Elaine --- just a quick update on the spiderweb---well how ideas evolve in the classroom,
Used the book Spiders by Gail Gibbons to help "build" the web, it's a great tie in!!! So far we have the seven strong foundations silks radiating from the center---you becoming a reader----each silk cord represents "one of the tools we carry with us everyday everywhere to help us learn (survive)": they are our nose, mouth, eyes, ears, and hands AND our heart and brain. As mot has evolved with me and my students---I have come to realize that SCHEMA is the utmost important element to develop with young readers---and everything else falls into place---inferring, visualizing, summarizing etc----I alway kept falling back to have you ever tasted, or seen or remember how that sounds--- So when I teach the concept of schema----I explained to the children that schema is every touch they have made----smooth, hot, wet, dry, hard, prickly----(see the science in this!!!); every taste that has melted on their tongue---sweet, buttery, sour, bitter, salty, hot, cheetoee; every image reflected in their eyes--sparkly, dull, reds, yellows, straight, croooked, curvy; every sound they have heard--loud, soft, screechy, drippy-droppy; every smell that has wafted into ttheir nose--popcorny, perfumy, orange, lemony, skunky, manurey---; then the heart--how they have felt---sad, scared, unloved, cared about---and the brain--knowledge they have aquired from someone else, as well as the brain being always engaged to wonder----I have to tell you that kindergartners and first graders have gotten this much better that my summer school second graders, but then again I only have them for 4 weeks. And this sounds like CONNNECTIONS----so let's get back to the web a center (the reader) and the seven radiating cords---the first circular weave was the wondering--the asking questions-----why does it loook that way? why does it make that sound? I wonder how it feels? Does it have a smell? Why is she smiling??? It really became much easier for the students to ask questions---because now they were connecting their questions to their schema (and hopefully build to more creative curiosity). Anyway this is where we are at. My plan is that next week we will add the next weave which will probably be visualization. During the regular year, I plan to spend way more time on schema---particularly as it relates to our "personal bag of tools" and really make the connections to science--- I'll send pics of what we end up with at the end of next week!!! olga _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
