Effective questions

Here are a list of effective questions that my partner and I would use for The Very Busy Spider.By: Eric Carle
Questions:
1. Before even reading the story we would being the lesson by asking the students: What do you know about spiders or what do you think you know about spiders? These questions would go into a KWL chart on the smart board.

2. After the children share their answers we would show them the cover of the book and maybe even a few pages from the book. Based on their answers to the first questions and their conclusions from the pictures in the story they will b asked: Why do you think this is a very busy spider?

3. Students will then be asked: Are you a busy person? If so explain why? Each student will be allowed to share what they do on a daily base that they feel makes them busy. For example: I am a busy person because every day I got to school, I got to extra help, and I do homework.

4.Once the students have share we will read the story. Students will be allowed to make the animal sounds for each animal in the story. When the story is over they will be asked to recall: What were some of the animals mentioned in the book?

5. The students will be asked: Why do you think the spider fell asleep? They will answer that the spider had a very busy day and she was tired.

reflection on classmates lesson

There were many great lessons this semester. There were many lessons that I myself may mock in my future classroom. One of my favorite lessons was Craig and Kyle's lesson. Down by the bay is one of my favorite story books. I actually did a unit on this book in a different class. There are so many activities that go great with this book. I really enjoyed that they had the class sing along to book. It was a great idea to give the students the lyrics to the song. This is also a great way to get the students to read along. A good idea might have been to review the lyrics before singing the song this would be a good strategy for younger children.

In Alejandra's lesson I loved the activity with the mixing of the colors. I thought it was a great idea that one teacher was doing the messy activity while the other teacher was working with the rest of the class. I feel it was very important that the students kept busy while other were working at the front of the room. The reward and punishment system with the jar was also a great idea. I think that it would have been more effective if perhaps the teachers had let the students fill each jar on their own this way the students were more aware of the reward as well as the punishment. Over all it was a great lesson and I would probably use a similar lesson in the future.

reflection on incorporating podcast

Originally my partner and I had incorporated our podcast into our lesson plan by playing it toward the end of lesson. When we revised our lesson plan we decided that we would not use the podcast in this particular lesson because it really did not fit well into the overall lesson. We did not use the podcast in the lesson either. I personally incorporated the podcast into my unit. I decided that the podcast could be useful in my lesson on context clues. In this lesson in my unit I would play the podcast while students use context clues they hear in order to define vocabulary words from the story. I feel pod-casting can be an effective tool that I would use in my classroom. I could also use a podcast to play while the students did work so that it is easier for them to recall parts of the story.

final blog on my lesson

Over all I feel our lesson went very well. We took a great deal of time preparing for this lesson. The first time we met up to prep for our lesson we spent about an hour and a half just making a seating chart that we thought would be best considering each students individual behavior. In our preparation we also came up with a rewards system as well as discussed all the activities that we would do through out the lesson. Our objective was that students would be able to recall, recognize, and know how to spell four of the animal names that where in the story. In order to meet our objective we assessed each student by having them come up the smart board to and write an animals name from the book. We also played a matching game where students had to match animal pictures to the correct spelling. Finally, we had each student write at least four sentences using four different animal names from the story.

We did a fairly good job sticking to our lesson plan. We completed every task we wanted to and even had the chance to do a few extra smart board activities. For example, it was not in our lesson to have students write their sentences on the smart board but I feel it enhanced the lesson in a positive way. The most important thing I tried to teach the students was that team work is important; this is why everything the students did was done in pairs or teams. I feel that this went very well especially when it came down to the reward system because one person could not receive points if his or her partner was misbehaved. My students taught me that how each student learns at their own pace and it is important to be patient. I don’t think I would have done anything differently, the lesson went very smoothly and we completed the entire task and more. However, one thing I feel I need to work on is discipline and being a little stricter. Also, learning not to give students the option of saying no.

Effective Questions

The very Busy Spider
By: Eric Carle
Questions:
1. What do you know about spiders?
2. Why do you think this is a very busy spider?
3. Are you a busy person? If so explain why?
4. What were some of the animals mentioned in the book?
5. Why did the spider fell asleep?

Finally!

After much difficulty we finally got our recording done. Both mine and Yermen's computer ran a lot faster. The only challenge we faced today was having to re-recorded a couple of times because our mics were to low and our voices were barely heard. Also the first time we recorded the entire story we ended up having to re-recorded because I accidentally clicked the wrong button and erased our recording. Creating this podcast was a lot more difficult then we had originally thought but we are very excited that we were able to complete it finally!

Pod casting day 4

So far we have been having a lot of difficulty with our computers so it has been hard for us to get a lot of recording done. Today we changed computers so we hope to be able to finish up the recording. Another problem we have run across is the timing of the sound effects when reading the story. This also is due to the slowness of the computer. Hopefully now that we have switched computers things will run a lot smoother.

recording pod cast

Once again we took a long time getting started today due to the slowness of the computers. When we finally got the computer to work we realized the sound was too low. Another thing that we realized was that our sound effects were very delayed with in the story telling. We had to rearrange our selves several times before we came even remotely close to recording how we wanted the story to sound. Once we finally got into the swing of things recording time was up. Just like that, as long as it took us to finally get started it feels like we got nothing done! A bit disappointing. After all we have been through today, Yermen's computer is still not working, she cant even blog about our troubles. =-(

Pod casting day 3

Today we hope to get a majority of our podcast done. We have started to get our sound effects together. Surprisingly it was a bit harder and it took a bit longer then we thought it would. This is mainly because our computer last week was acting very slow. Today we hope to record the story as well as add in the sound effects we found on youtube. If the computers are running smoothly this should not be a problem this week.

post pod cast

We did not get much done today because our computer was very slow. We did however get all the animal sound effects that we needed for our podcast. Friday should be a lot more productive then today was.

Pre-podcasting

Yermen and I are working together on our lesson and pod-casting. I was not here the previous class so I am a little nervous because I have never done this before and I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing. Yermen was here however and feels a bit more comfortable. Hopefully working together will make this a little bit easier.

pre-podcasting

I have never really pod-casted before nor am I to familiar with what it is or how it works. I am under the impression that pod-casting is just a set of media files that can be audio or video. I feel that technology is a very important part of teaching today. Pod-casting will make it easier and more interesting for the students to learn. One disadvantage about pod-casting is that like myself not all students do well with using the internet or different computer programs. Pod-casting is a lesson on its own for myself because I have never really been introduced to it. However, I am looking forward to pod-casting in the future because it will be helpful once I start teaching.