Media Presentation - Patterns

This is a presentation I will use with my third graders to introduce patterns. They can practice continuing patterns by using the interactive features on the slideshow. This PowerPoint will work well on my ActivBoard. My third graders will love the fun illustrations and sounds included to make learning fun for all of us! I couldn't get the interactive features to work on this site. I will try to set up a link so you can download this PowerPoint for use in your classrooms! Enjoy!

Personal Glossary

Personal Glossary

            There were several words in the readings of A New Literacies Sampler edited by Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear that were new or unfamiliar to me.  Some I had heard before but was unsure of the meaning, and other words had left me completely boggled!  These are a few of these new words.

adage – this expression describes an experience that someone has in common (p.17)

affinity spaces – where people interact and relate to each other around a common passion, proclivity, or endeavor (p.117)

autoethnographic approach – an insider view at blogging as a new and popular screen-based literacy practice (p.167)

blogs – essentially online journals which regularly updated often with fairly brief postings (Merchant 2006) (p.168)

discourse – socially recognized ways of using language; communication of thought by words; talk; conversation (p.3)

emote – an expression of emotion; action; gesture (p.127)

fan fiction -  spaces where school- age fans are using new ICTs to engage, not only with pop culture and media, but also with a broad array of literate activities that are aligned with many school-based literacy practices (p.115)

fecundity – refers to the rate at which an idea or pattern is copied and spread.  The more quickly a meme spreads the more likely it is to capture attention and be replicated and distributed.  (p.202)

fidelity - refers to qualities of the meme that enable it to be readily copied and passed from mind to mind relatively intact (p.201)

hybridity – the combination of various forms of interactions; for example combining cultures, traditions, media, genre, narrative storylines, etc. (p.118)

intransigent – completely unwilling to change; very stubborn (p.26)

memes – are contagious patterns of cultural information that get passed from mind to mind and directly generate and shape the mindsets and significant forms of behavior and actions of a social group. Examples:  popular tunes, jingles, catch phrases, clothing fashions, architectural styles, icons, etc. (p.199)

monochronic - treating time as linear and tangible, and divisible (p.27)

monospatiality – refers to being by yourself and creating your own personal thoughts, ideas, and opinions  (p.37)

pedagogized – The art or science of teaching; including: education, activities, strategies, and instructional methods (p.25)

polychronic - seeing time as more fluid, layered, and simultaneous (p.27)

sociocultural perspective - reading and writing can only be understood in the contexts of social, cultural, political, economic, historical practices to which they are integral, of which they are a part. (p.1)

synchronous – occurring at the same time; simultaneous (p.41)

tertiary – pertaining to the third person, or order, rank or formation of text in this instance (p.70)

ubiquitous – widespread-being everywhere at the same time (p.15)

Reference

 

Knobel, M. and Lankshear, C. (eds) (2007). A New Literacies Sampler. New York: Peter Lang.

Text Set #4

TEXT SET: FRACTIONS

CRYSTAL LAWRENCE

BOOKS:

Funny and Fabulous Fraction Stories

By Dan Greenburg

This is a book by Dan Greenburg that is perfect for students who are struggling with fractions.  It has 30 different stories that can be reproduced because it contains problems that can be solved for practice.  They are fun and entertaining stories that will make the kids forget that they are actually doing math.

Appropriate for Grades 3-7

Jump, Kangaroo, Jump

By Stuart J. Murphy and Kevin O’Malley

Students can relate to the characters in this book that are participating in Field Day events and have to make fractions when they are dividing up their teams.  The fractions are shown in the text and in the beautiful illustrations.

Appropriate for Grades 2-4

Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Fractions Book

By Jerry Pallotta and Rob Bolster

Your students will love learning about fractions using chocolate bars!  This book shows numerous ways to divide the Hershey bar to show different fractions.  Even with the mess of melting chocolate and the sugar high to contend with, this is a fun alternative to using traditional manipulatives as a way to teach fractions.

Appropriate for Grades K-3

The Wishing Club:  A Story About Fractions

By Donna Jo Napoli and Anna Currey

This super cute story is about a group of children wishing on a star in the nighttime sky.  Only a fraction of their dreams seem to be coming true until they see a pattern in their fractions and team up to get their greatest wish granted.  This certainly is a cute and magical story to help children learn fractions.

Appropriate for Grades K-3

Pizza Counting

By Christina Dobson; Illustrated by Matthew Holmes

Pizza Counting is a fun book with colorfully decorated pizzas as illustrations.  Each page poses math problems, some easier than others.  This book starts with easy fractions, moves to adding fractions, and even includes comparing and contrasting fractions.

Appropriate for Grades K-4

TECHNOLOGY:

This is an amazing web site for teachers’ that provides dozens of picture books that goes well with any fraction unit. 

Primarily a teacher resource

http://www.the-best-childrens-books.org/teaching-fractions.html

This is a great game for students who need practice multiplying and reducing fractions. It’s great practice in an interactive way.

Appropriate for Grades 3 and up

http://www.aplusmath.com/flashcards/fractions-mult.html

This site is a Florida based educational web site that is filled with games and activities for practicing fractions. Fun and interactive site!

Appropriate for Grades 3 and up

http://www.okaloosa.k12.fl.us/oakhill/fractions.html

The Visual Fraction web site is a great educational source for teachers and students alike.  Teachers can find information they need to help teach skills by modeling, and they can print off lessons and worksheets to assist them.  It includes progress sheets and is also aligned to the CCSS.  Students can practice skills in a fun way by playing on the games page.  Good resource for everyone.

Appropriate for Grades 3 and up

http://www.visualfractions.com/

This is a great web site that not only includes hundreds of practice activities on fraction skills, but it also contains language arts practice as well.  This site is very interactive and divided into grade levels, so students are learning skills that they need on their level. 

Appropriate for Grades Pre-K - 8 http://www.ixl.com/promo?partner=bing&adGroup=fraction+games&campaign=1674&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Search%20-%20Math%20Terms%20-%20Broad%20-%20US&utm_term=fractions%20games

Reflection 10 - Memes

This is an example of taking an animal or iconic 

character and changing it to make a humorous 

anecdote to suit your own purpose. 

To start out, I have never heard the word ‘memes’ before reading this chapter.  I knew that in each new generation, we had certain clothing styles, catch phrases, jingles, and popular tunes, but never knew there was a name for all of those things.  On page 200, the authors tell us the purpose of this chapter.  This chapter focuses “on online memes as a distinctly contemporary category of (popular conceptions of) memes.”  They discuss a 5-year study during 2001-2005 when memes were found in mainstream media sources.  Newspapers, television, online magazines, and news-based forums all contained memes during this study.  They examined these online memes to address three purposes:

1.    To identify qualities that make it a successful (online) meme

2.    To establish categories of success so we can better understand memes online purpose, uses and appeal

3.    Explore ways teachers might make use of memes as a part of a ‘new’ literacy program

I enjoyed reading about and ‘googling’ all of the popular memes from the article.  The Ellen Feiss meme in particular was pretty comical, but what I took away most from this article was how to use memes in education.  This chapter discusses literacy with a big “L” and a little “l”.  The big “L” is described as, “this distinction explicitly recognizes that L/literacy is always about reading and writing something, and that this something is always part of a larger pattern of being in the world.” (Page 219)  The little “l” is, “describes the actual processes of reading, writing, viewing, listening, manipulating images and sound, etc., making connections between different ideas, and using words and symbols that are part of these larger, more embodied Literacy practices.” (Page 219)  These descriptions fascinate me.  I have heard the word ‘literacy’ for years, but have never understood it quite as well as I do now.

            I believe teachers can take advantage of memes in the classroom.  Kids love to laugh and most of the memes are humorous.  You can take an iconic character, like SpongeBob Squarepants or ICarly and plan a lesson around them.  This would get them excited about the assignment as well as give you some ‘credit’ by making them think you are ‘cool’ because you are interested in those TV characters.  This could be done in the early grades, but will have more options for middle and high school students.  They have the technological skills to create videos and songs with iconic characters.  I recently experienced a good example of this.  My nephew is a sophomore in college. He had an assignment to do for his Sociology class.   His group created a video (with their own words and dialogue) including friends and even a few professors to the tune of the song, “Let Me Take A Selfie”.  (Their version was cleaner of course!)  To me, this is a true example of what using a meme in the year 2014 is all about.

Reflection #9 - E-readers

I chose this picture because there are so many different

 E-readers available today, it is difficult to choose

which one would be the perfect fit in the classroom.

The article I read sways me toward purchasing 

the Kindle.

Top 8 Tips for Using Kindle Readers in the Classroom

By Sarah W. Caron

            This was an interesting article that gave 8 suggestions that will ensure a good experience with e-reader use in the classroom.  I do not personally own a Kindle device, so I was unaware of several of these good features.

1.    Project the text.  Display the text that the students are reading, or listening to (read-alouds), on a whiteboard.  This is an added visual element to the lesson.

2.    Take advantage of text-to-speech.  This tool will be of great use to the struggling readers.  It is a tool that allows students to see and hear the text at the same time. 

3.    Adjust the text size.  The size of the text can be adjusted to help students see and read better.

4.    Use smart Kindle management.  Each Kindle can be assigned its own unique name.  This will assist with missing devices and can be easier to assign them to specific students.

5.    Reinforce user rules.  Create and reinforce a list of rules for using the devices to keep them in good working order.

6.    Encourage dictionary use.  This will assist students when reading difficult levels of texts.  The Kindle has a highlighting tool to assists in this.

7.    Take advantage of public-domain texts.  There are many classics that can be downloaded for free.  Take advantage of this great option.

8.    Relish the anonymity.  This can help downplay the stigma for below-level readers.  Their peers will not know they are reading texts below grade level before they are all using Kindle readers. 

This was an interesting article with valuable details about Kindle use in the classroom.  I would be interested in trying out some of these tips.  I hope they are helpful to you as well.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/how-to-use-kindle-in-the-classroom.shtml

Reflection #8 - Blogging

The authors say on page 167 that the purpose of chapter 8 in the New Literacies Sampler is to get us “interested in exploring the way in which blogs work as interactive texts”.  This chapter did just that!  I had never thought of blogs as literature before, or as this chapter refers to them, “a new type of text” or “digital communication”.  There were so many interesting things about blogging discussed in this weeks reading.  For example, it discussed the way blogging is used as a social practice.  I am basically a private person.  I don’t share intimate details of my personal life with just anyone.  So I really don’t think I would be a good ‘blogger’.  But some people really enjoy putting it all out there, expressing their thoughts and feelings with the world.  They must thrive from the feedback they receive from “frequent commenters”.  In this chapter, it has described these comments as giving people a sense of audience.  Now, I have never been the type of person who loved an audience, but according to these authors, there are millions of blogs worldwide.  Apparently a few people in the world are slightly different from me!

            I enjoyed reading about the blogs the authors set up and used as their focus study.  They discussions about how the comments were just as useful as their own blog texts were interesting.  The quote on page 187 stood out to me.  “While bloggers—ostensibly at least—seem to set up their blogs in order to serve their own purpose, it has become clear that certain aspects of blogs are responsive to comments by and declared interests of others.”  Sometimes you learn a lot more through others perspectives of you, then you do about your own writing.  The comments of others can help you learn more about yourself.  This was an important aspect of blogging that I had never considered.  I am starting to see how blogging can be a powerful tool in the classroom.  Our students can put their thoughts and feelings out there, and learn about themselves and about others in a meaningful way. Blogging can be a powerful tool for communication.

Text Set Collection #3

Text Set: Writing: Animal Habitats

Crystal Lawrence

Books:

Animal Habitats  

By Julie K. Lundgren

This is a great book that introduces characteristics of animal habitats in a cuter and fun way.  Habitats including deserts, oceans, and tropical rainforests are included.  It is suited toward first grade and above. 

Easy Make & Learn Projects: Animal Habitats: Reproducible Mini-Books and 3-D Manipulatives That Teach About Oceans, Rain Forests, Polar Regions, and 12 Other Important Habitats

By Donald Silver and Patricia Wynne

Children will learn about habitats in a fun and engaging way through mini-books and manipulatives that introduces them to caves, deserts, coral reefs and more.  This book is great for grade 2 and up.

Animal Habitats! (Williamson Little Hands Series)

By Judy Press and Betsy Day

This book is geared toward 9-12 year old students who are eager to learn about animal habitats.  This book included environmental activities that will help children learn their role in the environment and how they can help care for the animal’s habitats. 

 

 

 

 

I See a Kookaburra!: Discovering Animal Habitats Around the World

By Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

In this adorable story, children will search for animals in their environment while learning how they grow and thrive. Appropriate for kindergarten and up.

 

 

 

 

Magic School Bus Hops Home:  A Book about Animal Habitats

By Pat Relf and Nancy Stevenson

In this fun and colorful book Mrs. Frizzle takes her students on another adventure on her magical school bus to explore animal habitats.  Kindergarten and up will appreciate the information in this story.

 

Nat Geo Wild Animal Atlas: Earth's Astonishing Animals and Where They Live (National Geographic Kids)

By National Geographic

This amazing eye-opening book contains facts about habitats and even endangered animals.  This is a wonderful atlas that includes beautiful pictures of nature that will an asset to any classroom. Any age will love looking at the vivid pictures provided in this atlas.  

 

 

 

Technology:

This site is a great place for kids to explore and learn about animals and their habitats.  This site is child friendly and good for any age group.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore.html

This is the original site that will provide valuable information about animal habitats.  This site is geared toward upper elementary school children or above.

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/

This site gives great facts and information on animals and their habitats. It will be useful for 3^rd grade and above.

http://www.defenders.org/animal-factsheets

This site is a fun way for kids to learn about wildlife and enjoy playing a fun game while interacting online with their friends.  Grade 3 and up.

http://www.animaljam.com/?utm_campaign=Broad+Terms+%28Legacy%29&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=Bing

Any student will love playing this game that goes well with the Magic School House book about animal habitats.  They will match animals up with their natural habitat and have fun while learning.  Appropriate for all ages.

http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/habitat/

 

Technology Review #4

            Today I am reviewing a site that is aimed primarily for teachers.  Do you ever need an award to print off for a hard-working student? How about a graphic organizer for a specific skill?  Ever need just the right survey sheet for a graph making assignment in math?  If the answer to any of these is yes, then this is the site for you!  SparkleBox provides teaching resources of all kinds for teachers.  While this site is aimed for adults, it is safe for all age groups to view.  There are some advertisements, but they are carefully screened to be sure it is safe for all age groups that may view this site.  These advertisements are minimal and not overpowering or distracting.  It includes downloadable resources free of charge for teachers to use in their classroom.  No membership or sign up is required.  It includes math, English, science, history, classroom management, special education resources, etc.  There are great activities to use in their holiday themed resource section as well. 

            The printables are free of charge and are ready and waiting for you to download them and use them in your classrooms.  So get online and take a look! I believe you will like what you see.  

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/