Photostory

I think that Photo story is a great way for students to share something personal about their lives or a great option for teaching their fellow classmates about a particular subject. This is an engaging activity that gets students excited about learning and provides a great end product that can be shared with others. Photo story can be a great new innovative way to do show/share and tell in the younger grades without having to deal with animals coming into the classroom. This website is a wiki site that provides a great list of ideas that can be used to make a photo story.

When I finished my photo story I know that I felt that it was very easy to accomplish and something that I was excited to share with others. Now that I have had some practice creating a photo story I think that I will be able to improve the next one that I do. I thought that watching everyone's photo stories in the classroom was a great experience to see and learn about all the different videos that people put together. I learned that it is important to make sure that the voice is loud enough over the music that has been put on the video as well as for the video to capture the attention of the video.

Here is the link to my photo story that I created about the snowstorm last year.

Responsive Classrooms

Annandale Terrace emphasizes the use of a responsive classroom in all of the classrooms that they have. I think that his is a great approach to teaching and see that the students are excited to be in school. Responsive classrooms help children learn social emotional and academic skills. The teachers great each and everyone of their students before they enter their classrooms. I also see the teachers constantly helping the students think about the answer and not actually telling them what the correct answer would be.

In my fifth grade class the students doing the thinking is more obvious. I saw one great activity where the teacher had the theme of Think Different. For this theme he had each of the students create a poster that said Think ....... and then whatever word they wanted to describe themselves. The students then each created a self portrait with things about themselves to go around a picture of their face. The teacher then took these pictures and hung them outside the wall so students could guess and see if they could figure out which student had created which one. This teacher also gives students time to socialize for 1 minute with other students during the day. It gives the students a good break from their daily activity and helps transition to a different subject.

Here is a great video to watch about Responsive Classrooms and how/why teachers should use it in the classroom.

To see more about the responsive classroom and things that are included in it click on this link.

Wiki's and the classroom

Wiki's can be a great way to implement cooperative learning in the classroom. Students can work together to create a wiki about a subject that they are working on in class. Wiki's can also be used by anyone for any reason. I think that it would be great for teachers to use a wiki to talk about and research some of the different teaching methods that they are using in the classroom. Here is an example of teachers using a wiki to create and refine lesson plans.

The world is constantly evolving and trying to keep up with all of the different types of technology can be difficult. Teaching older teachers how to use this technology may be difficult, but if they can learn the importance of how it can enhance the curriculum then maybe they will use it in their classroom. It's like Ghandi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." I think that it is up to us new teachers to introduce some new ideas and ways technology can be used in the classroom. This link leads to several great videos. I especially like the first one called when I become a teacher.

Blogging

Diane Penrod talks about four interesting points on blogging in her book Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy. In her four points she talks about technology and how it encourages in fluency in writing. I have always liked using technology myself, but had never thought about using it in the form of a blog in the elementary classrooms. Blogs give students a great chance to share their thoughts and showcase their work. Blogs are also a great way to differenitiate for learners who are hearing impaired or think more visually. Building a community of cooperative learners can be done easily with a blog and gives students a chance to think critically and form bonds with one another.

I think that blogs would be a great activity to use in the beginning of the year to help students get to know one another. Students can upload things that they like and find other things that they can relate to about students they know little about. It gives the teacher a chance to see the different types of writing styles that the students have and helps the teacher see how to write the curriculum in order to engage the students based on their interests.

Click her to see Diane Penrod's books

First Week of School

The first week of school at Annandale Terrace Elementary school was exciting and full of learning opportunities. I was glad that I got to see Kindergarden, first, and fifth grade. Seeing a wide variety of grade levels has helped me learn how each of the child's needs differ when they enter the classroom. The two weeks in the lower grades will be spent on getting the children to learn daily routines and to help them get aquatinted with their classmates.

During the first day of Kindergarden my teacher was very creative, warm and welcoming to the students. As each student entered the classroom she greated them individually and then helped them find a place to sit. After getting all the children in the room and getting each one to put their stuff away she gathered them to the carpet. On the carpet the teacher read many books throughout the day and talked about feelings. After reading and talking about being worried the students each went back to their desk to draw a picture of a time when they were worried or scared and told to write a sentence about it. The teacher said that she was going to use this as an assessment tool to see how much knowledge the children had gained and retained from the previous year. Another fun activity that the teacher did involving the idea of sharing ideas and working together was with play-do. The teacher had each of the students get a piece of plain play-do and smush it up to discover the color that they had gotten. After, the students gathered on the carpet to read a story about the colored people and learned how its better when you work together. After the story the students all added their play-do together to create one colorful ball. At the end of the day each student was able to take home a little piece of another student. Throughout the day daily routines were introduced such as indoor recess, how to be quiet when the bell rings, the line up poem, how to sit on the carpet (criss cross applesauce), etc.

Kindergarden was another adventurous day that involved heavily going over routines and reading stories. The children did get to move around and play games throughout the day. The students also got a chance to practice drawing portraits of their fellow students. One exciting thing that the students enjoyed that day was unwrapping the crayons and getting to use them for the first time. This was a powerful lesson because it taught the children that the crayons are special and something that they should share and take care of at their tables.

Fifth grade was a completely different experience. The students knew how to line up, and walk down the halls quietly. The students started practicing math, drew self portraits with things about themselves on it, and had sorted the library books that were in the classroom. The students had lots of specials and not too much lesson time. The teacher did read many books and talked about the importance of thinking differently and how famous people thought differently. A neat slideshow presentation and video was shown to help inspire the students with their homework.

First Blog!

Today is the first day of this class. My name is Sarah and I am currently studying to become an Elementary Education teacher. I am currently an intern at Annandale Terrace Elementary School and am working with grades Kindergarten, first, and third.