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                   This course is about how important literacy is in education and life. The course also connected me to a variety of resources for texts in my future classroom. Along with diverse text resources, this course helps differentiate which text to use with students. There were many memorable components of this class that I will carry with me as a future teacher. Activities like Book Club, Think Alouds, Blog-spot posts, and reading Subjects Matter all influenced my perception of literature and how to utilize when teaching course material in my future classroom.                       Subjects Matter introduces an array of reading and instruction strategies for teacher. Before reading Subjects Matter, I did know about techniques how and when they are used can be extremely beneficial for the reader. Post-it Notes is a during reading activity that I recognized as really us...

George Cooke (American 1793-1849)  Tallulah Falls, 1841 Tallulah Falls, by George Cooke, caught my attention at the Georgia Museum of Art. My parents live about 14 miles away from Tallulah Falls in northeast Georgia. I grew up around The Tallulah Falls area. I Everyday, I remember passing Tallulah Falls on the way to middle and high school. So, I was immediately amused to see the Tallulah Falls painting from 1841. This piece of art is great illustration of one of the geographical key features of Georgia. Since the Social Studies Curriculum for 8th grade is about Georgia’s geography I relate Tallulah Falls to one of the five geographical regions of Georgia. The waterfalls are obviously a good source of water and valued by the wildlife and people who reside in the area. In Cooke’s, Tallulah Falls, people gazing at waterfalls and are wearing clothes from the 1800’s One of Georgia Standards and Elements for Georgia is also about the importance of water in Georgia’s historical...

I really enjoyed participating in our Book Clubs/Literacy Circles in class. I have never been apart of a book club, so this activity was new territory and fun for me. Creating “norms”, a handshake, and scheduling our readings really provides structure for this assignment. I have never read a book so fast until I read Hoot. Looking back on the assignment, making a reading schedule really helped me. I wish I had made reading schedules for myself in the past with other books. Planning our readings ahead of time helped me, because it allowed me to read swiftly and productively. There have been a lot of times where I have felt overwhelmed with books in the past, but this time I enjoyed and looked forward to reading. I also favor Literacy Circles, because students are allowed to work in groups. Working in groups allowed me to see other areas or connections in the text that I had overlooked and view other interpretations of the book. Each member in my group had something differen...

      I found the app, 8th Grade Friendzy , to be user friendly and appropriate for 8th grade science. Below, I have attached some screenshots of a couple of questions I was asked while playing the game. The texts, within 8th Grade Friendzy , aligns with the content-area texts in science classrooms at Hilsman Middle School. This app also has content-areas like Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, and a fun miscellaneous category. There is a total of 10 questions per quiz game. If you answer the question wrong, the app will still display the correct answer. I think that showing the correct answer to the questions after you miss the question helps the learning process. The app also has a visualization aspect of using the colors red and green to differentiate incorrect and correct answers. This was fun to play for me and also tested my knowledge.  142

My strategy lesson was about using Dramatic Role-Play in the classroom. I was really surprised to see how well my classmates improvised during the lesson. I feel like students took the assignment and ran with it. Students improvised by adding their own creative components to their skits. Their creativity made the activity twice as fun and interesting. Another way they improvised was by using the internet to find images of their weather patterns to use as a background image for their play. Students also collaborated well with each other. Even though they only had five minutes to come up with a skit, all of the presentations were thoughtful and entertaining. I think that the strategy lesson also promoted student engagement. I think that in the future, I could collect a better variety of props over time. Props used within a role-play activity are crucial aspects of the strategy lesson. The whole idea behind this strategy is to pretend that you are actually in the given scenario. For ex...

Ms. Maronpot uses differentiation when teaching in the science class. The students do not notice when she is using differentiation to teach in her class.Ms. Maronput uses differentiation when she assigns puzzles to different groups in her class. Every piece of the puzzle has a student’s name and vocabulary term based on their “cognitive level”. The puzzle pieces also have images of the vocabulary term. Ms. M’s differentiation technique with the puzzles catered to all learning styles in her classroom. Differentiation helps students, with all learning styles, to have the chance to learn and comprehend content-area literacy. Differentiation pertains to more than to just reading or skill levels, teachers can use differentiation when planning new lessons based on their students’ prior knowledge of a subject or using the hobbies and interests for student engagement. Differentiation can have a positive influence on learning in the classroom because it paves the path for detailed and diver...

I found a neat science app called ‘Little Alchemy’ ( https://littlealchemy.com/ ) . I choose this app for my resource blog this week because I really like the concept behind the app. Little Alchemy is essentially a gaming app about science. The game starts off with simple elements like fire, earth, air, and water. The object of the game is to mix two elements together at a time in order to produce a new element. There are a total of 580 elements to be discovered on the game. (The app is honestly a little addictive.) This app is also a great way to introduce chemistry to students. Students can experiment with elements without stepping foot into a lab. This might be an appropriate resource for teachers who have a lack of resources in their labs and schools. Unfortunately, some schools simply do not have money in their budget to buy lab supplies for their science classrooms. The Little Alchemy app is free and does not require an email address to sign up.  Also, The Little...

Balloon Morphing: How Gases Contract and Expand Experimental Procedure Preparing for the Balloon Tests Blow up one of the balloons until it is quite full, but not close to popping, and tie it off. Mark the balloon with the number 1. Measure the circumference of this first balloon with the cloth tape measure, selecting the fullest part of the balloon to measure, as shown in Figure 1 on the right. Hold the tape measure snug on the balloon, but not so tight that the balloon is being squeezed by the tape measure and changing its shape. In your lab notebook, make a data table like Table 1, below, and record this starting circumference in millimeters (mm) in the data table. Figure 1.  This drawing shows where to measure the circumference of the balloons. Blow up the second balloon so it looks about the size of the first balloon, but do not tie it off yet. Pinch the opening closed between your thumb and finger so the air can not escape. Have your helper measure the circumfere...

Chapter Six, in Subjects Matter, strategically answers some of the most burning questions that have been on my mind. Questions like, How do I know what concepts to teach?; Do I have to stick to a textbook?; How do I teach from a textbook?; Does the textbook provide any information that is on standardized tests? Selecting the appropriate content-area texts for my class is nerve racking in itself, because of the pressure teachers receive when it comes to their students passing standardized tests. Year-round, teachers strive to focus all learning towards passing these pesky test mandated by the state. Chapter Six advises teachers to become picky and particular when it comes to selecting content-area texts resources. Not only are the resources important to refine, but the instructions, lessons, and texts within the resource, are equally important to finely comb through. Be Selective, in Chapter Six, mentions four filters to utilize when selecting content-area mat...

Textbooks are wonderful teaching tools, but using the same tools over time can leave students and teachers feeling complacent. The content-area, science, can have tricky concepts within the curriculum. Especially since most of middle school science curriculum in Georgia is about natural and spontaneous phenomenons that happen on and around the Earth. According to the Sixth Grade Earth Science Curriculum Map, students study  the Earth, Moon, and the Sun for about four weeks. I stumbled upon a fun activity on Pinterest that highlights this topic for sixth graders. The activity is called the Oreo Moon Phase Match from the website, http://www.theteachyteacher.com/2016/04/blast-off-to-moon.html As you probably already guessed, yes, the activity involves oreos.  Students construct different phases of the Moon with oreos and icing. I found a great diagram of Moon phases, on google images, to use for a guide/worksheet to help the students during the activity. This is the l...

“Fake Reading” is a concept that Cris Tovani explains in her book, I Read It But I Don’t Get It. The chapter, How do I help Struggling Readers Readers?, in Subjects Matter highlights her ideas about not assigning “book reports” and her “admission” to students that she also struggled with reading in school. Cris Tovani aligns herself with her students and shows positive reinforcement in hopes to create a supportive relationship between student and teacher through learning. When a student is reading difficult or new material, their brains might be looking for a distraction the whole time they read. This happens because is not what they want to be doing or because they do not understand. I can relate to this. For example, the thought of reading about plants makes me want to cringe. I could never remember or understand how a plant grows from a “bulb”. On the other hand, I find astronomy fascinating. Therefore, when I read about planets and stars, I attain more details and m...

Density is one of the first topics that eighth graders study in the Physical Science. I found this experiment on  https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/density-tower-magic-with-science/ (This is a wonderful website for science teachers.) Before you start the experiment with your students, ask them to make predictions and record them on paper. This is a great opportunity to incorporate the scientific method. Suggest making inferences before testing and observations during  the experiment.  The materials needed for the experiment are honey, corn syrup, 100% maple syrup, whole milk, dish soap, water, vegetable oil, rubbing alcohol, lamp oil, one tall narrow, clear, and quart cylinder, nine 4 oz. cups for the liquids, food coloring, turkey baster, popcorn kernel, cherry tomato, board game die, plastic beads, plastic soda cap, and ping-pong ball. Follow the directions closely as you pour each of the liquid into the cylinder. It is important ...

 “ We need someone to get us ready for reading like this by giving us an overview.” (Daniels, Zemelman, 2014. Subjects Matter Pg. 34). Literacy is entangled in my content areas, science, social studies. I believe that I unconsciously chose science and social studies, because they are the farthest away from my personal trouble areas in school. Reading and writing with 100% correct grammer continues to be the most challenging roadblock for me. Whether I like it or not, literacy is the basis of every content-area. While learning, I encounter struggles to get around roadblocks. One example of a positive struggle is how I came to realize, through trial and error, I am a visual learner. I now know how to adapt to this type of learning style. An example of a negative struggle would be that when I have no interest or do not understand a concept in the reading, I will not gain any information from it and mentally discard it completely. I will also procrastinate and develop a feeling of...