Chapter 4 and authors

In chapter four I learned how important it is to pick the right books for your classroom because you can make or break a young reader. I learned that “the teacher’s priority should be to encourage an aesthetic stance, particularly while reading fiction and poetry. Also we should be letting kids have a choice on what they want to read or research because they are more likely to become engaged in what they are reading and maybe even become lifelong readers. This is why it is important that teachers know their students and that they know what they like or what is in so that they can relate to them and find books that they think the kids will enjoy.

I found two interesting books by Tish Rabe and illustrated by Aristides Ruiz. One of the books is called There's a Map on My Lap! This book is similar to The Cat in the Hat book. It has the same characters from the Cat in the Hat except this book teaches young children about maps. This book is for beginner readers. This book can be used to teach a lesson on how to read a map or to teach children directions like north, south, east and west. It also talks about scale and how to read a map legend.

The other book that I found is called Inside Your Outside! All about the Human Body and it is also by Tish Rabe. This is a good book to use for a science lesson because it talks about the human body in terms little kids will understand. It doesn't use any big words that kids won't understand. This book also contains the same characters from the Cat in the Hat book. This book gives a brief description of the different body parts and systems without showing any thing gory. it's actually a very interesting book. I actually learned something my self from the book. I think kids will enjoy the book and learn at the same time.

Tish Rabe is a children's book author who has written over 80 children's books. She has written books for Sesame Street, Blues Clues, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Bear in the Big Blue House and Curious George. She also writes for the Cat in the Hat Learning Library. She also writes scripts for children's television series for PBS, Nickelodeon and HBO family. You can find more information on her at her web site: www.tishrabe.com

EDRG 3321 Monday Night - Ch. 3 & 14

I found these chapters full of helpful information. I found the encouraging critical thinking and inquiry very interesting. I found out that simply asking literal questions is not a good measure of a students reading comprehension. Instead we have to learn to ask good questions. Questions that make the students think or even try to read between the lines. Maybe asking the easy literal questions is a good way to begin the lesson but then we should build up on that and ask higher level thinking questions.

I also think that doing the retellings is also a good way in helping students that maybe have a harder time with the reading comprehension.

In chapter 14, I think the author's chair is a good idea. It is definetlly something I would consider doing in my classroom. I also liked the idea about having spelling and punctuation committees. I can see how that would be helpful to students and the teacher. The self-assessment is also a good idea because it can help you see what the student thinks about his or her own work. However, one thing I am not to clear on is the Rubrics.

While researching children's authors, I found another web site that is full
of information. It is called Children's Book Central: http://www.eleanorsbooks.com/
It is definetly worth checking out. It even has links to other children's resources. You'll find a lot of helpful information there.

Chapter1

So far I find this book very interesting. It’s full of very helpful information. I do agree when it says that your beliefs influence your students or how we teach. So education students really do need to know themselves and know why they want to be a teacher. I know that we have some teachers out there right now that probably shouldn’t be teachers because they do not have the right attitude. And we probably have teachers like the one teacher who asked the other teacher why she came in early and did the extra work when she doesn’t get paid for it. It’s a bad attitude like that that makes for a bad teacher because it shows she isn’t committed to being the best teacher she can be.
I also was excited when I found out about the companion CD that came with the book. I was just thinking in class last Monday about how are we supposed to know which books are age appropriate or good books for kids and I read in the book about how you can search the database on the CD and find age appropriate books or do a search by author or genre. It’s good to know. I’m sure it will come in handy.

EDRG 3321 Monday Night - Children's Authors

While doing research on children's authors, I found some very interesting web sites. One of them is www. kidsreads.com/authors/authors.asp. This web site is full of interesting information. It has an alphabetical list of authors and their biographies. When you select an author, it'll give you a list of their books and some activities related to that book like a word scramble and a maze. These activities could be used in a classroom. Besides activities, it also gives you an address where you can write to your favorite author. This would also be something that a teacher could use in her classroom.

In this website I found out about Eric Carle who is the author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the illustrator for Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See. My daughter used to love this two books when she was younger. I had no idea that he had written so many books. I would definetlly want to add some of his books to my classroom library some day.

Another helpful web site that I found was: www.kidinfo.com/language_Arts/Books_authors.html. This web site has information for students, teachers and parents. It has a lot of helpful resources and references. For instance it gives you web site where you can find children's books for all ages. In this web site I found out the name of the author of a book series that I used to like reading when I was in elementary.

Over all, there is a lot of helpful web sites out there where you can find a lot of ideas and information.

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