Last Class!!

Hello everyone! This is my last session before student teaching in August and I am SO excited to have some time off this summer to enjoy my husband and kids!! It has been a hectic session, I also took MATH 102 and EDUC 400 along with this course, but I am almost DONE!

I really enjoyed this class. I didn't realize how many aspects there are to language arts. Doing the scope and sequence really opened my eyes to how much is included in the LA curriculum. I also really enjoyed writing my unit plan for this class. I've written several throughout my education, so I felt confident in writing it, and really focused on writing a plan that I could possible use in my 3rd grade class that I'm student teaching in in the fall. Mrs. Steffes said earlier tonight that she hoped we could actually teach our units or plans in a classroom one day, and I would love to use mine!

I enjoyed listening to everyone else's lesson plans as well and putting ideas in the memory bank:) This has been a great group of classmates to end my Columbia College journey with! Where do you guys go from here?

Book List

Since my unit is on researching famous Missourians, I found some really neat books that could aid students in collecting information.

I couldn't find many on famous Missourians in general, so I chose a few of my favorite Missourians and searched for books on them individually.

. My first two books are written with adults in mind, however, they would be great for students who need enrichment, or for the teacher to have information pre copied and ready for sutdents who needed more guidance.

"The West of Billy the Kid" is written for a young audience.

These books on Mark Twain are written for kids, which is great for a 3rd grade research project:)

Laura Ingalls Wilder is a great person to research, especially if we have read her books:)

Walt Disney is a super interesting person to write about, and there are tons on "kid" biographies on him!

3rd grade boys love baseball and Yogi Berra is a great person for them to write about! Students may need some assistant with this book, as it was written for adults.

Last but not least, Truman!! There is tons of information on him, but this book looked very reader friendly for younger students.

Now I wish I owned all of these books to add to my own library!! I always keep my eyes open at yard sales and thrift stores for classroom friendly books. How many of you have started your classroom libraries?

Lesson Planning Reflection

I am currently in my last 3 classes before student teaching (yay!!) so I have had the opportunity to write several lesson and unit plans during my education. I'm not going to lie, at first I struggled with them and didn't quite understand the purpose of them.... Boy have I come a long way!! Now that I do understand their purpose and how important they are, I have allowed myself to get more creative and fun with them!!

For this class, I chose to do my unit on 3rd grade research and presentation. I chose this because I am student teaching in 3rd grade and want to be as familiar as possible with the standards going in to it. My unit begins with students choosing a famous Missourian (that they will learn about in social studies according to the state standards) to research, gather information on, and present a power point to the class. I am using a series of graphic organizers to help them keep track of their sources and information from the beginning to the end of the unit. I had a lot of fun finding them online and saved several for future use!

Before going over the 3rd grade LA state standards, I had no idea that presenting in front of the class was required for every 3rd grader!! It is a part of  the speaking/listening standard.

Here are a couple of the organizers I found!







I found a ton that could be used in all content areas!!

Week 4 Take Aways

Hello everyone! Chapters 4 and 5 covered working with words and writing. I am going to talk about chapter 5; writing because I am doing my unit lesson plan over a 3rd grade writing lesson. In the 3rd grade state standards, they are required to do research and present their presentation to the class. In the Social Studies standards they cover Missouri history. I am combining these two concepts in to a research writing lesson on a famous Missourian.
Looking through the chapter, I can relate lots of things to what I will add in my unit;
This project will be descriptive writing because students will be presenting information.
The lesson will include guided writing because they will be provided a series of graphic organizer to help organize information.
I am adding conferencing with students during the last couple of days of the lesson to make sure they are on track and to answer questions.
Students will also be editing each others work and grading themselves and each other on different parts of the lesson.

I am really excited about this writing unit!!







Mark Twain                            Harry Truman                 Jessie James



Which famous Missourian would you choose to write about?

Word Wall

I may be boring, but I like plain, simple word walls in the classroom. I feel like too much going on around the word wall is distracting. I thing students need to be able to glance at the word wall quickly and find the word they are looking for. I saw that some of my classmates posted examples with visual aids on the and I love that idea!!

The graffiti wall I found is being used for math, but it could easily be used for words too. This could be used for students to write down words they don't know or are having trouble spelling.

There are SO many options and ideas for word walls! I think it depends on your individual students and what they need to effectively learn. I can't wait to get in my own classroom and have my own word wall:)

337 VOCABULARY

One vocabulary word on the list I wanted to talk about is Effective Teaching. I don't know how many of you are in EDUC 400 this session, but something Linda Bradley is pounding in to our heads is "withitness." As I read about effective teaching in our text, I automatically think of "withitness." The text describes effective teaching as "a dynamic interaction of individuals." There are so many aspects of "withitness," all of which you need to effectively teach:)

I also wanted to talk about read alouds. I love doing read alouds!! This is something I feel like I have really grown in over the past year. When we read a book to students, we need to do it in a way that allows deeper thought. We should stop and ask questions, allow students to predict and answer questions, read fluently and with animation, and make connections between reading and writing. When a teacher does a good read aloud, I've seen students so engaged you would think they are watching cartoons!






How comfortable do you guys feel with read alouds?

337 Week 1 Take Away

Hello all! Week one in 337 has reminded me how much work I will have this session! I am also in Math 102 and EDUC 400, and have will really have to budget my time to keep up with all my work this session! I am so thankful that I have had to write a gazillion lesson plans in all my other classes so I should be able to do the unit for this class without too much trouble. I also did a scope and sequence in Teaching Science so I am somewhat familiar with that too, although Dr. Steffes is having us do it a little differently. I welcome the challenge though, I just keep telling myself "This is the last session before student teaching! You can do it!!!"

How many of you are feeling overwhelmed?? Or feeling like you "got this?"


This is how I feel sometimes, but I just keep digging out!