Interactive coins!!

Smartnotebook makes learning fun!  As I am working though building a unit on money, specifically coins, I found an interactive learning activity to help teach coins!  The information is very accurate.  The activity shows the front and back of coins and also tells how much each is worth.  It allows students to match the front of the coin to the correct back of the coin.  This gets children out of their seat and helps them recognize each individual coin.

This activity matches the standard of my unit which is SSKE3b: Identify various forms of U.S. money.  This matches the outcome of the unit which states that students will become aware of the similarities and differences in four different United States coins of currency. 

This website, which is www.smartnotebook.com, is very easy to use.  You can simply put in the content area and grade level and it will give you many activities to use.  The particular activity that I chose to use with my unit is http://express.smarttech.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fexchangedownloads.smarttech.com%2Fpublic%2Fcontent%2Fb1%2Fb1c43fbb-8c2b-4e4a-b128-3805300daeaa%2FCoins.notebook  and is also very easy to use.  It is also very interactive for the students.  It allows the to drag the coins to match them and also count how many of each type of coin is in a jar.  The only thing I would change about the lesson is to add more detail about the American Symbols and why they are present on the coins. 

I will use this website for future lessons that I prepare for my classroom!!!

Video Sites!

Video sites are very helpful when it comes to teaching.  They can help make the content relevant by putting it into movie form.  It grabs the visual learners in a classroom and makes it much more interesting than just listening to a teacher lecture the entire time.

I do have concerns about certain sites.  Youtube and Google videos are available to most any person anywhere.  They are not language or content protected.  Any person can upload to these sites.  Most school systems have these sites blocked from being used.  My concern about trusting these videos is showing material that is inappropriate to students.

My thoughts on teachertube are very good.  It is dependable and secure.  The videos that are on this site are all learning videos.  You do not have outside material floating around.  I see the value in using this in a classroom. The videos are able to explain certain content in ways that may be difficult for a teacher to do alone.  Some of them have cartoon characters explaining the material which interests the students.  I will love using this in my future classroom. 

I have also been lucky enough to be set up by a librarian with a Discovery video account.  These are not blocked by school systems either and remind me a lot of teacher tube.  I will depend on these sites for teaching way more than the others.  I feel that any way to make learning fun is the best way to go!!!

Voice Threading...very cool!

Voice Threading is something that is very new to me!  I love the idea of putting your voice to a picture for educational purposes!  It took a little bit of exploring to understand completely how this works. I quickly found an app that worked with my Iphone to make this a very simple process.  It allowed me to talk directly into my phone and not have to worry about a built in microphone in my computer.  This makes it very convenient for a busy teacher! 

I understand the value of using this in the classroom.  If a teacher has multiple classes, it saves her from repeating material so much.  This could be used as a writing prompt. A teacher could possibly talk about a picture and then let the child write their thoughts in their writing journal.  This seems as if it would grab the student's attention more than traditionally telling them about a particular subject. 

Another way this could be useful is if a teacher had plans to be absent from school.  She could voice thread to help teach the material and not become behind from her absence.  This would clear up any confusion that a substitute may have about the material being covered.

My favorite thing about this is being able to complete this right on my phone.  It allows me to find the picture I want and put my voice to it.  It puts it right into my account to be viewed.  As I log into my computer, my item is waiting there completed!  It allows it to be less time consuming and very interesting.  I will be incorporating this in my future classroom for sure!

What is the difference????

As many times as I have used the internet for various reasons, I had no idea there was a difference in the type of sites I was using.  After reading an article for a technology class in school, I quickly realized the difference in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.  These are two terms I was very unfamiliar with and they seemed very complicated.  I was presently surprised that there is a clear line between the two.

Web 1.0 is simply the way internet was in the past.  There is no interaction with websites.  Websites were used to gain information and once they were put up they were unchanged.  These sites usually do not have a login or any information on the consumer.  There are still sites like this such as CNN or other news sites.  This was how most of the World Wide Web was before 2003.

Web 2.0 is modern and socially involved!  It allows interaction by the consumer.  Changes are constantly being made by updates.  Information about all areas of a person’s life can be viewed such as level of education, birthday, hometown and much more.  Videos, photos and constant text can be uploaded.  This has changed the way people keep in touch.  It makes it very convenient for a person to keep in touch with friends and family from all over the world.  These sites came about in the year 2004.

Many internet users find both of these forms of internet very dependable.  People need to research information on a daily basis.   They also love to stay socially connected.  Both of these forms have been a tremendous help in my schooling.  I use Web 1.0 and 2.0 on a daily basis for educational reasons.  I do not prefer one over the other.  I probably use Web 2.0 a little more than 1.0.  Either way, I am thankful for it because it gives me the flexibility to complete school work such as this assignment as I am traveling down the interstate!  I found this research to be very interesting and I am glad to know the difference in technology.

Long, Long ago...

Long, Long ago there were no houses, apartments, stores, cars or airplanes.  There were no books or televisions.  No cities, no towns, farms or villages.  People lived in the wild!  This is a subject that most children do not have much background information on.  The Story of Civilization by: Nicholas Harris makes those years come to life. 

In this Social Studies picture book the people live in caves and tents.  They learn to trap and hunt for food.  The people discover fire to keep them warm and cook their food.  They had to move around to hunt for food.  Their hunting gear was spears made from materials around them.  After a while, they discovered seeds and how to grow wheat for flour.  After this discovery, there was no need to move around to hunt for food.  They could live in one place and farm all year long.  This made the first villages.  The book goes on to tell how they found metal and how they heated it to make different shapes.  They had invented a new way to make tools. All of their new discoveries created new jobs for the people.  As people gathered together to work, towns were formed. They begin to swap their goods at markets.  As they gathered, different languages were formed and people began to worship different gods.  Athletes competed to see who was the fastest and people became educated.  This grew the knowledge of people so they begin to research to see how life could be improved.  This led them to learn how to construct buildings. It later tells how cars were invented and how doctors began to treat patients.  The book tells of people going into space and finally with our world today! 

This is a very lengthy book that would need to be read over a period of time.  It is very beneficial because of the amount of history and time periods it covers.  It has beautiful illustrations which makes it more interesting than a textbook to obtain the information.  In my opinion, it would wow the children to know the difference in life from back then until now.  Many writing activities could coordinate with this book!  It will be a tool that I use to teach social studies in my future classroom!

Move Over!!!

Counting can be fun!  I remember many counting games and rhymes from my childhood!  These types of things can be used to help children become interested in counting! The scholastic book Ten in the Bed by: Jane Cabrera is one of the cutest way to teach counting with Pre-K and Kindergarten students!

In this picture book, there are ten animals in the bed.  It is crowded!  They all move over and one falls out.  This allows students to see what happens when you subtract one animal.  Once we lose that animal, there are nine left in the bed.  Each time all of the animals move over one animal is subtracted.  After all of the animals fall out of the bed they all dance around.  Finally, they all get back in the bed and go to sleep. 

This book shows subtraction and counting in sequence.  These are necessary math concepts to study with beginning students.  Not only is this book great to introduce math, it is loaded with phonemic awareness.  The rhymes are great for the students to practice sounds and word families.  You cover two subject areas with this one book!

Students have to have a solid foundation in numbers and counting before moving on to more complex mathematical concepts.  From my experience in the classroom, this is a favorite among students.  With the predictable text, they can read along with the teacher to practice these skills.  It is a great book for a classroom library because children at this young age can pretend to read.  This is the first step to reading.  Students are conquering many skills with this book! 

Buzzzzzz.....

If you live in South Georgia you have most likely been stung by a bee at least once in your life.  Even though these little insects are very aggravating, they are very important to our region!  The book The Honey Makers By: Gail Gibbons gives a great explanation of the jobs of these little creatures.  

This book is a non-fiction book loaded with science content on honey bees.  The illustrations grab your attention because they look as if a child has colored them.  Each page has pictures that relate to the topic being discussed.

Honey bees travel to and from their hive.  They form colonies of over fifty-thousand bees and they all have specific jobs.  They like to make their homes in cold, dark places.  A hole in a tree is a great place to make these homes.  Sometimes a bee keeper has a wooden box that is made like a hive to keep bees in.  In these hives lives one queen, one hundred males and thousands of female workers.  The ladies do all of the work!  The bee has three body parts.  The parts are the head, the thorax and the abdomen.  The queen is the largest of all of the honey bees and she will live the longest.  All of the other bees will live about two months.  There are cells in the hive where they bees will store honey.  In some of these cells the queen will store her eggs since she will lay up to two-thousand eggs a day.  The book goes on to tell each individual job of the bees in detail.  It also says that bees get sweet nectar from flowers. They also collect pollen and carry it from flower to flower.  This process is called pollination.  This book is packed with useful information!

Having this book in your classroom has many benefits especially if you live in a farming region.  Around south Georgia where I am from, many classes visit farms and strawberry patches. At these places there are always bee keepers and the students get to visit the bees.   These experiences make this book relevant for the children.   It is always fun to taste the honey that the bees  have made.  It has also been said that if you struggle with seasonal allergies, having a taste of honey from bees local to your environment will help cure this!  This is a fun insect to study during the spring when you can see them in action!  

What happens when you lose a tooth?

 

 

There is one thing that all students will have in common throughout their early childhood school years.  This one thing is losing teeth!  As teachers, we may also need to be dentist.  We will wiggle teeth, pull teeth or just clap and look at the snaggle toothed child smiling back at us.  Since this is a subject that all kids will experience, why not bring it into the library of our classroom?

 

This book is "Tooth Fairy" By: Audrey Wood.  It is fantasy fiction, but also a picture book.  Fairies are not realistic, but they capture the imagination of children.  The pictures in this book are beautiful! The book takes the myth of the Tooth Fairy to a higher level by taking the reader on a journey to the Tooth Fairy's palace, which happens to be made of teeth.

 

The book begins with a little boy, Matthew, losing a tooth.  He calls for his mother and shouts excitedly about losing his tooth.  He wakes his sister!  Unfortunately, the sister gets very jealous and wants to lose a tooth of her own. The mother jumps in bed with Matthew and begins to tell him the story of the Tooth Fairy.  After the story, she tucks them back in and returns to bed.  After everyone is asleep, the sister Jessica, sneaks out of bed into the kitchen and finds a kernel of corn.  She paints the corn white to make it look like a real tooth.  She returns to the bedroom and places it under her pillow to try to trick the Tooth Fairy.  During the night, the children wake up to find out they have shrunk and the Tooth Fairy is in their house.  She takes them away to her palace.  There are bridges and towers all made of teeth.  They finally come to the hall of perfect teeth. Matthew is able to place his tooth here but Jessica has to take her tooth to get some work done on it.  The dirty teeth have to go to the tooth dungeon.  Robots take the tooth to clean it and all of the alarms start going off!  The children run because they have tricked the robots and they are mad!  They slide down a big slide right back into their bedroom.  The next morning, Matthew wakes up to find the Tooth Fairy has left him an apple.  He offers Jessica a bite.  She bites the apple and it knocks her tooth loose!  She is so excited and tells her mother that her tooth will be placed in the hall of perfect teeth. 

 

A strategy I would use in my future classroom with this book is the email and chat rooms for book talk.  I would love to get involved with a classroom teacher from another country that also speaks English.  Students from my classroom could email students from that classroom to discuss books.  For this particular book, the students could discuss whether or not the Tooth Fairy visits their country when they lose a tooth.  Once again, even the children there will be loosing teeth!  It will be interesting to see if the traditions there are the same traditions that we have here in the United States.  We could keep in contact and have a book list that we follow and continue discussions about multiple books.  The opinion on books will be different because of the difference in our experiences.  I look forward to bringing this idea to my future classroom.  

Do you always tell the truth?

                                                       

Teaching morals to my future students is something that is very important to me. Learning to tell the truth is one of those morals that I especially want to cover.  Chippy says "I'm Sorry" by: Jane Carruth is a picture book and is a fantastic way to teach this subject! 

 

It is only natural for children to try to cover up something they have done wrong by bending the truth.  They think if they hide what they have done, it will keep them from getting into trouble. Chippy is a squirrel.  He is super excited to find out that his friends are coming over to spend the day and play with him.  Their plans of playing outside quickly changed as soon as it began to rain.  Mommy comes to the rescue and pulls out old dress up clothes for the children.  They have so much fun playing inside while waiting on the rain to pass.  Later, they return outside to enjoy a picnic.  In the meantime, mommy asks Chippy to run to the mailbox and mail a very important letter that must reach grandma by the following day.  Chippy gets so busy playing that he forgets to mail the letter!  Later that night as Chippy is getting ready for bed, mommy asks Chippy if he mailed the letter.  Chippy says yes, which is not the truth.  He begins to look everywhere for the letter but has no luck in finding it.  The next morning, Chippy finally confesses to mommy after worrying all night long.  Mommy scolded Chippy and insisted they find the letter.  After searching the entire yard, they were successful in finding the letter, all wet and worn.  The letter was to invite Grandma to a very special event.  Luckily, a neighbor invited grandma and she was able to attend!  The story ended happily and Chippy learned a lesson.   

 

The pictures in this book are beautiful and are very relevant to a child's life. This book is fiction because squirrels that talk do not exist.  Outrageous characters such as these may spark the interest in readers, especially younger ones.   

 

A strategy that would be appropriate for this text is the sketch-to-stretch strategy.  This allows students to draw what the story means to them.  This is independent thinking and encourages students to think about situations that have occurred in their life, for instance not telling the truth.  After the students draw their picture, they are allowed to verbally tell about their situation.  This can be an informal assessment to see how well students comprehended the meaning of the story.  Also, we all know students love to talk about themselves!  I will use this strategy with this book in my future classroom!

A Magical Place!

Believing in something magical is part of childhood!  Christmas time in a classroom can be filled with magic and imagination.  The new idea of the Elf on the Shelf is a great classroom management technique during this time.  The book is a fabulous addition to this set.  It includes the complete story of the North Pole, Santa and how the elf is assigned to you. 

The Elf on the Shelf is written by Carol V. Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell.  It is a fantasy fiction book.  It is also considered a picture book.  It is full of magic and gives beautiful pictures of the North Pole. It is written as an elf being the narrator.  He starts around Thanksgiving and gives you all of the events that take place up until Christmas morning.  He tells you how to name your elf.  He also tells you what he is looking for and how he reports it back to Santa.  He then elaborates on being good and how he especially tells Santa that.  The elf gives examples of where he can hide but he cannot talk to you at all!  He ends up his story saying that he will have to go when Santa calls him home but he will return next year so be on the look out!

If a teacher purchases this entire set she could do many activities around it.  She would get the children excited to come to school and see where the elf has moved.  She will get the children to be on their best behavior.  The students can write letters to Santa and leave for the elf to take to him.  They can also predict where he will be the following day and graph this for math. 

A strategy that would be incredibly fun for the students is to make a newspaper about a magical place revealed!  They could come up with a catchy title about magic.  The lead story could include proof that a magical place exists because a living creature has appeared to earth from there!  They could include births in their newspaper and each child who has an elf at home could include their elf's name and birthday.  They could advertise the elves making toys in the workshop.  They could even have an advice column on how to behave! 

This could get the students very involved.  If students are older and do not believe in Santa, they would still enjoy the idea of Christmas magic and be very excited about writing a newspaper.  A copy could be printed and sent home with each student. This would be a Christmas to remember for years to come!

The biggest fish in the sea...

 

Sea World is a very fond childhood memory of mine.  Watching "Free Willy" was my favorite movie growing up.  Dreaming of whale watching in the middle of the ocean was a fantasy that I always dreamt of.  These experiences all revolve around one of the greatest animals to ever live.  This animal is the whale. 

 

I wanted to learn more about this intriguing animal so I began to look for an informational text to gain a better understanding of its characteristics.  I came up on the book "Whales" by Ann Herriges.  It is a non-fiction narrative with tons of information.  It is written on a second grade level so the terminology is very easy to understand.  It has several access pages to give additional information such as a table of contents, glossary and a page with further research material. It is very well written with good organization of the information and has very attractive graphics.  This book is a great tool to gain more knowledge of this sea creature.

 

The information includes attributes of the whale such as size, how they swim, what their fins are called, how they breathe and their teeth. One of the most incredible facts about a whale is that they are mammals.  When I think of mammals I think of hair.  You clearly cannot see hair on this animal but they do have live births, feed their young and are warm-blooded. 

 

This book is a great way to cover ocean life in a science unit.  It can also be used for independent reading for children to gain knowledge of a particular animal.  It would be very useful for many different grade levels.  It can introduce this animal in younger grades or be used for research material that is written in a child friendly way for fifth graders.  It is a very useful piece of literature. 

 

The blue whale is the largest animal to ever live!  Can you imagine riding on his back through the big ocean?  It is a neat idea to ponder.  If this animal makes you smile then dive into this book and swim away with an ocean full of knowledge!

Dare to dream and live happily ever after!!!!

Once upon a time I was a little girl!  I was truly a little princess who loved to dream of meeting my prince charming! I had a few bumps along the way!  My family split ways and I found myself living with a stepmother!!!  She made me cook and clean and learn to sew!  At the time I related it all to a traditional childhood favorite Cinderella!

Cinderella is a book with many different versions.  This particular version is the Walt Disney version that I knew as a child.  It is considered a fairy or wonder tale.  It is a prose narrative and has many cultural variants.  It is a traditional story that has been passed down from generation to generation.

Cinderella is a young girl who lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters.  They do not like her very much.  They made her work hard every day doing chores around the house.  One day a letter arrived that stated "The king is giving a ball tonight.  His son, the Prince, will choose a wife.  Every girl in the kingdom must be there."  Cinderella was brave and said she would attend also!  They stepsisters just laughed at her.  The stepmother agreed under the condition that Cinderella get all of her chores done.  She ran to her room to celebrate with her friends, several tiny mice!  She got out an old dress to mend and make beautiful for the ball.  The stepmother and stepsisters made it almost impossible for poor Cinderella to get all of her chores done.  In the mean time her little mice friends worked hard on her dress to surprise Cinderella.  At the end of all her chores she walked slowly and very tiredly up to her room knowing she would never make it.  She opened the door and was very surprised to fine her dressed all finished!  She quickly dressed and ran to catch her family before they left.  The girls could not believe their eyes and ripped Cinderellas dress.  They left and Cinderella was standing there all in shreds.  As she cried a fairy godmother appeared.  "I am here to give you your wish" she said.  She worked her magic and in minutes had Cinderella in a beautiful gown and in a buggy on her way to the ball.  The only catch was the spell would be broken at midnight.  As soon as she walked in the Prince spotted her and asked her to dance.  He only danced with her all night.  When the clock struck twelve, she ran.  In the process of trying to make it home she lost a glass slipper.  The Prince ordered that every girl in the kingdom try on the shoe.  They tried the shoe on Cinderella and it fit perfectly!  She went to the palace and married the prince and they live "happily ever after".

This is a story that will touch your heart.  The hard working girl who is kind and deserving was rewarded in the end.  Being mean and selfish will get you nowhere in your life.  It is a life lesson that children need to hear.  This could be used in multiple grade levels.  It speaks of true friendship (Cinderella and the mice) and having dreams to work towards.  It shows to always have hope because dreams really do come true and there is light at the end of the tunnel of a bad situation.

Although I lived with a stepmother I learned that it was not so bad!  Now that I am grown up and have my prince charming with two precious children I realize that stepmother taught me a lot about who I am today.  I am thankful that she taught me to sew and cook and clean.  I worked hard growing up and learned to be nice to people and I am rewarded with a beautiful family.  My wish came true and we are now living "happily ever after"!

THE END

Poetry- Animal Style!!!

Poetry is never a genre I would think about as Children's Literature.  As I approached books about poetry I was pleasently surprised to find how fun they can be!  One paticular book I am blogging about is called "The Animal Fair" By Jill Bennett. 
What kids don't like animals?  This book is a great way to introduce poetry by using a familiar topic in a fun way such as alliteration.  Poems include furry animals, farmyard animals, snails, caterpillars, ponies, dragonflies, wasps, honey bears, pets, cats, birds, kangaroos, crocodiles, leopards and lions!  It also has poems about going to the zoo and the animal fair!  This list sounds like so much fun to bring into an early childhood classroom!  The illustrations are amazing and open a world of imagination. 
The poems are not only fun, they are very informational to children who are learning characterisitcs of animals.  Here is one example of a wasps.
                                Wasps in brightly coloured vests,
                                Chewing wood to make their nests.
                                Wasps, like rockets, Zooming High,
                                 Then dropping down where peaches lie.

And then dragon-fly
                                 When the heat of the summer
                                 Made drowsy the land,
                                 A dragon-fly came
                                 And sat on my hand.
                                 With its blue jointed body,
                                 And wings like spun glass,
                                 It lit on my fingers
                                As though they were grass.

These two examples are more informational than some of the others.  Some of the poems are silly and for fun.  These two particular ones could be used in a unit on Insects.  They tell of the bugs in a fun way but also describe them to a certain degree. 
I would use this book in my classroom throughout the entire year.  As you do units on winter and hibernation you could use the bear poems.  As you talk about animals in other countries you could use the poems on Kangaroos. 
This book serves multipurposes but also can be used just for fun.  It is a great tool to bring poetry into a classroom. 

                               

Hello ;)

Hey!  I am beginning a blog for a college class.  It is my first ever blog so we will see how it goes!  I am excited to start blogging! ;) I am an early childhood education major and the class I am blogging for is about children's literature!  If you are interested in children's books please follow me and if you have any advice send it my way!