Dr. Seuess real name…...

Did you know Dr. Seuss isn't his real name…… and hat he really isn't a doctor.  If you thought that was his name well you are wrong.  Its Theodore Seuss Gusiel.  

Theodor Seuss Geisal was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts.  He published hi first children’s book under the name Dr. Seuss in 1937.  It was called, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.  It took him a very long time to publish his first book but he never gave up.  After that he was on a roll.  He kept creating children’s books that grew into the world’s most famous collections    



I love reading Dr. Suess books to my class.  His books in my opinion are some of the best picture books.  I bought all of his books for my first grade classroom.  His books teach word families, rhymes, blends, digraphs  and long and short vowel sounds.  

Students love acting books out...

Students love to act of what they learn.  Especially after reading a good book.  Many teachers like to incorporate readers theater in their classroom.

Reader’s theatre is a great way to get students engaged and learning about literature.  During reader’ theatre students read from prepared scripts and act out what they are saying.  This is when students can show their creative sides.  Some students can even create their own scripts and re write the story.  This would be a great project for a middle school ELA project. 

Reader’s theatre can also help students who are shy and need a bit of encouragement. 

The picture of the website above is Reading A-Z.  This is a great website to use for pre-made scripts for students.  Many of the scripts are free.  This website has many other learning tools for students.

Check it out at www.readinga-z.com

Students and non-fiction

After presenting my group workshop, I have learned alot more about non-fiction.  It is very important to expose students to non- fiction when teaching. In the Common Core shifts it requires students to be exposed to fiction and non-fiction.  My students are exposed to large amounts of nonfiction through the Domain in the Common Core.  The last non-fiction topic my class learned about was the human body. Students learned about the heart, circulatory system, digestive, system, and skeletal system.   The pictures for the read aloud did a great job depicting that particular system. 

I believe my students were very engaged in this non fiction topic because they were able to relate it back to themselves.  For example when we learned about the circulatory system, students were able to feel their pulse.

Live Binder are great!!!

Live binders is a great tool to use for organizing your work.  I love using live binders for my MSMC classes.  It is a great place to store projects and papers and share them.  This tool is accessible as an app or on the computer.  

In the classroom…...

It is great to use with middle and high schools students as well.  Instead of assigning worksheets, teachers can assign online projects that bring a richer environment of learning to the classroom.  Instead of students putting together a folder with all their work and assignments to be shared with one person at a time, students can create e-portfolios to be shared with hundreds of people at once.

Guest Speaker Visit: K.L Going

K.L Going visited Mount Saint Mary College on November 4, 2014.  Kelly was a wonderful speaker and talked about her own life growing up and ho she became an author as well as her picture books and young adult novels.  Below is a little bio of what I learned about Kelly.

Kelly began her career working at one of the oldest literary agencies in New York City. She used this inner knowledge of publishing to write her books.  She rights young adult novels as well as short stories for several anthologies.  Kelly is an award winning author of numerous books for children and teens. Kelly’s first novel, Fat Kids Ruled the World was named a Michael Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association. I learned that many of her books are written in many different languages and sold throughout the world. 

Another thing that I was surprised to find out was that one of her books was put on a ban list.  This I found very interesting.   Kelly explained that some parents thought the content was to mature for children to read.  I can see where the parents are coming from but I still think the book was a great novel.  I loved how the book gave a message of self-acceptance and how we should love ourselves the way we are. 

Kelly lives in Glen Spey, New York, where she both writes and runs a business critiquing manuscripts. She’s also a mom to the world’s cutest little boy.

Here are some of her books:

 

What about biographies and memoirs??????

Literature and the Child

Eighth Edition

By: Lee Galda, Lawrence Sipe, Lauren Liang, Bernice Cullinan

How to include it in your classroom:  Biographies and memoirs are great to teach to 5th graders.  They can be included in their ELA module.  I taught about biographies to my 5th graders last year and they loved writing their own biographies as a project.  

Biographies and memoirs are stories of people’s lives.   Biographies and memoirs must present accurate depictions of the time and place in which the subject lived.  Facts and story line must be accurate as well but as I learned through this course some times this may not be the case. 

When I was a 5^th grade special ed teacher last year I was so excited to introduce what a biography was to my 5^th graders.  They were excited as well to learn about them. One of the biographies that we read was Promises to Keep.  This was a biography about Jackie Robinson.  His daughter wrote it.  I had never seen my students so engaged before when they started reading this book.  The biography walked about Jackie’s struggles through out his life as an African American baseball player.  Many of my boys in the class couldn't put the book down most days because they wanted to know more and more about his life.  The book did a great job explaining the issues African Americans had to deal with back in the day.  As a class we would compare how these issues are the same and different now a days.  I truly enjoyed reading this biography with my students. 

Cullinan, B. (1989). Literature and the child (2nd ed.). San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.