Book Packs

I loved the idea of doing book packs! I think that this would be a wonderful way of getting children excited about reading again.  This is also something that parents can be involved in with their children.  I really like the idea of having activities that the children can do.  I think that this is a great way of using cimprehension methods. It is very fun when the children have something that they can do with the reading. This will keep them involved and focused on the task at hand.  This is also a way that parents can see what is going on and being discussed in the classroom!

Child's Interest

It is so important in the classroom to explore literature that the children are interested in. It will be much more productive in the classroom when students are allowed to pick books that they find interest in. As they get older they will most likely start using "level readers" and will start to lose the love for reading. While we have them when they are young, we need to make sure that we are starting that loving foundation for reading.  Again, we discussed more finger plays in the classroom. I think that it would be wonderful to find texts that the children love and then make a finger play as a class for that book. This is something that will get them more interested in the book. This will also help them to burn some energy because they will be able to get up and move around in the classroom.

Finger Plays!

This week's class was so much fun! I really thought it was great that we did something creative like this. Finger plays will be a great learning strategy in the classroom. I did my finger play with a Raffi song. I had never heard the song before but I really enjoyed it. This weekend I got a chance to show my mom my finger play (she is a teacher) and she thought that it was a great idea. I think that we could really make something like this in our classrooms with children that were a little older. If we wanted to do it with younger children then they could pick out everything they wanted and then we as the teachers could glue everything on. 

Another fun idea would be to have parents come in and do this activity with their children. It would be great to have parents come in and pick a song and then design a puppet with their children. I think that it is always important to incorporate the parents in our activties. Having parents in the classroom is very important to me!

Story Hour

This past week we witnessed Story Hour at the local library. This is something that I have been a part of before, working with a daycare over the summer. It was great to see all of the resources that were available in the library. The class got to listen to stories and participate in discussions and sing-a-longs.  I really felt that the leaders were able to engage and keep the student's attention. The stories were vividly told and always had some type of media that went along with them. I really think that using multimedia in the classroom in so important. This use means that students will not have to be particiapting in the same thing over and over again. They were able to traditionally listen to a story, watch movie about a book, and draw illustrations to a book that was being presented.  The one thing I would see concern with would be the length. The story time was an hour long, and as the library assitant mentioned, this can be very long for some of the younger viewers. Over all I felt that this would be something exciting for children and could be a wonderful field trip that they could participate in, since children really need to be given a chance to get out of the classroom. I encourage all parents to look into this experience and also to seek out the resources that the children's section has to offer. It truly is a safe place where children can be actvitely engaged!