the words, and to make this happen, I want a large roll of butcher paper hung on the wall for the students to practice writing the word wall words <-- this could be a station or an activity to do if a student gets free time. It's exciting thinking about my own classroom. Time is definitely ticking away and we are getting closer by the minute.

Teaching Language Arts: Class 1

After the first night of EDUC 337 Teaching Language Arts, I felt like we reviewed a lot of important information that will definitely be useful to us throughout these eight weeks. First of all, it is really hard to get into the mindset that the words 'summer' and 'classes' can go together. Anyone else struggle with motivation on summer classes? I am trying my best! Dr. Steffes is awesome for those of you who have not had her yet. I am looking forward to this class, but maybe next week I will nap beforehand. :)

Since I usually attend the residential campus in Columbia, MO, I found that many of my classmates there took EDUC 337 in seat. Personally, I chose to take Environmental Science Lecture and Lab online during that time (yikes) in order to get it out of the way. I think this hybrid course will really be engaging and help us to learn how to teach language arts to our future students effectively.

As far as resources go, I feel like we are already well on our way to being prepared for the integrated unit plan. We now have the two websites (I made sure to bookmark them!), our thorough syllabus, PowerPoints, our textbook, and email communication for further help. Moreover, I am glad that there are ten students in this class, as it will help us to be more engaged, learn from each other on a greater level, and have more time to discuss our lesson plans as a class.

When it comes to teaching language arts, or really anything, it is critical for teachers to have a wide depth of knowledge about the subjects they are teaching. We cannot expect our students to reach the mastery level on the content if we, ourselves, have not mastered the content. The more time and effort teachers put into learning the material and teaching a variety of concepts to students, the more likely the students are to learn the material and master it. We have big shoes to fill, guys.