Express Yourself

Creative Writing through Photography. How can you express yourself through a photo? How can you express yourself through a photo in which everyone must be doing the same thing? What makes you, you? This would be a great exercise to connect with a creative writing exercise to examine how students express themselves.

Kidspiration Concept Map

SOL Focus: Writing Mechanics

After reading "The Teddy Bears go Blogging" I began to think of all the ways that I could incorporate writing conventions into using technology. Yesterday at one of our faculty meetings we looked at our ERB test scores over the past five years and writing conventions was consistently the lowest scored compared to other independent schools in the area.
    I think technology would be a great way to reintroduce teaching the basics of writing conventions back into the curriculum. The standard for Grade 1, is SOL 1.12. The last subcategory of that SOL, is that students WILL use technology so I think that it is perfect.  
     That being said there are a million ways to bring technology and writing conventions together beginning with simple internet programs like Starfall and going into more depth by using flipcharts with the smart board. And the finally, actually implenting the writing conventions correctly in formats such as blogposts with ideas like "The Teddy Bears go Blogging."

Teddy Bears go Blogging

This article was AMAZING! Literally, from the second I started reading it my brain could barely focus on the article to finish, because I just wanted to jump up and go talk to my head teachers about implenting something like this in our classroom. We study South America in the first grade at our school and how great would it be, with or without the Teddy Bear, to exchange a blog with a class from a South American country.
      Furthermore, this idea would be something new and exciting for the students. It would be something they could look forward too. And it would also give students that quick one on one time with the teacher, where the teacher could remind that single student of the writing convention that student needs to work on.
     I am definitely going to print out this article and share it with my lower school faculty. I agree that blogging would me a more valuable source of technology as compared to email, because it is one place where all the posts are compiled.

AWESOME!

Willrichardson.com

After perusing a few of the suggested blogs, I settled on Will Richardson's. He immediatley captured my attention because he not only was coming from the perspective of educator, but he was also coming from the perspective of parent. Thus, his interests while always, first and foremost his children, his way of teaching things could contradict or conflict with those that are teaching his children right now.
   Furthermore, I was immediatley attracted to his ambitious statement that educaters need to see themselves as "master learners." I 100% agree. In fact, I wrote my Philosophy of Education, titled "creating Lifelong learners" in hopes that that is what my teaching would instill in my students. Thus, when he suggested that the majority of educations were uncomfortble with the concept of being "expert learners" it made me take a step back and look at myself and those around me. Was I truly pushing past what has been asked of me to learn as I said I do in my paper?