Vina High School Pre-K

  This letter is written about Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1967) by Bill Martin Jr. illustrated by Eric Carle.  Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? won the International Reading Association and Children's Book Council Children's Choice Award in 1984 and the Parent's Magazine: Favorite Books of All Time August 2006.  This text is a fictional text that my students love.  Throughout the book, various colorful animals talk about what other animals they see. I chose to read this book with my students as a method to not only have my students learn how to properly participate in read-alouds with repeated text but also to help with identifying students who struggle with color identification.  When the section of the book comes up about a purple cat, I would ask my students, "Are there really purple cats?"  "What do you think happened to make a purple cat?"  I would repeat these questions with the other animals and adjust as needed based on if

  Dinosaurs Before Dark (1992) was written by Mary Pope Osborne.  I read this fictional text to my students during our dinosaur unit.  I read this to give my students an immersive experience of what it would be like to run with the dinosaurs.  The knowledge the students gained about the dinosaurs within the text helped fuel their desire to learn more as I read informational text throughout the week.  The students show a particular interest in T-Rexes.  This led me to be able to dive deeper into the difference between carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores.  The students loved getting to choose their favorite dinosaur out of the options given based on their classification.  I presented each student two options for each of the following categories: carnivore, herbivore, and herbivore.  The students then had a family involvement activity to draw their dinosaur and three facts about it.  My students absolutely loved this project!  

Because of Winn-Dixie  (2000) was written by Kate DiCamillo.  It is a fictional story that was a Newberry Honor Book. I chose this book to be a "time filler" during our pet unit.  The story focuses on the relationship between a young girl, Opal, and a stray dog, Winn-Dixie.  Together the two go on adventures in their small town.   I read this book during breakfast, restroom breaks, early finish time before a special, snack, and the first little bit of nap time.  At the conclusion of each reading, I would ask various questions based on what we read.  For example, when Opal is asked what her dog's name is, she gets the name while in the local Winn-Dixie.  I would then open the discussion with my students about where they got their pets' names.  At the conclusion of the book, I asked the students which character Opal encountered was their favorite and why.  I, of course, gave my students a slight refresher on each of the characters.  To answer the question, they drew the

  Dear Blog,  During our farm unit, I read Charlotte's Web  (1953) to my students.  Charlotte's Web was a Newberry Award Honor in 1953.  This fictional chapter book was written by E.B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams.   I chose to read this book to my students because it gave a light-hearted insight into what life is like on a farm.  This made it go right along with our farm unit perfectly.  At the beginning of the book, Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered when the farmer's daughter, Fern, begs and pleads with her father to give her a chance at raising the pig.  Soon, Wilbur learns while he did avoid the fate of slaughter as a mere piglet, he did not escape it entirely.  To help keep Wilbur from being slaughtered by a barn spider, Charlotte begins to write words in her web to describe Wilbur.  These words soon lead to Wilbur becoming a famous pig, which saves him from being slaughtered. This story allowed my students to see that just like with everything else t

  Dear Blog,  Last week I read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day  (1972).  This fictional picture book was written by Judith Viorst and illustrated by Ray Cruz.  This 1972 ALA Notable Children's Book, has also won the George G. Stone Center Recognition of Merit Award and is a Reading Rainbow book.   I chose to read this book because some students were just not having a good day.  They felt like everything they wanted or tried to do turned out wrong, just like it did for Alexander.  In the book, Alexander's day starts off horrible.  He wakes up to find gum in his hair from the night before.  Just when he thinks his day cannot get any worse, bad event after bad event keeps happening. The poor guy had everything happen from dropping his sweater in the sink, not getting the seat he wanted in the carpool, not counting incorrectly, falling in the mud, and so much more! He was having such a bad day that he mentioned moving to Australia numerous times.   At th

       In one of my Master's classes I was introduced to the ISTE standards.  Prior to this class, I did not know they were even a thing.  While they do not include a Pre-K section, they are very useful!  Some of the information in the ISTE standards, even I was unaware of as falling under certain umbrellas of information.       In the previously mentioned class, we also took a look at the Alabama Digital Literacy and Computer Science Standards.  I was more so familiar with these.  These are laid out very similar to our normal state standards we have to go by.  Therefore, they are much easier for me to understand compared to ISTE standards.       As with many people who are introduced to something new, it can be rather confusing.  Our assignment was to "unpack" each set of these standards.  This assignment clarified both sets of standards tremendously.  It also allowed me to draw similarities between the two sets of standards.   Click on the picture above to see the graph