Battle of the Books: November

To increase the love of literacy, I have decided to implement something new that we are going to do every month in our classroom. It is called Battle of the Books. I got this idea from a Facebook group I am in. Every month you pick a children's author and you read their books to figure out which book is the best. Each week you vote on books (bracket style) until you are down to the final one that will be the winner. For the month of November we are focusing on James Deans' Pete the Cat books.

With elections tomorrow, I decided to integrate Social Studies into this lesson and tie in a unit about the importance of voting! I was so excited to teach my students this unit and they had a lot of fun with it too.

The Social Studies standard I chose to focus on was: Government 1.9 (Collaboration requires group members to respect the rights and opinions of others.)

The ELA standard we focused on was: W.1.1 (Write opinion pieces that introduce the topic or name the book being written about, express an opinion, supply a reason for the opinion, and provide some sense of closure.)

I started off with a PowerPoint I made about voting. Click here to view the PowerPoint I made for my class. The first two slides listed the standards stated above and broke them down into simpler terms for my students. The third slide talks about why voting is important. I told them what voting means, why we need to vote and who is allowed to vote. I explained to them that even though they can't vote in the elections tomorrow, they can still go with their parents to vote. I also informed them that there were other ways we can vote, like in our classroom.

I then introduced Battle of the Books, and informed them how we will be voting on books in our classroom every month to find out which book is the best.

The first two Pete the Cat books we read were Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons and Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes. Before we read,  I had 5 students stand up to give them a better visual of why it's important to vote. Three students on one side (group B) and two on the other (Group A). I gave each group a book. I told the class that the two students in group A voted for their favorite book while only one of the three students in group B voted for their favorite book. Even though more people liked the group B book, only one vote counted and group A won. If all three people in group B voted, their book would have won. I explained to them how that is the reason why it is so important to vote, so everyone's voice can be heard and why every vote counts.

Then we read both books. The reason why I love Pete the Cat is because of the music. My kids loved the book and enjoyed dancing along to the music. In between each story, I asked my students what are some things they liked about each book. This was to get them thinking and start formulating their own opinions on what book was better.

Afterwards, the students all went back to their seats and I explained the writing portion of the lesson. Each student got a piece of writing paper and I explained to them how everyone was going to write down what their favorite book was and give an example why.

My students still can't write yet so I gave them two sentences already written out and they had to fill in the blanks.

The first sentence, students had to fill in what book was their favorite. The second sentence they had to fill in their reasoning on why that book was their favorite. I also had pictures of the book on the board and at each students table, to help them with spelling.

While they were writing, I set up a voting booth and had the students come over one by one and vote for their favorite book.

Click here to see how I made this!

I explained to my students how when you vote, it is in secrecy. I called each student up one by one for them to choose which book they liked. I also had a copy of the book covers to help remind them. If the liked. They chose which book they liked and turned in their ballot.

My parents voted early and they got voting stickers for me. So when each student was done, I gave them an "I voted" sticker.

I tallied up the votes and at the end of the day I announced the winner. I taught them how to do a drum roll, and the winner was.......

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons!!

Next week we will read two more Pete the Cat books and the winner of that will move onto the next round. We will keep going until we are down to one book!

I am really happy with how this lesson turned out and that I got to teach my students about voting.

ELA Lesson: Punctuation

Hello!

I was back in the field today and decided to do a grammar lesson. For my edTPA I decided I want to do a 3 day unit on writing. My class is going to write a narrative story, and I am preparing for it now. First step: Punctuation. I need to make sure my class understands how to end their sentences. We focused on periods, exclamation points and question marks. (This lesson is about 45 mins)

I started my lesson by asking my class what they know about sentences and punctuation. All of them were able to answer that periods go at the end and sometimes exclamation points and questions marks. However, none of them knew when to use them or why you use them. I started off by telling them all about periods and when we use them at the end of the sentence. I first asked them and then told them the definition. I made vocabulary cards and showed the one that talks about periods and told them how we use them at the end of a sentence when we are telling someone something or stating a fact. I then cut out a period and showed them what it looks like. After as a class we all went around saying sentences that would need a period.  (Ex: I like ice cream. *Insert students name* go pick up the pencil please.-one of my students made sure we knew that we need to add please when we are asking someone to do something)

Next, we talked all about question marks. I again asked the students what they knew about question marks and then showed them the vocabulary card and cutout question mark I made. I proceeded to tell them that you use a question mark when your sentence is asking a question. We all went around the room giving sentences that are asking questions. (Ex: Do you like ghosts? Do you like to read?)

Finally, we talked about exclamation points. I asked my students when we would use this in a sentence. One of them knew to use it when showing excitement. I was surprised and happy! I then showed them the vocabulary card and the exclamation point I made. I told them we use exclamation points when we want to show excitement, emotion, or feelings. I emphasized that we don't only have to use them when we are excited. I gave them them an example by saying: I don't like waking up early! I let them know I was showing the emotion of frustration because waking up early isn't fun for me. They then went around and gave sentences with various emotions that could have an exclamation point.
(Visual and Verbal learners)

Vocabulary Cards

Cutouts

Afterwards, we looked at the book Punctuation Station by: Elsa Bruno & Jenny Whitehead. I didn't have the book so we watched it on YouTube.

This book is awesome because it has a short poem about every single punctuation. We focused on the poems about periods, exclamation points, and questions marks.

After we watched the school house rock video "Interjections" to help reiterate again the exclamation points can help show ALL emotions, not just excitement.

Next, we did a punctuation worksheet. The worksheet had 10 sentences and we had to figure out what punctuation goes at the end. You can do this worksheet anyway you like. 

My students can't read so I decided to do this worksheet as a group. I read the sentences with inflection to allow them to figure out if a period, question mark, or exclamation point was needed. We worked as a group to complete this worksheet. (Interpersonal learners)

You can also have your students cut out and glue the punctuation on the paper.

Lastly, we went outside and play Red light, Green Light- Punctuation Edition.  I got back out the cutouts I made.

First, the students all had to go to one end of the fence. When I held up green (exclamation point), the students had to run to me. When I held up yellow (question mark), students had to slowly walk to me. When I held up red (period), the students had to stop. The first person to make it to the other side of the fence and touch my hand won. If I held up the red, I would randomly call on students to tell me when we would use a certain punctuation. If they got it wrong, everyone had to go back to the fence and start over. The first person to touch my hand had to tell me when we use all three of the punctuations in a sentence.  If they got it wrong they had to go back and the game continued. If they got it right, then they won the game. (Kinesthetic learners). My students loved playing this game and it really helped them learn when to use what punctuation at the end of the sentence.

Now after doing this, I realized I maybe should have played this game with Mother May I. Red light green light got a little rough and I think Mother May I would have made the game more controlled. Before the students could take the requested steps forward, they would have to answer a punctuation question!

This lesson took about 45 minutes total and my students learned so much. I am so happy and I know this will help us when we write a narrative story next semester for my edTPA!

Task 2 Practice for edTPA

Hi!

Today while in the field, I had to do a practice lesson for the edTPA. For part of my class, we needed to create a short ELA lesson and record ourselves teaching it. I decided to focus on the standard RF.K.1: Demonstrate understanding of the basic features of print. Focusing more so on having the students understand that words are separated by spaces in print.

Even though I am in a first grade classroom, the majority of my students are at a kindergarten level. So most of the lessons I do will be from kindergarten standards.

I have noticed since September that my students had a hard time adding spaces in between words when they write. I wanted to focus my lesson on the importance of why we need spacing to help improve their writing. I remembered when I was in high school and observed a Kindergarten classroom, the teacher used Popsicle sticks, and referred to them as Spacemen, to help them with spacing. I loved this idea and wanted to utilize it for my lesson.

Our amazing Technology Resource Center had cute Popsicle sticks shaped like people and I used those so my students could decorate them.

I started my lesson by asking my students if they knew why it is important to have spacing in between words (verbal learners). Next, I drew two sentences on the board: One with spacing and one without. I then pronounced the sentence with spacing normally and the sentence without spacing as one big long word. I followed up by asking students which sentence seemed correct and why (visual learners).

Next, I showed the students our fall packet that we would be doing our spacing assignment on.

I told the students we would be practicing spacing by finishing this fall phrase by choosing between three sentences that I made.

We are focusing on copying down sentences from the board and keeping letters and punctuation grounded (on the line and not floating in the air).

I then introduced them to our helpful friends: Spaceman and Spacewoman

I told them they were going to use them to help with adding spacing in between their words. I informed them again that they were going to choose between one of the three sentences and copy it down on their paper. 

I modeled how they were going to use the spaceman by choosing the first sentence and writing it down on the fall packet and putting my spaceman in between each word. I also emphasized how my letters were staying grounded and weren't floating in the air. When I got to the end of the sentence, I made sure to point out how my period goes right next to the last letter of the word and stays "on the ground".

Finally, I had the students go to their seats so they could practice spacing with their new spaceman/spacewoman! (Hands-on learners)

After they were done and got their work checked, they were able to decorate their spacewo(man). 

Welcome!

Hello! 

Welcome to my blog where I will be documenting my experience student teaching! When I graduate next year I will then be documenting my experience as a teacher! I am super excited to share my lesson plans with all of you and allow you guys to get an inside look on what being a teacher is all about. I am also excited for future employers to see all the hard work and dedication I put into teaching. This year I am student teaching in an inner city first grade classroom! For the rest of this month I will be going into the field on Mondays only. Then all of November (minus Thanksgiving break) and the first two weeks of December, I will be in the classroom full time. I do not teach all the time when I am in the classroom this semester. I do however, create small lessons here and there and I will post them when I can! 

I am so excited to share all of the exciting things I am doing and I hope you are excited too!