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!