Teaching n Pink

I have put the finishing touches on my unit and am ready to turn it in. As an elementary educator I am used to writing lessons cross curricula so that was not the difficult part. I have not ever had to take one TEK and try to match it to 3 other content areas (other than the writing process). I chose a TEK that involved media literacy and how it is used, conveyed, etc. I chose Home Ec (do they still have this class), Fine Arts, and Social Studies to make this unit. It was actually pretty easy and I found it fun to try and make the content meaningful to the students. For Home Ec they had to create a menu that conveyed what their recipes were going to be as well as a commercial for their eatery. They also had to come up with a name and a logo. Fine Arts was assigned the task of an ad agency who's client was difficult and wanted an ad for their eatery but only gave the agency a name and menu. Students had to create 3 ads that the eatery could choose from. Social studies was easy as we...

Here's the thing, if you are talking to somebody other than yourself, you have a 100% chance of being misunderstood. When we are speaking to our student's or anyone for that matter, if we are giving instructions, redirecting or sharing information we must consider the audience. Do our best to speak in a language they understand and express our willingness to answer any questions. We have to be approachable, honest and willing to admit that not only are we not right all the time, but sometimes others may hear something different than what we said and meant.   The point is, no one intends on miscommunication, just as our students are not ever going to intentionally NOT follow directions, so the best we can do is be forgiving, encourage students' questions and never assume the responsibility lies with someone else. We can try to communicate in many ways including explanations, visuals, examples, etc. but we still must leave room for error.

I love the idea of the traveling story. I think there are so many variations or takes on it. You could assign a topic or prompt, have students work in whole group or small group or put students in sections like introduction section, body section, and ending. You could also put it in a center and at some point over the week every students has to go and write, it could be continuous where you must just pick up where you left off. I also like the partner write version where partners take turns writing the sentences. I can see where students might get a little frustrated if the story didn't go in the direction they wanted it to or if someone wasn't paying attention and maybe changed the tense or time of day but in a way the story didn't follow. As a side note, while at Toys R Us this weekend in the game section they had what was called story cubes. It was a set of about 9 dice that had different pics on each side. You could roll the dice and write a story for example this i...

I am not really anywhere on my project yet, hey it's the truth! I think I have decided on my ELA TEKS, for 6th grade and they include the writing process and evaluating different forms of media and messages. I am thinking I may use History, Art and Home Ec. as the other areas. I think my main assignment for home ec. will be for students to create a restaurant, create a menu, and make different types of advertisements for their eatery including print and video (they will choose how they want to go with menus and advertisements ie. healthy, quick, cheap etc) other students will evaluate the different forms of the messages (maybe what worked, what didn't, could you use the colon or fiber and still get customers?) For history I am thinking of having them view parts of the State of The Union Address vs. President on Late night t.v. to compare and contrast formal and informal. For art they will view/create art from different decades while trying to determine what was trying to be con...

When I think of assessment I immediately think of assessing a situation and to me that means taking into account the whole situation and trying to form some type of opinion and make a plan from that information. If I apply that same thought to the classroom, here is what I come up with; sometimes when we assess it can be targeted like a certain skill or piece of information but it can also be very broad like assessing the student as a whole. In order to be successful educators we will have to do both, targeted assessment and whole assessment. I am EC-6 th so I will have to assess my students in all areas. One of my favorite forms of authentic assessment is conferencing with a student to see what they know about what we just learned and if they got the important parts. Another form of authentic assessment I plan to use is journaling. A science journal is different than a science notebook. It is less formal and students can ask questions in there, formulate hypothesis and students go ba...

Informative writing is used to give someone factual information that does not know about a topic. It can also be used in how to manuals, recipes and most often we see it in expository texts like textbooks. Persuasive writing is to talk someone into something, whether it be to agree with the author or their cause or to buy something. There are many ways to teach both types of writing, however, when in the classroom you will want to find ways to engage your students and make them want to write. If you want students to write an informative or factual text what you can do is give them choices. Tell them you want them to write a paper teaching you (the teacher) how to ____________. You can fill in the blank. The student may be good at dance, that can write an informative paper on how to do a particular dance, how to get to work, how to play a video game. Really and truly if you let them pick a topic they know a lot about, as long as they learn how to write/read an informative paper yo...

Yes, writing is a process. Yes, we all learned the process steps in school. Yes, we are expected to teach students the steps as they follow. Prewriting-like brainstorming Writing- first draft, getting ideas onto the paper Edit-checking for grammar, punctuation etc Proofread- re-read over it and fix anything that needs it Publish-write final draft, ready for all to see Ok, here's the real question? How are we going to get them to write? I can know the writing process all day long and force them to follow the steps but if they have no desire to write, you will get a mediocre assignment that might net them a 2 on the TAKS (soon to be STAR). Ok, so here's the answer, engagement. This may mean you let them write a persuasive paper convincing you why you should play the new Harry Potter Lego video game. It may mean letting them persuade you to let them have a game day. It may mean letting them inform you of all the benefits of recycling. We can run our classrooms anyway we ...

I don't believe there is one clear definition or defining characteristic that makes one a good reader or writer. I truly believe reading and writing is domain specific and I may be a fantastic reader/writer in one area but not in another. If I had to define a good reader/writer, I would say it is someone who keeps at it trying to improve, this might mean you slow down, reread, look up words, do it for learning, enjoyment or information. I would say I am a good reader because I do all of the things I listed above. I also read anything I can get my hands on even if it seems weird, irrelevant or not important to me because I think we should all have a little knowledge about everything. When everyone is sitting around talking about Comic Con (I may not be into it) I want to know what they are talking about. In order to teach students to become effective readers and writers I think we have to share with them the specific domains, for example if you are a math or science major you mu...

There are all kinds of games that go on in schools, both figuratively and literally. They are a great way to team build, get exercise for the body and the brain and they can also emphasize strengths and weaknesses. Games will be a staple in my classroom, but I would caution anyone against letting games become a time filler. Often times in our school I will see a teacher use a game or video and call it "educational" when truly the students are bored out of their mind. While it might sound simple or easy to parents or those not in education, much thought needs to go into the planning of using a game. You must consider the purpose first, in others words what is the goal you want accomplished or what do you want students to get out of it. A game that I absolutely love and have used in the classroom is Apples to Apples. (There is also Apples to Apples Jr., I have used both) I strongly recommend this game to EVERYONE no matter the grade, subject, or specialty area. We used it as ...

Motivation, according to wikipedia.org (yes, I know profs dislike wikipedia), is the activation or energization of goal oriented behavior. According to me;) the reason you are motivated to do something could be intrinsic (self driven) or extrinsic (you receive something for your efforts). What motivates me? Hmmm, I can be motivated intrinsically, well no not really I don't think. I have this drive to achieve at anything I try, so everything I try, I not only do but overdo in order for it to be great. If I do things for self satisfaction is that still intrinsic? If so, then I guess any school, teaching, parenting or wife successes or goals I have are intrinsic. My motivations change on a daily basis but I seem to do better and follow through more often with extrinsic motivation. For example, I will run my third half marathon in November. There is no way in the world I would get up on Sunday mornings for my long runs if there was not an extrinsic motivator. In this case it is bec...

I believe it is important to foster both community and culture in your classroom as well as the culture and community outside of your classroom. I think we as teachers, no matter our age, ethnicity or interests need to make an honest effort to connect to our students. This means we should know what is popular with our students ie silly bandz, t.v. shows, movies and community events. This shows our students their thoughts and interests are important and worth our time. There are ways to bring in the positive outside community and culture into your classroom and have a deeper connection. If there are community events going on (fall carnival, 5k fun run etc.) we should make an effort to attend and get to know our students outside the classroom so we can see them as more than just someone who produces work we grade. They are functional members of their community that are rich in culture and experiences, once we accept this we can allow it in our classroom and can form our own classroom cul...

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