In Class and Next Year
Teach for America told us, at Institute, that the most effective way to teach is through units. I have yet to really teach in solid units, but I have been moving in that direction as the school year progresses. I'm still not tying my units together cross-curricularly very often, though. It occasionally happens with our Book Of the Month work, but because of our scripted reading program, I have no leeway in what I teach or read in the mornings. I try to tie in the independent reading bin -- so when we were learning about animals, we had a bin of animal books out, and when we learned about dinosaurs, there was a book of dinosaur books out.
Next year, I hope to be able to integrate a little bit better. Now that I know the reading program, I can schedule some of my math, science, and social studies objectives to align with our Basal reader stories (hopefully).
We're doing a unit on plants and animals in Science right now. I was gifted a butterfly kit and I bought a ladybug kit, so we are growing butterflies, ladybugs, and marigolds. The kids love it, and I can have them write about the changes that they are observing. I printed up and stapled some "bug journals" and some "plant journals." Every day, little T--, who is lost in ever subject, asks me, "Mi' Hay', can I go look at my plant?" I told them that plants grow better when you love them and now their plant journals are filled with "I love my plant," and "My plants is the best most beautiful plant in the whole wide world,"s. I also like long-term projects because they work with time really well. Extra ten minutes? Let's write about our plants and bugs. No time today? That's okay, we'll look at them tomorrow...
For the end of the year, I'm going to have them learn and perform several Reader's Theaters. Typically, reader's theater is just acting out a story impromptu, with no props. In upper grades, it could be the dramatic reading of a play, in younger grades, it ranges from things such as students chiming in for the speaking parts, to children acting the story out as the teacher or other children read it, to the more elaborate style, like what I'm setting up now. I typed up three books. They are on three different levels -- one is a big book that we read often in class (Hattie and the Fox), one is a repetitive rhyming book (Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed), and one is a more complicated, funny story about a group of cows with a typewriter that request electric blankets from their farmer and go on strike when he refuses (Click, clack, Moo.) I presented them to the groups today, and all were very excited to perform them as plays for the kindergarten later this year.
Anyhow, what this all leads down to is an idea I've been turning over in my head for a while. I'm thinking of doing book units next year. I'll pick a book related to something we're learning in Science, Social Studies, or Math. In the half hour of literacy time where I can design my own activities, and in our reading centers, we'll read the book or do activities related to the book (sequencing, book reports, related writing, reader's theater). In our other class time, I'll try to tie the book in to the curriculum to foster a more cohesive understanding of the things we are learning. For example, we recently read "Down the Road" as our book of the month. In the story, a little girl goes on a walk to buy some eggs. As she comes home, she stops to pick apples and inadvertently drops all of the eggs. We were learning about coins at the time, so I have the students a coin amount to figure out, cut out, and glue to "Hettie's Pocket" to buy the eggs. Voila, integrated math. We're learning about coins, and one way they are used in the real world is to buy things. We'll be able to do author studies or subject studies to compare books, and so on and so forth. What I would really love (although I doubt it could happen) would be to be able to give each child a copy of the book at the end of the two or three week unit (or at least, at the end of some of them.) Most of my children have very few books at their houses, and even fewer that they can read. However, most of them can at least "play read" all of the books we've read a few times in class.
It's still just a seed of an idea in my head right now. I've heard of other teachers doing units like this with great success and I'd love do do more reading to and with my students. They also love being read to and pick books at our RAF rallies that we've read in class (for example, my class picks more Junie B. Jones books than anything else.) I really enjoyed most of the principal's Books of the Month and would definetely use them (for example, Where the Wild Things Are, Down the Road, Guji Guji, Love You Forever, the Giving Tree). I would supplement them with other books I've read and the children have loved, and others that tie is really well with units (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Alexander Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday, Click Clack Moo, Caps for Sale, Miss Spider's Tea Party, Whose Mouse Are You, Why Mosquito's Buzz In People's Ears, and so on).
What do you think?
Next year, I hope to be able to integrate a little bit better. Now that I know the reading program, I can schedule some of my math, science, and social studies objectives to align with our Basal reader stories (hopefully).
We're doing a unit on plants and animals in Science right now. I was gifted a butterfly kit and I bought a ladybug kit, so we are growing butterflies, ladybugs, and marigolds. The kids love it, and I can have them write about the changes that they are observing. I printed up and stapled some "bug journals" and some "plant journals." Every day, little T--, who is lost in ever subject, asks me, "Mi' Hay', can I go look at my plant?" I told them that plants grow better when you love them and now their plant journals are filled with "I love my plant," and "My plants is the best most beautiful plant in the whole wide world,"s. I also like long-term projects because they work with time really well. Extra ten minutes? Let's write about our plants and bugs. No time today? That's okay, we'll look at them tomorrow...
For the end of the year, I'm going to have them learn and perform several Reader's Theaters. Typically, reader's theater is just acting out a story impromptu, with no props. In upper grades, it could be the dramatic reading of a play, in younger grades, it ranges from things such as students chiming in for the speaking parts, to children acting the story out as the teacher or other children read it, to the more elaborate style, like what I'm setting up now. I typed up three books. They are on three different levels -- one is a big book that we read often in class (Hattie and the Fox), one is a repetitive rhyming book (Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed), and one is a more complicated, funny story about a group of cows with a typewriter that request electric blankets from their farmer and go on strike when he refuses (Click, clack, Moo.) I presented them to the groups today, and all were very excited to perform them as plays for the kindergarten later this year.
Anyhow, what this all leads down to is an idea I've been turning over in my head for a while. I'm thinking of doing book units next year. I'll pick a book related to something we're learning in Science, Social Studies, or Math. In the half hour of literacy time where I can design my own activities, and in our reading centers, we'll read the book or do activities related to the book (sequencing, book reports, related writing, reader's theater). In our other class time, I'll try to tie the book in to the curriculum to foster a more cohesive understanding of the things we are learning. For example, we recently read "Down the Road" as our book of the month. In the story, a little girl goes on a walk to buy some eggs. As she comes home, she stops to pick apples and inadvertently drops all of the eggs. We were learning about coins at the time, so I have the students a coin amount to figure out, cut out, and glue to "Hettie's Pocket" to buy the eggs. Voila, integrated math. We're learning about coins, and one way they are used in the real world is to buy things. We'll be able to do author studies or subject studies to compare books, and so on and so forth. What I would really love (although I doubt it could happen) would be to be able to give each child a copy of the book at the end of the two or three week unit (or at least, at the end of some of them.) Most of my children have very few books at their houses, and even fewer that they can read. However, most of them can at least "play read" all of the books we've read a few times in class.
It's still just a seed of an idea in my head right now. I've heard of other teachers doing units like this with great success and I'd love do do more reading to and with my students. They also love being read to and pick books at our RAF rallies that we've read in class (for example, my class picks more Junie B. Jones books than anything else.) I really enjoyed most of the principal's Books of the Month and would definetely use them (for example, Where the Wild Things Are, Down the Road, Guji Guji, Love You Forever, the Giving Tree). I would supplement them with other books I've read and the children have loved, and others that tie is really well with units (The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Alexander Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday, Click Clack Moo, Caps for Sale, Miss Spider's Tea Party, Whose Mouse Are You, Why Mosquito's Buzz In People's Ears, and so on).
What do you think?
posted by Jessica at 8:11 PM
1 Comments:
I always think all of your teaching ideas sound good, so I agree with this one too. What really strikes me is that a lot of the good books here were the good books when we were kids too (Caps for Sale, Where the Wild Things Are, The Giving Tree...) man, I kindof miss them. My friend Rachel gave me a book last year by Max Lucado that I really like, even though of course it's for children, and the message is really good. It does have Christian themes but it's not so openly Christian that it couldn't be used in a public school classroom, and the message is good--that (duh) we're all special. The characters are the Wemmicks, little wooden people who have the habit of sticking little gold stars on each other for things like being pretty or smart, and stick gray dots on each other for being clumsy or having chipped paint. When the main character, Punchinello, covered in gray dots, meets a girl from whom the stickers just fall off, she says it's because she spends time with the carpenter who makes them all. They all go for a visit and learn that he made them all just the way they are, that they are each special and beloved. It's really heartwarming.
OK, I just went and pulled out my book. God is mentioned on the jacket, and the dedication is "to the children and children's ministry of the Oak Hills Church of Christ." but it is a great book.
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