Comic Life Poster

I like the idea of using the posters as a way to "make" weekly memories of your classroom. I don't work with the students older than preschool except for reading but it would work well just to have them make a poster about each book as we get done reading it. In one reading group we learn about real animals or insects and then we read stories about the same animals but in a make believe setting. The students could really use their imaginations for those situations.

In my preschool room I take pictures all the time so I could make legal size posters and put them up and then give them out to the families at the end of the school year. I would still have the electronic folder and could get them printed during the summer and bring them back to line the hallways or to decorate my classroom.

Our highschool students compile, print and bind our yearbook right here at the school (keeps costs down) and I think pages like these could make for an interesting change in the setup of some pages. Especially to show sports or activities that we have had at the school.

I really enjoyed making the poster. It took longer than would be normal because I had trouble deciding on the layout and the pictures to use. I worked too hard to make it 'just' right. My cooperating teachers says we should get it made into post cards!

Digital Video

This takes a bit of time to create but it is much nicer if you really want to show something. I do not think it is as easily used for a teaching tool as PowerPoint. I don't think that I would use this in the classroom as a normal teaching tool but it might be great for teaching a hands-on project. I liked it and think it would be great for showing the rest of the school pictures from our trip (our high school is going to California for 10 days) this next spring.

Teaching

Teaching MUST be one of the most rewarding careers there is and at the same time it must be one of the most frustrating and heartbreaking. Of course, getting there is just a pain in the gluteus maximus!
I think that my favorite time of the day is at 11:00am. Preschool is over, and don't get me wrong, I think they are cute and a couple of them are making visible progress every day. But I have come to realize, that is not where my heart is. At 11:00am I get to start my first reading group. These small groups are the thing that I really enjoy. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I am doing reading with them which is one of my life's joys.
I start with a group that has a third grader, a fifth grader, a sixth grader and a seventh grader. They are all reading at a third grade level! That is sad for the older ones but truly exciting for the third grader. What an opportunity for this student to interact with the older students in a classroom setting where he can truly understand what they are doing and discussing. The really sad part is that the sixth grader is the lowest in the group! What I like to see at this school is that we will not let them sit in the back of the classroom and vegetate. They are required to participate and to really try. In the small group setting that is much easy to monitor.
My second group has a sixth grader, a seventh grader, an eighth grader and a ninth grader. Unfortunately for all of them, the group is only reading at a fifth grade level. We have just finished reading the Wizard of Oz. Although they did not enjoy taking a Saturday night movie night for the entire school to watch it, I do think the four of them enjoyed reading the original story. What a lot of great discussions happened during those weeks of reading. It was a long enough story to get the students involved and to get their imaginations going.
My third 'group' is a seventh grader. That he is reading at a sixth grade level shows that he is not too far behind. Hopefully, by working with this student so closely now, he will get up to snuff in reading and that will help in all subjects.Our school is getting a third teacher soon that will be taking over the middle school instead of having those students split between the elementary and high school classes. I am not sure what my tasks as a classroom aide will be at that point, but I think that I will get to go back to being a one-on-one tutor in the classrooms. That is the position that I have found that I like the most. It doesn't even matter how low or how high the student’s abilities are, I really like working with them one-on-one.
How do you pick which grade level you want to teach and then how do you find the perfect teaching job? Or is there such a thing?

Family

Starting on my movie-making career this week brought back lots of memories. Going through pictures and remembering old friends and the things we have done together. The best pictures, though, were the ones of my family. I have not been close to them physically since leaving home many, many years ago but I am close to them in my heart. I did not even really know the oldest five as they are so much older than I am they seem to be their own family and the five youngest of us made our own family. It has not been until I became an adult that I have really gotten to know some of my sisters and brothers. I am still closest to those siblings that are closer in age to me than I am to the older ones but now at least I feel that I am their sister. My oldest sister is only 19 years older than I am and had a daughter that was six months younger than I am. She is a crazy lady that is up for any adventure at the drop of a hat. Just invite her and she is ready! The second oldest sister is practical and kind of boring but nice and willing to help you out if she can. The next older sister liked to laugh a lot and a good story or a practical joke were things that she liked to take part in. The next older sister has a sad sense of humor and has learned to take life too seriously. I don't know how she ended up that way because none of the rest of us are like that. My older brother likes to be the life of the party and has a really generous heart. The next sister is fun and does a lot of traveling to visit friends and family but is stuck with an arrogant husband so no one wants to go visit her. The next sister likes to have fun but is too lazy to put out a lot of effort. She is remarkably creative and I have always been a little envious of her artistic talent. The next sister was my best friend growing up. We are still close and we talk either on the phone or on the Internet quite often. My younger brother is the most calm and normal. Even my kids think that I come from a family of crazies but they admit that my family likes to have fun. We do great family reunions every three to five years and try to do them at a variety of locations. We camped at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one year and took my 74 year-old mother white water rafting on the Snake River. We camped on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state one year and went clamming (out of season it turns out) and caught enough to feed the whole lot of us. One year it was in Orofino, Idaho, where I had lived for nine years growing up. That trip was the one with the most memories as we were burying our mom with our dad. It was great to reminisce about them and a really good time for the older ones to share memories of our dad since he died when half of us were still in school. Fewer of our children are attending the family reunions and that is unfortunate but we still stay in touch and we will always be family.

PowerPoint As An Instructional Tool

PowerPoint presentations could be used for any topic at pretty much any grade level. Most younger students would not take much time to teach to use the forward and backward buttons and have each slide set to go on its own. I have never thought to use a PowerPoint as a one-to-one teaching tool (You do it all the time, Skip) but it works very well. You could even do a PowerPoint presentation that showed how to do a PowerPoint presentation. If you had the one-to-one computer teaching/learning scenario going on, you could even send to each individual computer the specific presentations for that student. What a time saver during school if you used this. It might take a bit of time to get quick at making them but then during the day the instructor would have more time for extra questions rather than the general teaching. That would be especially helpful in the bush where one class of ten students may have five grades in it. It is hard to teach five lessons at one time in person!
I have used PowerPoint presentations quite a few times but never for use by an individual. I have always used them as an aide in lecturing or in general instruction. I also have used them as a backdrop for ceremonies such as graduation parties and Boy Scout Eagle Award ceremonies. I will never hesitate to consider using PowerPoint again. I had never used all the bells and whistles and really had fun learning what they could do. My husband decided I was a threat to society by my choices in sounds. It was fun and I think that all ages would enjoy learning if WE as instructors learned to make fun AND informative PowerPoint presentations as teaching tools.