October Entry

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You Read? - Nina Belcher and Christy Kelley 
 This lesson plan was an expansion on an idea that I have used in the past using Eric Carle's book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See.  I was excited to create more activities using this book.  Children immediately enjoy the story because of the repetitive language and bright, bold pictures.  I feel they were truly excited to participate in the planned activities. 
 Our classroom did all three activities listed in the lesson plan. We begin by the students illustrating their own copy of the book with a few pages changed to make it more personal.  We were only able to do one to two pages a day due to time constraints.  When the books were finished, I laminated the front covers, added back covers and bound the books.  The children were thrilled to have a book they made and could successfully read. 
 Next, in small reading groups, we worked on a book using color words and repetitive language where the students chose what they were "seeing."  The books were then sent home and I asked each child's parents to make comments on the back of the books.  The parents that responded had very positive comments about the books.  I feel this was a good opportunity to involve parents in our work at school. 
 The last activity our class worked on was a book entitled "First Grade, First Grade, What Do You See?"  We wrote about the school personnel and the children illustrated the book.  This activity was long and we seemed to lose some interest towards the end.  I think if I do all these activities next year, I will start them at the very beginning of school and not have this lesson drag out until the end of September.  The whole lesson did take much longer than I expected. 
 Overall I was pleased with the progress and outcomes of the lesson. My children had success with pre-reading experiences and learned the eight basic color words. 

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November Entry
November 4, 1998
 This month, I used a classroom "newspaper" to share information concerning a recent field trip to a pumpkin farm.  My class did a letter instead of a newspaper form.  I took our digital camera to the pumpkin farm.  When we returned to school, the children and I decided which picture we wanted to share with their parents.  We then thought of important information to share concerning upcoming events.  I added a few notes about conferences to the letter. The children loved taking home a picture of the field trip to their parents.  I also received very positive feed back from several parents concerning the letter.  I plan to try using a more traditional newspaper format this next month.  Hopefully, I can schedule this project on a more regular basis!

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December Entry
 My class had a great month in November studying Pilgrims, Native Americans, and Thanksgiving traditions.  I had found an interesting lesson plan on the web entitled "Life at Plimouth Plantation" that added to our unit of study.  The lesson plan suggested using two books, Sarah Morton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl, by Kate Waters and Samuel Eaton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy, also by Kate Waters.  I already had Sarah Morton's Day in my classroom library.  Unfortunately, I was unable to locate Samuel Eaton's Day.  However, I substituted two books that worked nicely.  They were A Pilgrim's Day by Kate Waters (located in the Scholastic Big Book Magazine entitled The Pilgrims) and If You Lived in Colonial Times by Ann McGovern.  The idea of the lesson was to get students thinking about the day in the life of a Pilgrim child and compare how the girls' and boys' lives differed from each other.  Also, the students were to compare how their lives are different from the lives of children in the past.  After sharing the stories, we made a class list of the chores that both Pilgrim boys and girls would do during a day.  The students then completed the sentence: "My favorite part of my day at Plimoth is . . ."  Next, we took a sheet of drawing paper and divided it into half.  On one side of the paper, the children illustrated a daily job they do.  On the other side, the children illustrated a daily job that a Pilgrim boy or girl would have done.  These were compiled into a class book.  My children enjoyed learning about the live of Pilgrims their own age.  This was a concept that I had not expanded on in the past.  I found that the children became much more interested in Pilgrim life when we concentrated on the lives of children their own age.  I plan to do this activity again next year.
 Our classroom newspaper has been a unique experience.  I try to complete one a week as time permits.  The children decided the title of our newspaper, decide the weekly contents, and dictate the sentences to be written.  Unfortunately, their attention span is not very long and many of my students get tired during the process of writing the paper.  Hopefully, as my skills become sharper, we will be able to complete these papers in less time.  Despite their restlessness, they are very anxious to take the newspapers home.  I originally decided to only print one and let the students take turns with who would take it home.  This did not work!  They became so excited to read the papers themselves that I had to give everyone a copy.  Since we write the newspaper with words they know, they can read much of it by themselves and enjoy sharing these with their families.
 The program I checked out to review was Reading Blaster by Davidson.  This program is designed for ages 6-9.  Unfortunately, my first graders found this program too difficult to enjoy and learn from.  Many of the games in this program include long sentences to read and difficult activities to complete.  I would think this program would be better suited for second grade and up.  More advanced first-graders could enjoy the program.  However, I did not find it suitable.

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January Entry

 I have enjoyed my email and address book so much more since our last meeting.  When I returned from Cyber Exchange in December, I set up folders to organize my email.  I find it is much more convenient to save my emails and clean up the clutter I had experienced in the past.  I also have enjoyed adding to my address book.

 I have not used the Cyber Ambassadors at our school because of my computers being obstinate lately.  The cd-roms are not working and it has been very difficult to use my programs with the children. Hopefully with the holidays over, I can find some programs that do not need cds to run and utilize these students in the afternoon.

 My class will begin our Internet project this month.  We will be writing a book to send to children in a third world country.  My students are fascinated with our digital camera, so I hope we can make an alphabet book by taking pictures of different objects in our school.  The children are excited about finding objects to represent both the alphabet and our school.

 We have not received our laptop training at Jefferson Elementary.  I do look forward to having an opportunity to use our laptop in the near future.

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February Entry 

 My class is enjoying using ICQ in our room.  They now know the "uh-oh" sound and get excited about receiving and sending messages.  Another Cyber Exchange teacher and I used a lesson plan created during the January meeting.  We sent sight words from our Saxon phonics series to each class for the students to read.  The students enjoyed this new format and the change from just seeing sight words on flash cards to seeing them sent on our computer.  I found this to be a way to generate more attention and interest in our sight words.
 Our Cyber Ambassadors are helping my students learn how to use our classroom keyboards to type.  My first-graders are very comfortable using the mouse, but do not have experience in using the keyboard.  I have a program called "Read, Write, and Type" distributed by The Learning Company.  This program combines phonics and typing skills.  My students need the Cyber Ambassadors to help them learn where to place their hands on the keyboards and guide them through the activities.  The kids are enjoying learning from the ambassadors and getting some more individual attention on the computers.
 I still have not been able to use the school's laptop.  However, I plan to try to check it out over a weekend in February.  I would like to use it to complete a PowerPoint presentation.
 Unfortunately, we have not had time to work on our class book for our internet project.  Maybe March will allow us to slow down with no major holidays and theme units planned!
 I am seeing my students improve with their reading skills daily as we use technology in our classroom.  Our school places a heavy emphasis on phonics.  However, some children need to learn to read by sight.  My computers have allowed me to combine both methods of teaching reading successfully.  For example, we write many class books together using repetitive language.  These books allow students to learn sight words and gain confidence when they are able to read each word on the pages.  In addition, we are currently using "Dr. Seuss' ABC Living Book" distributed by Broderbund to write our own alphabet book.  We have a letter for the day and look to Dr. Seuss to help us come up with as many words as we can using that letter.  After brainstorming words on the board, we then come up with our own "crazy sentence" using these words.  The children amaze me with their creativity!  Our last letter was D, and the sentence read: Danny the Dinosaur ate doughnuts with a doll that says, "Daddy."  We then have handwriting paper with a picture box at the top that the children use to copy the sentence and illustrate it as well.  This gives me a chance to review with the children proper letter formation and sentence structure.  It is also a good way for me to get those dreaded handwriting grades that are necessary for our report cards!  The kids are excited about the completion of their books and have asked if we could bind them to "make a real book."
 I send home a classroom newspaper once a month to inform parents of what themes we will cover for the month.  I have been including pictures of the children which I know makes it impossible to share over the internet.  However, many of my parents have commented on how they enjoy seeing pictures of the students to "put names with faces" of the classmates that their children talk about on a daily basis.  Some parents are even keeping these newspapers to include in their children's scrapbooks as memories of first grade.  In addition to establishing good rapport with my parents, these newspapers have enforced reading skills covered in class. My students are successful in reading these newspapers on their own and enjoy the challenge of reading them to others.

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March Entry
This month I created a PowerPoint presentation for the book, Arthur Writes a Story, by Marc Brown.  I plan to introduce my first-graders to "Writer's Workshop" by using the story and presentation.  Writer's Workshop involves lessons in writing stories by teaching children prewriting, writing and editing skills.  I feel that my students are ready to start constructing short stories like Arthur does in the book.  They enjoy all the books in the Arthur series and can relate to the fears of writing Arthur experiences.
 I invited two Cyber Ambassadors into my classroom to help teach my students how to use the keyboard with the program, Read, Write and Type (The Learning Company).  Unfortunately, the Ambassadors were not able to keep a regular schedule that is compatible with my children.  We'll keep trying!  Maybe I need to pick a new activity.  I'm thinking about having the Ambassadors "publish" the stories that my students complete in Writer's Workshop.
 I have enjoyed using the laptop over one weekend.  It was helpful to have time at home to work on my PowerPoint presentation.  Now if I could just figure out a way to get one of my own…! 
 My students are beginning to show tremendous progress in reading.  This is an exciting time of year in first grade because all of the "lights" are starting to turn on!  They continue to use our software for reading activities and games.  We also wrote a book together on the 100th day of school where they completed the sentence, "I would want 100 ____, but I would not want ____!"  In addition, we are about to complete our Dr. Seuss books with alliteration used to emphasize letter sounds and correct sentence structure.  Learning how to correctly construct sentences will help when we begin Writer's Workshop.

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April Entry

 Unfortunately, I have not had much success with the Cyber Ambassadors at our school.  Our school is very large and scheduling can be difficult to coincide with non-instructional time between fifth and first graders.  I tried to schedule a set time in the afternoon for Cyber Ambassadors to come to my class.  They came three times and then stopped coming.  I think they might not have enjoyed working with my students.  They seemed to have difficulty communicating to them and teaching them keyboarding skills. 
 I have enjoyed using the laptop this past month.  I have used it for many practical class activities and planning.  I have typed permission slips and parent letters on the laptop.  Also, I have completed a PowerPoint presentation on the Transition Program at our school. 
 I was very excited about our classroom webpage.  My students dictated stories to me which I tried to upload.  I must have forgotten everything I learned during the March meeting because I have not had any success in transferring the stories to the page.  We plan to write facts about Tennessee to go along with our Tennessee Unit we are currently studying.  Hopefully, these facts can be put on our website. 
 I do a monthly newspaper for my classroom.  The children love to help write them and I always try to include a picture of them on the newspaper by using our digital camera.  The digital camera has been a great tool to use with the classroom newspaper.  I can take pictures of field trips and special events which are included in the newspapers. 
 My Internet project  has been slow to be completed.  The cost of the project is $40.  I have not been able to collect this money from my students, so I'm trying to decide whether to pay for the project myself or look for a sponsor.  The book has been interesting for the children to work on, however the money has been problem for us.
 My students have enjoyed looking at the PowerPoint presentations that teachers have completed during our Cyber Exchange meetings.  Also, we use technology in our classroom for many writing activities.  We recently wrote a "hug book" for a student who moved to another school.  The children wrote messages for Jordan so he could carry their well-wishes and "hugs" with him to a new home and school.
My students are very interested in weather, so we often go to the Weather Channel's site  and a local dopplar radar to see if we need our coats when we go outside.  They get a big thrill out of seeing if it's finally warm enough to play without long sleeves and jackets. 
Of course we continue to use our classroom software.  During our study on the planets, the children had an opportunity to use Microsoft's "The Magic School Bus Explores the Solar System."  They are also using Reader Rabbit 2 (The Learning Company) and Kid Phonics 2 (Davidson). 
One of the greatest benefits of using technology in my classroom is the excitement and interest that it has created in my students when it comes to language arts.  They love to write and read using the computers.  I very rarely hear the words, "I can't do that."  Everyone wants a chance to try writing or computer games. 
My teaching has changed due to technology in my classroom.  There are many times that I wish my teaching would change more.  The more I learn how to integrate technology, the more I realize I could do so much more.  I have already been thinking about next year and I often use my summers to change and update my teaching style.  I think I'm a different teacher each fall!  I'm still trying to use technology for the most benefits for my students and myself.
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May Entry

Our classroom has used the Internet for several projects and units.  I have used the Internet to find lesson plans on Pilgrims for my Thanksgiving unit.  We have visited sites for information on Christmas traditions and customs in England during our study on Christmas in England.  Also, we have studied weather through the use of several web sites including weather.com and cnn.com.  My students particularly enjoy visiting web sites about their favorite authors.  Jan Brett's home page has been helpful in giving me ideas on projects involving her books and how to integrate these books into our curriculum.  We visited Dr. Seuss's home page during the week of his birthday to participate in Read Across America.
I find that I use the Internet much more this year than last year.  I find that I use the Internet for information that I had previously looked for in books or libraries.  The Internet has been beneficial for me to find units and information quickly and easily.
I have found that young children will lose patience when the Internet is slow or we are searching for information.  They are much more interested in web sites at this point in the year because their reading skills are so much more advanced.  At the first of the year, many of them loose interest in different web sites because they can't read the words they are seeing.  Now they are excited to see words they know.

I loved using our "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Can You Read" lesson that Christy Kelley and I developed for Cyber Exchange.  Our children used the book to identify and learn color words.  They were able to practice sequencing events in a story and retelling the story.  They also became familiar with sight words that are used throughout the story.  We shared our new book we wrote using Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? as a model with Miss Kelley's class.

Email is extremely useful and important to me.  I share information with other educators through email.  Cyber Exchange taught me how to develop files for my email and to organize it more efficiently.  My students have enjoyed emailing other classrooms. They particularly enjoy emailing "cards" to different classrooms for different holidays. ICQ has been useful as well.  Our class ICQs different people in our school on a daily basis.  We especially enjoy ICQ messages from our assistant principle.  My students feel extra special knowing that he communicates with them through the computer.  They enjoy hearing "uh-oh" and will beg to read messages immediately.  This encourages them to read independently and creates excitement for language arts skills.
We have not used video conferencing because I just learned how to use the equipment a week ago.  I am excited about the possibilities of communicating with another classroom next school year.

I use Word for making class books with my students.  I also use Word to write our classroom newspapers and letters to parents.  I use PowerPoint presentations to reinforce skills that have been previously taught or to introduce books to my students.  The PowerPoint presentations that I downloaded from our Cyber Exchange web site have been wonderful to use in my classroom.  I also used the PowerPoint presentations that I developed to review short vowel sounds and to introduce the book, Author Writes a Story, by Marc Brown.

I have not been as pleased with using my own web site.  Most first-grade students can not type their own stories to include, and it has been difficult to find the time for each individual student to dictate a story to me.  I can see that this would be a wonderful asset to upper grades.  Also, I only have one student in my class that has access to the Internet at home, so I question if maintaining a web page is worth the time it involves. Perhaps in the future more of my students will have access to the Internet outside of school and this will become a more useful feature for our classroom.  I also have doubts on my ability to maintain a web page.  I do not have a computer at my own home and have to complete all computer-related activities at school. 

 Our classroom newspaper has been a useful tool to use to communicate with my parents.  My students have enjoyed seeing their pictures in the newspapers that I took with our digital camera.  I have sent out monthly newspapers that included notes about special awards the children received, field trips, and units of study in our classroom.  I plan to continue to use our newspaper during the next school year.

The monthly training sessions have allowed me to learn how to use the technology that I already have in my classroom for the most benefit to my students.  I found the Internet training especially useful when we learned to download images to use in presentations and newspapers.  I also have loved learning how to use PowerPoint!  This is an extremely useful tool for educators to teach new skills, reinforce skills, and present information to others.  The presentations can be very "eye-catching" as well, which is impressive to use for students, parents, and administrators.   feel that with more practice, I will be better able to develop a web page and use video conferencing in the future.

I enjoyed the time that I used our laptop.  It was nice to have the laptop to use at home.  Unfortunately, the major drawback to using the laptop was that six teachers at our school had to share one machine.  Because of this number of teachers, there was only enough time for each teacher to use the laptop on a limited basis.  I personally have only used the laptop for two to three weeks during this school year.  When I have access to the laptop, I used it to complete a PowerPoint presentation and to write a letter to the students' parents.

This was the only aspect of the program that I did not find beneficial was the Cyber Ambassadors.  Our Cyber Ambassadors were not able to relate to my first-graders.  They found it difficult to instruct them on how to use the computer. Also, they were not dependable when ask to show up a certain time everyday.  It was difficult for me to plan activities for them to do with my students, and then not have the Ambassadors show up to complete the activities.  I would suggest that the time and energy that a classroom teacher expends on setting up times and lessons for the Cyber Ambassadors could be put to better use.

My reading curriculum has been enhanced by the use of Word when my students were able to write their own stories for books and newspapers.  I feel that there is a definite connection between reading and writing.  If a child learns to write, his or her skill in reading dramatically improves. Word, ICQ, and email all give students the opportunity to practice language arts skills.  PowerPoint has been beneficial in holding my students interest while reviewing reading skills and introducing literature.
My students receive a daily benefit from all of our educational software.  We use the Reading Rabbit series from the Learning Company and the Kid's Phonics series from Davidson.  My students enjoyed using Bailey's Book House from Edmark in the beginning of the year as well.

I feel that I finally have an idea on how to best use my technology in my classroom.  It has been wonderful to have one full day a month to work just on technology.  I was becoming frustrated with technology before this program because I never felt I had the time to learn how to "work" the hardware and use the Internet.  Teachers need training when they receive technology to use in their classroom.  I feel I have finally received the training I needed through the Cyber Exchange program.

More and more of the teachers at our school are using ICQ.  We have helped other teachers become familiar with this program.  In addition, I have shared my classroom newspaper with other teachers on my grade level.  One of our first-grade teachers has downloaded PowerPoint presentations from our Cyber Exchange web site to use in her classroom.

I would like to have experience using new software such as Office 2000.  In addition, I would like to learn more about video conferencing and its benefits for classroom use.  I also need more training in how to write and maintain a web site.

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