Lesson Planning

This post goes out to all my fellow classmates, teachers, and professors. For my next Tuesday I have to plan a lesson to help teach the students of my third grade class how to use a thesaurus. I am looking for any ideas as to how to make this less confusing for students. I have already written something that the students will edit and underlined the words that I would like them to look up in the thesaurus. I was wondering if this sounds too confusing, and if anyone has any ideas how to instruct students how to use a thesaurus. I was going to model, but I am afraid it will not be enough. Any suggestions would be much appreciated, and feel free to ask more about my lesson if you don't understand something, I know I didn't provide a great deal of detail here.

Todays Achievement

I have to say today I saw how knowing about children's literature pays off, and would like to say a special thanks to Patty Pickard for familiarizing me with all different types of children literature. Today during S.S.R. (silent sustained reading) one of our students finished his book and couldn't find something else to read. He turned down all the suggestions of his classroom teacher. After hearing about the last book he read and what types of books he was interested in I was able to find him a new book to read (one of the Time Warp Trio books). I was so excited when he told me that he was enjoying the book. I just wanted to share this moment with my fellow bloggers and recommend that you keep up to date on children's literature, I know I am always amazed at the new material out there.

Tompkins' Reading and Writing Poetry

While perusing the Language Arts Patterns of Practice text I became really interested in Chapter 11 Reading and Writing Poetry. I have a passion for all types of poetry and I was excited to learn interesting ways to use it in the classroom. I liked the idea of a writing notebook just for poetry and then having a class book of poetry that students can contribute poems to. I also found the Poetry Workshop Grading Sheet to be a useful tool because I didn't really have a solid idea of how to grade student poetry. However my favorite part of the chapter was the word pictures because this in my past experience has really gotten students interested in poetry because they can see how poetry is not only fun but how it can come in all different forms. When I did poetry in one of my past field studies I did a great poem that was in the shape of a giraff, and of course the poem was about a giraff.

Chelsea, Francesca and Scott...Examining Writing Skills

For the past two class sessions I have learned a great deal about different things to examine when looking at students writing. When reading Chelsea, Francesca and Scotts work I learned to look beyond the surface/appearance of the writing and to take a deeper look at what is being said. For example when reading Scott's story about a panda, he attempts to use a variety of sentences which overall are more varying and complex than Chelsea. Chelsea's writing on the surface is neat and tidy with few spelling errors and good spacing between her words. However learning to look deeper allows the reader to see that she lacks variety and elaboration techniques making Scott story more engaging and stronger.
Learning how to look at language development will help a great deal when I have to help the students of my Tuesday experience revise the stories they have written and need to revise. This will also be useful for when I will help them compose a story about their memorable day in letting them know what I am looking for and later for how to evaluate their work.

Classroom Management

This Tuesday I did a lesson on poetry, which overall went well, however it would have gone smoother if I was better at classroom management. After talking with my supervisor who observed me I learned so different classroom management techniques that I thought I would share:

• Remind students before the lesson begins about expected behavior,


• (If students have side-bar conversations going on while you are talking) Pause/stop what you are doing and look at those who are talking, after they quiet begin again,


• Use a sterner/harsher voice to get students attention letting students know you are incharge,


• Bring voice down to a softer tone so that students must quiet down to hear what you are saying(I personally like this method and it works well in my classroom),


• If students' calling out is a major problem, hold a class meeting and ask the children to make recommendations for solving this problem. This would include the type of discipline to be used for the children who continue to disturb the class by calling out.

Here are a few websites that give classroom management strategies:

• http://www.teachervision.fen.com/classroom-management/behavioral-problems/26200.html


• http://geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/4127/


• http://drwilliampmartin.tripod.com/classm.html


• http://www.4faculty.org/includes/108r2.jsp

I hope that these will be helpful to you future teachers out there, I know I found a few techniques that I found useful. If anyone has any other suggestions I would love to hear them. =)

Response to Reading and writing processes - 2/7/08

Make a list of the reading-writing connections you have observed in your Tuesday Experience. In the past three visits to my Tuesday Experience I have noticed the following reading-writing connections:

• In readers circle I have listened as the students respond to texts that have been read to them through guided discussion,
• Students also ask questions and use a dictionary or thesaurus to clarify misunderstandings or to reach a better understanding,
• For writing I have observed students responding to what they have read and make flow charts and,
• Students also during writing workshop write drafts that they have the teacher proof read; students aslo use dictionarys to check spelling.

Technology in Elementary Schools

Prompt: "Since you are all in Tuesday Experience, can you share with me what you see happening in your school setting with respect to technology?"

The school that I am currently working in for my field experience does not use much technology in every day classroom activities, that I have observed. There is one computer in my classroom for students to use, and the use of that computer is primarly to see what books are in the library. In the library, however there are several computers that students recieve instruction on (learning typing, how to use programs, and accessing information on the internet).
I know that there are some schools in the district that are in the process of having Smart Boards installed in the classrooms. I was wondering if any of my fellow student teachers have had the opporunity to use the Smart Board and I was also wondering what they think of it. I worked in a classroom last semester that had a Smart Board put in just around the time I was leaving so I didn't get to work with it. Since I know so many schools have a least one Smart Board in the school I would love to learn how to utilize this technology.