Magic Tree House Unit!

I finally submitted my unit plan for Dinosaurs before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne! It was the most exciting moment of my semester. I don’t think that it’s my best work, but I will definitely tweak it before I actually use it. 🙂 Here it is! Ta-da! 🙂

Dinosaurs Before Dark Unit Plan

If anyone actually takes a look at this, I really hope they like it. Feel free to give me some feedback on anything that you think I could improve on. I’m always open to some constructive criticism, as every teacher should be!

– Miss E

The 18 Best 90s Pop Songs You Forgot Existed

This has nothing to do with teaching, but I just had a nostalgic moment. 🙂

Dinosaurs Before Dark

I am so excited! Today, I began writing a unit on the book Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne. Osborne’s Magic Tree House series is my favorite book series for kiddos, which means that I am more than excited to be writing this unit. I probably won’t get to teach it in my student teaching experience, but I will definitely keep it and use it someday. I will also post it once it is finished, but for now, I’ll just give a little background information about it! 

It’s a 5-day literacy unit for 2nd grade. I haven’t thought of an introductory or culminating activity just yet, but I’m trying to come up with something super fun! 🙂 I also haven’t finished finding all of the lovely common core standards that I’ll use. So far I have CC.1.5.2.B, CC.1.2.2.F, and CC.1.2.2.K. I got these from http://pdesas.org/Standard/Views.

Lesson 1 is a vocabulary lesson on chapter 2 of the book. In the lesson I use an anchor chart on which the kiddos write the word, draw a picture of the word, and come up with a sentence using the word. I found this idea at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/557390891351196792/

Lesson 2 is a comprehension lesson on chapters 3 and 4. I have the kiddos complete a KWL chart and draw a picture of a dinosaur using characteristics given in the chapters. This is a KWL chart: http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/pdf/kwl.pdf. (This website has a bunch of free printable graphic organizers and such!)

Those are the only lessons I have completed so far. Lesson 3 will be another comprehension lesson using visual aids, artifacts, and graphic organizers. Lesson 4 will be a reader response activity using drama, art, or music. Lesson 5 will be a reading-writing connection activity.

There you have it! I will post updates as I go. 🙂

-Miss E 🙂  

That awkward first post

Hello all!

I’ve been dabbling with the idea of creating a blog as I finish my undergraduate studies and enter into teaching. Right now, I am in a pre-student teaching experience, teaching a second grade class. I plan on blogging about the experiences that I have throughout the rest of my time student teaching and sharing resources I find or use in my lessons. My first goals for this blog are to actually keep up with it and for someone to actually read what I post! 🙂 I hope that someday my posts will help out another pre-service teacher because trust me, I know we all need all the help and resources we can take in.

-Miss E