Reading Books and Incorporating the Ideas in the Classroom

When I read I tend to write in my books or jot notes in a journal. I plan on continuing to do this. When a journal fills up I get a new one. At one time I had many different journals for different aspects of my life and now I just keep one. It has a leather cover and the inside can be refilled. I recently talked about using Google Notes to keep track of a few things. I am currently using it to track progress of my goals for the year. I am also beginning to use it for keeping track of ideas from books. I titled one of the notebooks Research and Development. The nice thing is that each notebook can have sections with notes in them. I believe this way I will be more able to implement ideas from books. I can keep the same types of ideas together or I can keep all the notes from a book together. I can move my notes around. I can access them from any computer. I can easy copy and paste things from the internet that I see into my notebook as well. I can also share my notebooks with others.

Do you ever read a great book that has lots of ideas and things you can implement in the classroom? What do you do with the information you learn? How do you incorporate it?

How Can It Start So Early?

I have a few comments and a few questions. Tonight, I was at Ambercrombie with my niece. I had gotten her a shirt there recently but it didn't fit so we had to go back to get a larger size. She is an average nine year old. (Please keep in mind that the smallest pants size there is a ten which she is beginning to wear. ) She will be 10 in May. I had picked out one og the t-shirts assuming she would be a small because she is only 9. When we went back tonight, we had to buy a large. I know that sizes are just sizes because I am an adult. But do all young people get that? And we wonder why we have young women with eating disorders.
Another thing I should mention is that we would not ever let our girlies wear skin tight clothing even if that is the look. There are already people in the world that we have to protect our children from because they are unnaturally drawn to them. Why dress our children in a fashion that draws the wrong kind of attention? Perhaps, I have no business being in that store feeling the way I do. However, at the same time it is just one of the many stores that are like that. I do not want my nine year old niece or any other girl developing the idea that she doesn't look the way she should.

What are your thoughts? What can be done?

Book Recommendation

I would like to recommend Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students By Their Brains by LouAnne Johnson. She is the author of the book My Posse Don't Do Homework. It covers subjects from classroom management, being prepared for a new year, motivating students, and shares some time and energy savers. I am currently re-reading this book and getting more out of it the second time. You will probably see me post about different things she has reminded me of or taught me through the book.

Student Participation in Discussion

Most often I am finding that the same students participate in discussions or respond to questions in the classroom. One thing that I have seen in some classrooms is an action that students do when they agree with something said or were going to respond in a similar fashion. A few actions I have seen include snapping, giving two thumbs up or patting themselves on the head. I like this because it gives the students an opportunity to do something instead of blurting "I was going to say that." I believe that it demonstrates who is tracking along with the discussion and who is thinking the same thing.
I have also found that there are different ways that I would like students to respond in different situations. There are times I would like students to raise their hands. Other times I want to hear the first thing that they think by saying it spontaneously. Yet, at times I would like students to think before they respond. LouAnne Johnson recommends teaching all three of those ways in Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students by Their Brains. She discusses it on pages 90-92. She suggests explaining each and making a visual to display for what types of responses you expect in a discussion. I am going to implement this in my classroom.
She also talks about how beneficial wait time can be in some discussions. It is amazing the type of responses that you can hear after giving students some time to think. She states that "Students who normally didn't respond began raising their hands, and their thoughtful comments inspired deeper thinking from the quick thinkers." (pg. 92) I have found this to be true even in an early childhood classroom.

How do you get students to participate? What kind of procedures do you use for classroom discussion? Do you have any stories or comments about using thinking time before allowing students to respond?

Carnival of Education

Check out the latest Carnival of Education which is being hosted this week by The Median Sib. I submitted two posts that I would like feedback on. One is What are you Reading? and the other is about creating a peaceful classroom. I would enjoy hearing your thoughts or suggestions.

What are you reading?

I have been thinking about my reading list lately. There are so many things I would like to put on it. I have to admit at this time I have part of my list on paper and part of it in my head. I know that the part of my list that is in my head is ever changing, which is mostly due to the fact that I tend to store it in my short term memory. I need to be more diligent about it. I have made a master list using Shelfari. The list has 31 books on it. I know there are more that I could add. I will use Google Notebook to take notes. (I won't take notes on fiction.)

I read for several different purposes. I read to relax. I have to admit almost every type of reading is relaxing to me. It is just that some reading prompts me to think too. I also read to develop myself in different areas including personal, spiritual, and professional. I just need to organize the books so that I am using my time to read effectively. I think I am going to categorize the books and develop some kind of rotation for reading. I'm going to have to think about this some more.

Is there a way you organize your reading list? How do you fit reading into your busy schedule? Is there some kind of rotation you use? How do you decide what to read next? Do you read more than one book at once? What are you reading? Do you have any other thoughts you would like to share?

Another Recent Read

Ok, so I just posted yesterday about 3 books I have recently read. I finished two of those books yesterday and I started a new one. I have really been enjoying Shannon Hale. I am going to start reading her book Goose Girl next. I have decided that I can start reading it tonight or I will spend the day doing it and finish it tonight.



Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale. I thoroughly enjoyed Dashti's story. It is a fairy tale that is told through the diary of the main character.







Well, I am working on clearing the clutter and getting myself organized today. It is amazing that I have almost filled a paper bag full of garbage from the top two little drawers in my desk. (Ironnically, I am always wondering why I don't sit and take advantage of it.)