Sorry my posts have been few and far between lately. I have no excuse other than the fact that I have been distracted by other things lately. I usually read all my favorite kidlit blogs on a regular basis, and I have been neglecting that pastime as well. I feel so out of the loop lately. I need to fix that!
Anyhow... I'm kind of wondering about the direction this blog should take in the future. I set it up with the intention of creating a place for parents of my students to get more info about class, for them to contact me, and for them to converse with each other. (I also love that other teachers and children's lit. enthusiasts read and comment on the blog.) I haven't had much contact from parents on here though. I'm wondering if there are parents reading this blog???
If you're a parent of a Literacy Launchpad student, I would love some feedback from you. Let me know what you think about the blog. Is it helpful? Do you like the content? Is there anything lacking you wish to see more of? Is there anything you would like to see change? Please let me know!!
If you're a visitor to the blog, and are not a parent of a Literacy Launchpad student, I would love any feedback you have as well! Please share!
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
What's In Your Pocket?
There's a Wocket in mine! ...Well, O.K. not in my pocket, but the little boy in this week's story had a Wocket in his pocket! We read Dr. Seuss' tale There's a Wocket in My Pocket!
this week. This is a story FULL of rhymes, and all the kids did an awesome job figuring those rhyming words out!
What surprised me a little bit this week was our discussions we had following our read-aloud of There's a Wocket in My Pocket!. There's not much (if any) plot to this story, just lots of rhymes and fun. And discussing a book that doesn't have much plot is a bit difficult. But the kids were all very opinionated about the creatures in the book. They told me all about which ones they liked, if they had any of these kinds of creatures at their own house (some told me they did), what they would do is there was a "Zower in their shower", etc.
Everybody was excited about hearing last week's story again too! They all demanded that I read it again (that was the plan anyway). They were pros with all the rhymes in it. They pretty much read the story to me. I had to slow some of them down because they were "reading" too far ahead, too quickly!
After we read both of our stories, we made silly creatures like the ones in There's a Wocket in My Pocket!. The children got to create their own unique creature by mixing and matching heads, bodies, and feet of different sorts.
Once the creatures were done, we decided what kind of creatures they were ("A Bofa on the sofa?" "A Ghair under the chair?"). This was a tricky task, so with most of the kids I started a phrase for them and let them figure out the rhyming word to complete it. For example: Is your creature a Muss on a ________? (Answer: bus). This worked well, and once they got the hang of it, many of the kids were coming up with their own rhymes. They were often using made-up words, which was great because most of the words in our book were made-up too!
So we glued, and colored, and rhymed, rhymed, rhymed this week! It was great!
No class next week, but we will wrap up our rhyming unit the week of the 26th!
this week. This is a story FULL of rhymes, and all the kids did an awesome job figuring those rhyming words out! What surprised me a little bit this week was our discussions we had following our read-aloud of There's a Wocket in My Pocket!
. There's not much (if any) plot to this story, just lots of rhymes and fun. And discussing a book that doesn't have much plot is a bit difficult. But the kids were all very opinionated about the creatures in the book. They told me all about which ones they liked, if they had any of these kinds of creatures at their own house (some told me they did), what they would do is there was a "Zower in their shower", etc. Everybody was excited about hearing last week's story again too! They all demanded that I read it again (that was the plan anyway). They were pros with all the rhymes in it. They pretty much read the story to me. I had to slow some of them down because they were "reading" too far ahead, too quickly!
After we read both of our stories, we made silly creatures like the ones in There's a Wocket in My Pocket!
. The children got to create their own unique creature by mixing and matching heads, bodies, and feet of different sorts. Once the creatures were done, we decided what kind of creatures they were ("A Bofa on the sofa?" "A Ghair under the chair?"). This was a tricky task, so with most of the kids I started a phrase for them and let them figure out the rhyming word to complete it. For example: Is your creature a Muss on a ________? (Answer: bus). This worked well, and once they got the hang of it, many of the kids were coming up with their own rhymes. They were often using made-up words, which was great because most of the words in our book were made-up too!
So we glued, and colored, and rhymed, rhymed, rhymed this week! It was great!
No class next week, but we will wrap up our rhyming unit the week of the 26th!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Children's Book Week!
It's Children's Book Week! Hooray! Read more about it in this article. And be sure to take some time to celebrate reading this week!
Friday, November 9, 2007
Old Ladies
We've been reading an awful lot of stories about old ladies lately, haven't we? They've been such fun stories though!
This week we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Caldecott Honor Book)
. This story kicked off our new rhyming unit! And the children did SO great with this concept!
We explored the rhyming words as we read the story; then we did an activity where we stuffed the old lady's belly full of the animals from the book. The children had to complete the rhyme I gave them (I don't know why she swallowed the...) before they got to stuff that animal into her belly. I think every class got stumped on the last rhyme (the horse one). They had to think hard on some of the other rhymes too, but overall did really well.
I feel really good about this week's start to our rhyming unit. I feel it's going to ease us into the rest of the unit very nicely. Next week will be a little trickier, as we come up with our own rhymes. I'm eager to see how they do with it!
Oh! Almost forgot! I have a cute story to share!
We were re-reading the story The Teeny-Tiny Woman
at the beginning of one of our classes, and I read the part about how the teeny tiny woman left her cottage to go for a teeny tiny walk...
Then, later in the story, it says something about the teeny tiny woman walking back to her home. After I read that line, one of the children said, "yeah, back to her home at college."
I stopped for a second when he said this, trying to figure out why he thought the teeny tiny woman lived at a college. Then it dawned on me that he thought I said "college" when I read the word "cottage" earlier in the story! Makes sense. I mean, "cottage" is definitely not a word we use much these days. I can understand how their brains might hear the word "college" instead.
This created a great teachable moment, and we talked about what a cottage is.
This week we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Caldecott Honor Book)
. This story kicked off our new rhyming unit! And the children did SO great with this concept! We explored the rhyming words as we read the story; then we did an activity where we stuffed the old lady's belly full of the animals from the book. The children had to complete the rhyme I gave them (I don't know why she swallowed the...) before they got to stuff that animal into her belly. I think every class got stumped on the last rhyme (the horse one). They had to think hard on some of the other rhymes too, but overall did really well.
I feel really good about this week's start to our rhyming unit. I feel it's going to ease us into the rest of the unit very nicely. Next week will be a little trickier, as we come up with our own rhymes. I'm eager to see how they do with it!
Oh! Almost forgot! I have a cute story to share!
We were re-reading the story The Teeny-Tiny Woman
at the beginning of one of our classes, and I read the part about how the teeny tiny woman left her cottage to go for a teeny tiny walk...Then, later in the story, it says something about the teeny tiny woman walking back to her home. After I read that line, one of the children said, "yeah, back to her home at college."
I stopped for a second when he said this, trying to figure out why he thought the teeny tiny woman lived at a college. Then it dawned on me that he thought I said "college" when I read the word "cottage" earlier in the story! Makes sense. I mean, "cottage" is definitely not a word we use much these days. I can understand how their brains might hear the word "college" instead.
This created a great teachable moment, and we talked about what a cottage is.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Brainstorming
Our first Literacy Launchpad field trip was so much fun. And now it's time to start planning our next one. I'm feeling stumped on ideas though. I'm thinking something holiday related would be fun for us to do, but beyond that I'm drawing blanks. I'm going to look into what's going on in the area, but I'm open to suggestions. Wait. Let me re-phrase. I'm LOOKING for suggestions. So send 'em my way if you've got 'em!!