I made a Voice Thread!!

I made a Voice Thread! Check it out by going to the following link. This is my first one. It's a book done by a child in my class. Feel free to leave Leah a comment. If you don't know how, there is a short tutorial on the Voice Thread website.

The pictures are sideways because I think I should have rotated them when I scanned them. (This is a learning process after all.) My microphone has some glitches, but overall I'm really proud of myself. I'm still learning about all of the little parts to Voice Thread, but my brain is going so fast just thinking of the possibilities.


http://voicethread.com/share/389966/

Of Primary Importance

I finished Ann Marie Corgill's book Of Primary Importance over Christmas break. I was so inspired by the work that Ann Marie Corgill did in her classroom that I couldn't wait to get back to mine. Her book has an entire chapter on teaching nonfiction writing and I was anxious to launch a nonfiction unit with my class.

After 7 weeks, we have finally wrapped up the unit. Children used many features that we had learned about including text boxes, captions, diagrams, close ups, labels and comparisons in their published posters. I was so amazed by what they were able to accomplish.

Ann Marie's book does not give a step by step outline for how to launch a particular unit, so I was definitely learning as I went. There were many points during the seven week unit that I thought, "What have I gotten myself into?" However, in the end I was so amazed by what the children were able to do. I was also amazed at how much I grew as a writing teacher. I almost didn't try this unit because I was afraid that I didn't really understand how it would work. It proves that as teachers sometimes we just need to begin with the end in mind and eventually we will get there......sometimes with amazing results.

Keeping track of class reading

I got this idea from the Choice Literacy website. It was in a video done by The Sisters. They were showing parts of their classroom and they showed a space on their wall where they kept track of the books that they had read aloud to students. When they finished reading a book, they simply wrote the title down.

I have found this simple little thing to be very powerful for my students. They never forget to remind me to write down the name of a book we have read. We label books as being poetry, non fiction or fiction. This helps us to see where we need to expand as readers. I also think that having this list in a place of prominence in our classroom helps them to feel proud of the amount of reading that we have done.

I made the log out of the paper used to cover bulletin boards. When the list got too long for the board, I simply rolled the top of the paper around a pencil to create a scroll.

New Blog, New Books

Well. Here it is. I'm officially a blogger. I've become addicted to reading them, so I thought I should try it out for myself. As a teacher I have found blogs to be a helpful way to find out about new books and technology. I have met so many new people through this online community. Because of this, I thought it was time to give back and share what I'm doing in my own classroom.

Today I read a great book to my kids by Jan Thomas. They are huge fans of What Will Fat Cat Sit On? so I was excited to read them The Doghouse. They LOVED it. Read it again! Read it again! they started to chant. How could I not? The book is laugh out loud funny and I'm sure any beginning reader will love it. I just picked up A Birthday for Cow from the library. I can't wait to take it to school tomorrow.