Language Arts

My book list for my Unit on Fall is pretty long but I wanted to have a large variety of fiction and nonfiction books that my Kindergartners can explore and read.    Book List for October Fall Language Arts Unit There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro (2010) This book is based on the traditional Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly but in this story the Old Lady swallowed leaves that had fallen from a tree.  She continues to swallow more fall related things and the students will have to predict what will happen at the end of the story.      Pick A Circle, Gather Squares a Fall Harvest of Shapes by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky (2013) This book is not just about harvesting crops in the fall but also the colors and shapes that we see around us during this wonderful season.  The illustrations are breathtaking and the students can play I Spy while they read the book.  Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner (2015) Leaf Man by Lo

     In class we went over chapter 12 and 13, which were very short chapters but full of great information.  We took time to let the information soak in and we got to research the web site of one our favorite authors.  I had the opportunity to do this activity in my Young Adult Literature class and it was an eye opening experience.           I researched Eric Carle web site, www.eric-carle.com which has a section for teachers to submit lessons that they have done with books by Eric Carle.  There was a complete list of Eric Carle books that are in print and those that are no longer being published.    I liked how we talked about graphic organizers in class.  Dr. Hanna uses them in all of his graduate classes so it was nice that another teacher finds them useful as well.  My favorite one to use with preschoolers is a t-chart.           I had no problem thinking of the unit that I wanted to focus on.  However it is taking me awhile to think of how I will write the lesson plans.  There

Week 4 Class Take Away I would have to say taking notes was a little easier watching the recording because I was able to go at my own pace and listen with out distractions.  After taking notes on three chapters I thought my hand was going to fall off, there was so much great information I had to be sure to write it all down. Chapter 9  I enjoyed learning about the borrowed words from around the world that we use today in the English language.  And that there are 42 phonemes in the English language, wow!  We touched on Halliday's Seven Functions of Language, instrumental, regulatory, personal, interactional, heuristic, imaginative, and informative. Chapter 10 My favorite section was about the Readers Theater, the children interpret a book or a portion of a book in a dramatic presentation.  The very first time I did this was right after graduating from Mizzou.  I had a group of preschoolers who loved to "read" The Very Grouchy Ladybug  by Eric Carle.  So the preschoole

Kindergarten Word Wall at St. Brendan, Mexico, MO.  The first Word Wall is in their classroom where the students do seat work.  The 2nd -4th are in the second classroom  first names are in red, last names are in blue, and high frequency words are black. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AUsx6VrFxEuu9oEhJwBxzvSNwFS_Z_fnn1RkSPHn-X6USztjWhtIab8/ I am getting certified in Special Education K-12 I wanted to see what, if anything, was on Pinterest.  I could see this Word Wall in a Life Skills class in High School.   https://www.pinterest.com/pin/515451119831604774/ A Kindergarten Word Wall, I like how the word families and pictures are included.  Pictures plus words is a great visual clue. With so many ways to display a Word Wall, how do we determine which method is the best? I will be teaching Special Education, hopefully in an Elementary school, I will have multiple grades and multiple Word Walls so I would like to have my students keep their classroom Word Wall on a fli

A vocabulary term from Chapter 1 that I had never heard before was interdisciplinary instruction, it is when all content areas are taught in one thematic unit.  This makes for a learning experience that is a little more relevant, rather than relying solely on one text, such as science or social studies.  Time is spent daily; reading silently from self selected books or reading material, writing in journals, reading to classmates, entering information in learning logs to better comprehend information from topics they are learning about and summarizing information that they have read, heard, or discussed. (pg 19 and 20  Source:  Farris, Pamela.   Language Arts.   5th edition.  Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 2011.) Teaching Language Arts has changed so much from when I was in grade school, subjects were taught separately and information was never interwoven to other subjects.  I think students benefit  greatly from learning about a topic in more than one subject area, they are ab

     Wow!  This is my first virtual course on Blackboard and I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  Has any else taken a virtual course with Columbia College?  Do you have any pointers?          Our Blog post are due Friday and we have to respond to our groups post by Friday at 11:30 pm. The assignments for next class is to read chapters one through five of the textbook and look over the vocabulary terms that were listed for chapters one, two, and three.  The Scope and Sequence for a grade level of our choosing in Language Arts is due Friday the 12th.  Since I am getting a degree in Special Education I need to pick a grade level that I will be working with.  I love teaching preschool so I am leaning toward writing lesson plans and activities for Kindergarten.      I have been teaching preschool for the last 13 years and I have never completed a Scope and Sequence before since the center used the High/Scope curriculum and the teachers would make lesson plans based on students learning go