The Girl with the Brown Crayon

Paley's literacy instruction inspires me to invovle the same type of discussions in my own lessons. I really enjoyed the connections that Reeny is able to make; the way that she thinks outside of the box. Reeny looking up to Frederick, allows the class to look at different essential human needs. I would also like to incorporate the debate part into my classroom. I think that children being able to share their ideas about their peers ideas is a great learning tool. It also gives everyone a chance to say what they think. I remember reading books in elementary school with the class and many children debating on what they thought the book was about. I was able to get a lot more out of the reading; being able to hear ideas that I never thought of. When I teach reading I would like to incorporate different ways to portray a reading. For example, in the book, they had drew a huge poster of Frederick sitting on the stones. They also incorporate drama and writings into what they were reading. I think that using different techniques in the class is important. Being a very visual and hands on person myself, it would be great to do more interesting things with reading. It would be a great way to get children involved and wanting to read. Overall I thought that Paley was a great teacher, and knew how to connect with her students. Being able to connect with her students allowed them to be more free to discuss and explore their reading.
One of the things that fascinated me the most was Reeny discussions. For being in kindergarten I thought that she really looked into the stories. I feel that I learned something from her.

Literature Circles- Tuesday Experience

I have not yet since my teacher incorporate literature circles in her classroom. I have talked with her about working with a small group of children on literature. If i have the opportunity i would defiantly have a literature circle. I think that it is a great way for students to be more exposed to different reading materials. I feel that it is hard to sometimes get children interested in reading, but if they were able to find something that they like it would be more meaningful to the children.
Literature circles are something that i would like to use in my own classroom. It reminds me of show and tell but with books.

Reading and Writing Workshops-Tuesday Experience

The writing workshops that i have seen my Tuesday experience allowed the children to work collaboratively. I had noticed that this helped many of the children with ways to fix their work. The teacher had a chance to assess the children ad found out the problem areas. She let me know that the workshops were the best times for her to meet with the children and give them a chance to help each other. She continued to let me know that she enjoys the workshops and incorporates them at least once a day.
I feel that there are advantages and disadvantages to the workshops. The advantages are that the children are able to work with others and get a wide range and help. The children will be able to feed off of each others strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, I think that workshops could be a difficult to manage. Anytime there is group work, children may tend to slack off, knowing that the teacher is not able to see them at all times.
I would love to try the workshops in my own classroom. I enjoy the fact the children are able to work together, sometimes this is better for students. Children are sometimes able to understand direction more from their peers than the teacher.

Reading and Writing Workshops

Reading and writing workshops are group work that children work on together. The children will be assigned certain tasks in either reading or writing. The teacher should go around and meet with individual groups and assessing. I think that this is a great way for children to learn from each other.