reflection 12/8

I thought that the four different moral responsibilities were very interesting. it is hard sometimes to be able define what moral responsibilities are to be taught in class. I believe that of the four different types that the most important is the nurturing, because it can encompase all of the other for moral responsibilities. If we teach the moral ideas in our lessons than we wont have to encroach on personal and religious beliefs.

Reflection 10/26

I thought the topic of the atricles, violence, and how we can prevent it in the school was a good topic. I think that there is a lot that we can do to prevent violence, but I think the problem with some of the articles that we read, is that they give and unrealistic view of what we can do, rather than a few really helpful points that we as individual teachers can do. I believe that, no we should not just expel students when they have done something bad, but that we should support them in getting into programs that will help them, even if it is an after school or saturday program. I believe that we can't wait for everything to change, or for the school to get funding to do anything in the classroom. We have to do what we can in our own classroom, becasue if everyone waits for everyone else to change, then nothing will get done.

Reflection 10/18

I thought that the idea of reforming the ideas from education to make it better from the Resnick article were very good ideas, but for most of the ideas that were mentioned that it would take a long time to be able to implement them into the schools and have it be the recognized regular.
My favorite of her ideas were that we should recognize the idea that effort created ability, and clear expectations. I think it is the main idea of school that the effort the students give is helping them gain more ability in whatever they are working towards. I also like the idea that students need to be able to know what they are working towards, they need to know the expectations so that they can focus what they are doing and accomplish more.
Her Idea that time and results in school need to be reversed is a good one, but I don't think it would be logical to implement it the way she is suggesting, but given more thought it could do a lot of good.

Reflection #6

This week I thought the readings were interesting. I think that the OCW's would be useful to really help those who either don't have the means to get and education, and also to those who are already in the field of work, but want to get a little more information on one subject or another. I had a hard time at first thinking of how this would really be useful to me as an elementary school teacher, but really I have realized that I have to be the expert on everything, so it will be a good resource to me, and through me to my studendts, instead of directly to my students.
I also think that distance education is really important because we never know with technology going the way its going, when we as teachers are going to be responsible for doing a distance education course for students.

Reflection #3

I liked the two readings for class this week. I found it interesting that even though both were not written recently, they both had really good points about teaching. I really liked how Rousseau talks about how a child needs to be a child, and we should not try to reason with them. A child can't reason like and adult can, and we are not teaching them if we are doing that, because they will not be able to understand. I also really liked that at the end he says that his 'Emile' may not be great at one thing, but he will be better at another. I believe that it is important to focus on the strengths students have, so they know that they are good at something, and we could use their strengths to improve their weaknesses. The thing I liked the most about St Augustine was the way he said to teach. if you notice a student is bored or already knows the subject just touch on it, or do something to make them interested. I also like that he talked about how if we don't teach in the same peaceful environment that we learn in, we really can't expect the students to pick it up as easily.

Reflection 9/28

I learned a lot more this week after having the discussion in class. Archetypes are really important to have for examples for the boys especially, but also for the girls. Reading about the different types was really a good learning experience, but when we had to actually decide which archetype the picture book we were looking at, it was a bit harder. That made me think and I believe teachers should be careful to make sure that they really look into a book and that it is the archetype that they are looking to introduce to the child, and that the child won't get something different out of it. It would also be really helpful to have discussions with the child after reading the book.

Reflection 09/13/08

I really liked the first article I read, which was the one about helping boys enjoy literature by reading them picture books and regular books with Archetypes. I think that if we find boys or girls that we notice are having a problem in a certain area, especially reading we can really find an archetype that would help this student, and read and discuss the book with them. If we are helping them implement the characteristics that the books give in more situations throughout the day then it can help them even more. I loved that she tied the importance of visual literacy into the article, because I had to read another article for a different class talking about the importance of visual literacy. I think it will be interesting to hear the views and interpretations people have about the two different articles that were read

Week three

I can't believe the three weeks are already over, it makes me so sad! our class was so well behaved and so much fun! this week was fun, we got to actually teach social studies for the teacher that does the social studies in the rotations, it was fun. we did the civil war. we really only had two lessons to cover it in, the third one was an extra for just our class and not the whole rotation. it was neat, because I felt like the kids were really taking in what we were teaching them, it made me really excited to be a teacher. Our technology lesson was supposed to be a web quest but when the kids downloaded it from our uen page, the Provo School District took the hyperlink off the the buttons, so it turned into a similar research project, looking at the tasks we gave them, and the sites we gave them, and any other they could find. It didn't go at all the way we had planned, but I think the students still got a lot out of it.

week 2

my second week in the field was neat as well, it feels like I know the students better, I know how the classroom works, and we have had another opportunity to teach. our second lesson was on mountain building and I felt that it went really well, that the students had a lot of fun, and that we were able to get across what we needed to. we taught about the three different ways mountains are formed, we showed an overheaed of the process of each, talked aobut how it worked, then gave them a physcial example. for folded mountains we showed them a paper with pressure on both sides representing the crust and plates pushing and showed how it would buckle, fold, and form mountain ranges. For Fault-block we used 2 boxes one with dirt in it to represent a fault and how a mountain would form when one side of the fault goes up and dirt falls. for volcanic mountains we showed them a picture of a volcano, and for a dome mountain we blew up a balloon to show how the magma would shape the crust, but not break through it. then we had the students write a short explanation for how each type of mountain formation worked. for the formal assessment, we had the students push the desks aside, and we did 2 movement activties for a folded and dome mountains, then split them into groups and had them show us a movement activity that represented either volcanic or fault-block, assigning one or the other to different groups. it was a fun lesson. The time is going by fast and I am loving it

I have loved the first week of being in the 5th grade classroom! for the first couple of days we just watched and helped the kids when they were doing work, and just kind of figuring out how our teacher handles the classroom. he does a money system for rewards and for punishment, he also has a system set up where every student has a job, and it keeps the whole class in working order so I was really impressed with that.
We got the opportunity to teach on Thursday. For Social studies, science, and Language arts, so we actually taught science. Our lesson was on earthquakes, first we showed them a digital story that Bryant made and had them fill out a short worksheet during the video, then we did a seismograph activity where I had made one (a table with a chair on top of it and a string tied the the bottom of the chair and a marker at the other end of the string and paper on the table under the chair that the marker was touching) and showed them how scientist measure the intensity of an earthquake. then the students either made a visual art project on a paper showing one of the types of faults, or built a structure with Popsicle sticks and put it on a "fault" (two Kleenex boxes side by side) to show what the motion of the fault looked like. then each group presented their project with 2 facts about earthquakes.
since they do rotations we taught the lesson three times, the first time it was really crazy and we had to make some adjustments for the next two lessons, we went over the instructions for the projects step by step and had the students tell us after what the steps were, so the next two lessons went a lot smother. anyway, it was really fun and harder than I expected.

Moon Festival

This is my digital story about the chinese legend of the lady in the moon!

Digital Story Reflection

Doing this assignment I learned a lot more about the legend of the moon festival that I had heard bits and pieces of while I was in china, it was fun to put together the pieces I had heard with the many versions I read of the legend to make my story. Most of the technical skills I already knew how to do, but there were a few things I learned, for exaple; how to use Audacity to cut music up to fit the story, how to put the pieces together to make up a digital story, and how to test and make a mic sound better. I learned that to make a digital story you have to have a story first, then find pictures, and finally music to fit both of those, and if you do those in the wrong order then your story won't turn out as good. all in all this was a fun activity that I would definitaly use in the classroom with my future students.

Digital story Script

1. In china there is an autumn festival when the moon is the most beautiful and full, some say there is a lady who lives in the moon.

2. Let’s travel back in time to find the story of why.

3. They say at this time there were ten suns that took turns warming the earth. One day all ten came out and started scorching the earth.

4. The emperor of china commanded Houyi, a great archer, to shoot down all but one of the suns.

5. When he did, as a reward the emperor gave Houyi a pill that gave eternal life, but told him to prepare one year before taking it.

6. Houyi put it in a box and went away for awhile; his beautiful wife Chang’e was curious and looked in the box, when Houyi came back she accidentally swallowed it because she was scared.

7. The pill made her really light and started to float all the way up to the moon.

8. Houyi was so sad he made himself a palace on the moon until he could find a way to get her down.

9. They say that the moon festival is the only time of year that Chang’e gets to see her husband Houyi so that is why the moon is so big and beautiful on that night.

10. Now we travel back to the present, we see that this night when the moon is the biggest each year families get together eat a big meal and watch the moon together.

Welcome to my Blog

Welcome to Annalynne Thomas's Blog page, it will be exciting to get to know everyone! here is a little about me. I grew up in bountiful, I had seven brothers and no sisters. I went to college in St. George and in Provo, and I met my husband while I was in St George. I don't have any children yet, but I do have a hampster. I love children and have always wanted to be a teacher. I love everything I have learned and look foreward to being a teacher.