Super Stupendous STEAM

STEAM stands for Science Teachnology Engineering Art and Mathematics. Now, you may be thing, "Science, technology, engineering, and math all makes sense together, but why art?". Well, I'm glad you asked! This could be representaed as inclusion of Language Arts or as creative art. Students may integrate these as oral or written explanations or their scientific discorveries, drawings, videos, paintings, charts, diargrams, or an other visual or creative way they feel that they can best express their thinking and understanding.
Examples of this may also include:

• Engineering and Science Journals
• Presentations
• Drawings of their predictions and conclusions
• Written summaries of their experiementations

Books and Lessons:

• 11 Experiements That Failed by Jenny Offill and Nancy Carpenter - Lessons: Questions, hypothesis, what to do, what happened, experiements fails sometimes, encourages students to be curious and to experiment, teaches importance of having adult supervision. 
• The 3 Little Pigs - Lessons: Incorporates opoprtunity fo design thinking and engineering, have students make their own houses using different mateirals and see how their designs and engineering hold up against the big bad wolf.
• Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polocco - Lessons: recycling, teaching diversity, opportunity to write about their creations.
• The Mitten by Jan Brett - Lessons: sequencing events in the story and coding skills (Found on Teachers Pay Teachers).

Apps:

• NOVA
• Tappity
• PBS Play and Learn

All about: Sensory Integration, Ortan Gillingham, & Montessori

Sensory Integration:

Have you walked into a classroom lately? Bright colors everywhere you look, posters filling the spaces on every wall, brightly lit LED lighting,  loud noises coming from every direction, and stacks and stack of books, movies, papers, crafting tools, and toys piling high in every corner. It can be quite over stimulating for even a grown adult such as myself. Just imagine this same situation for a child that already has difficulty paying attention for more than ten minutes at a time. What a nightmare!
Now, just to be clear, bright colors and posters on walls is not inherently bad. However, many modern classrooms have become much less sensory friendly in the past decade.



Many people are disinformaed about our senses, as I learned from the presentation, we do not just have five senses! We also have vestibular and proprioceptive senses. Vestiubular senses focus on the position of the body and its movement. For example, feelings of balance and movement. You may not like fast roller coasters or sitting in the back seat of your aunty's minivan while she drives quickly down a curvy road. Propriopceptive senses process information through contraction and stretching of our muscles and by bending, straightening, pulling, or compressing joint between bones. For example, when you're stretching in your hot yoga class or hanging from the pull up bar at the gym, these movements help to refocus your attention.

Solution Ideas:

• Provide students with frequent opportunities to move!
• Provide a variety of space for individual and group activites
• Provide with opporutnity to choose between a variety of activities, both physical and mental.
• Natual lighting instead of LED lighting
• Flexible seating options
• Opportunity for active and unstructured play

Orton- Gillingham

Created by Samuel Torrey Orton and Anna Gillingham. They brought listening, speaking, reading, and writing together so that students would have the optimal help needed to enhance their learning for all of the language skills. This approach is an action-based learning.

Resources: 

• Orton Gillingham Online Academy
• Making Teaching Fun
• ABC Magic Phonics
• Starfall
• Reading Eggs
• Special Words

Montessori Education

Maria Montessori developed specialized mareials after she realized that children understand complex concepts better if all of their senses are engaged. She also realized that the role of the teacher should be to facilitate student learning and not dominate student learning. She focused on the whole child with the goal of developing responsible adults. Components of Montessori education should include freedom and autonomy of the child, structure and order should be cale and chaos free, reality and nature should be included regularly. 

The Wonders and Uses of Nearpod

This amazing instructional platform provides a space for teachers and students to engage and participate in formative assessment and dynamic media so that they are able to learn and build new experiences together. This platform enables and enhances student participation while promoting 21st century skills and creating digital citizens. Teachers have the option to choose between a variety of pre-created lessons of all subjects and age ranges or they may create their own lessons and fun activities. There are many different games, vitual field trips, discussion tools, and quiz tools available to be inserted into a lessons. The teacher may also download a presentation they have created from Goolge Docs or Google Slides into their Nearpod lesson. Once they have picked the lesson or created their own lesson, their students may access it from any of their own devices using a code given to them upon starting the lesson. They may interact with the lesson, with the teacher, and with each other in real time throughout the lesson. They can participate in games together, write on virtual sticky notes and post them on virtual boards, go on virtual field trips, and take quizes created by the teacher in real time. All answers and progress are recorded for the use of assessment by the teacher.

Nearpod Categories:

• Nearpod DCL: Digital Citizenship & Literacy
• Nearpod CCE: College & Career Exploration
• Nearpod EL: English Learners
• Nearpod LL: Learning Lab
• Nearpod HPL: Historical Perspective & Literacy
• Nearpod SEL: Social & Emotional Learning

Cost:

• Silver (Free) - Includes sessions sizes up to 40, storage space up to 50 MB, lesson size up to 20MB, and basic features.
• Gold ($120/year) - Includes session sizes up to 50, storage space up to 3GB, lesson size up to 50 MB, and advanced features.
• Platinum (349/year) - Includes session size up to 75, storage space up tp 5 GB, leasson size up to 50 MB, premium features.
• School & District (Contact Nearpod 1-855-NEARPOD) - Includes session size up tp 200, storage space up to 20 GB, lesson size up tp 80 MB, and all features.
• Higher education (Contact Nearpod 1-855-NEARPOD) - Includes session size up to 250, staorage space up to 25GB, lesson size up to 100 MB, all features.

My Nearpods

https://share.nearpod.com/afjqf84cQ0
https://share.nearpod.com/LjA1EUsk30
https://share.nearpod.com/30vKWNSGH0

Traditional Literature Book Blog #2

Stone Soup
Witten by Ann McGovern
Illustrated by Winslow Pinney Pels
Published by Scholastic Inc. in September 1st, 1986
Genre: Traditional Literature
Number of Pages: 32




Overview
In this timeless book, a very clever man successfully tricks an old woman into believing that soup can be made from a stone. As the pot of water boils witht he stone in it, the clever man urges the old woman to add wore and more ingredients until the soup is a feast that is "fit for a king". The illustrations perfectly depict their time period and are a great representation of what the story is trying to convey.

"Effective simple story about a young wayfarer who tricks an old woman into making a hearty soup. A funny story." 

-- Publishers Weekly, 

Grade Level: Pre-k - 3

Content Area: Literature, Friendship, Teamwork

Student Connection: This is a wonderful book to help depict the meaning of teamwork and friendship. 

If you were having problems with students not wanting to work together of work in groups, this would be

a great book to help them to understand why doing so is so important and constructive to their learning envionment. 

Traditional Literature Book Blog

The Ugly Duckling
Written by Hans Christian Andersen
Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Published by Marrow Junior Books on March 24th, 1999
Genre: Traditional Literature
Number of Pages: 40




Overview
This classic and unforgetable survival story of a brave and awkward little duckling marching through a cold and harsh winter full of many unwanted and unexpected experiences continues to have a place in many people's hearts. It is a reminder to us all of the patience and perserverence it takes to discover tru happiness in life. The beautiful watercolor illustrations perfectly depict the countryside and help to really bring every aspect of the book to life.

Grade level: K-3
Content Level: Science, Literature, Reading
Student connection: Not only is this a wonderful book to teach meaningful life lessons and hardships, this is also a great book to talk about habbitats and environments, as well as, the life cycle and habitat of a young duckling such as the main character. This would be great for gited students in younger grades or for students falling behind in older grades who need a little bit more of a push to understand and connect real life application to concepts that are being taught and introduced.

Poetry Book Blog #2

The Llama Who Had No Pajama
Written by Mary Ann Hobermann
Illustrated by Betty Fraser
Published by HMH Books for Young Readers on April 1, 2006
Genre: Poetry
Number of Pages: 68




Overview
This wonderful book of poetry covers every topic from centipede to whales, from swinging on swings to ice-skating in winter, from eating applesauce to celebrating birthdays, the wonderful poems in this amazing collection convey the experiences of childhood in a fresh new light without sacfrificing its timelessness. The illustrations by Betty Fraser dont just add to the text, but enhance it all together. With beautiful pops of color and discriptive imagary, readers will be engaged and entertained from beginning to end.

"Hoberman's rhythms are lively and agile, and her imagination and sense of humor are still in tune with young readers. Fraser's simple but detailed gouache and watercolor illustrations exhibit the same qualities . . . Good for beginning or experienced readers of poetry, this should indeed become a favorite."

--School Library Journal

Grade level: K-2

Content Area: Poetry, Literature, Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, Early Literacy

Student Connection: This book is not only full of rhyming words and alliterations, but it also full of all sorts of information about different experiences. This book could be used for a vieriety of different topics and a great way to introduce new experiences to your class!

Poetry Book Blog

The Wonkey Donkey
Written by Craig Smith
Illustrated by Katz Cowley
Published by Scholastic Paperbacks on October 2018
Genre: Poetry
Number of Pages: 24




Overview
   Children and adults of all ages will love this spunky, funky book! Follow the journey of the endearing, wonky donkey and find out what all he gets into along the way. Warning: this book may cause fits of laughter and a demand to be reread. The illustrations of this lovely wonky donkey help to further express the silly nature of the book and its intent to make readers laugh.

Grade level: K - 3
Content area: Literature, Poetry, English, Phonemic Awareness
Student connection: This would be a wonderful book for a phonemic awareness lesson to teach rhyming words. Especially if you had students who were struggling to grasp the concept. It would be great to read in a small group and maybe have them hold up something or do something every time they hear words that rhyme. If I wanted to take it one step further for gifted students, I could have them to name out the sounds and explain to me what would make the words rhyme.