DOGOnews is a great website for both students and teachers. Students can make their own personal page where they can earn points and badges, follow other users, bookmar & share news, books, and movies, as well as express their opions about news, books, and movies. The website provides students with great websites and news articles on current events. They can chose articles from various subjects including science, sports, social studies, etc. They can also go on a tab that says maps and on there the map goes on different points and talks about current events going on around the world. I think this is a great website for students to use in any content area but most especially science.

I chose the article entitled “Scientist Plan Billion Dollar Journey To The Center Of The Earth” to share with an 8th grader and a 10th grader. The article talks about how an international team of scientist are on a mission to ‘Explore the Earth Under the Sea’. They want to reach the mantle and extract samples and it talks about how they plan to accomplish their goals. Both students seemed to be very interested in the article. The 8th grader said it was “pretty cool, a little extreme” she also stated that it was a little difficult to read because of the big words being used, she kind of understood it and the pictures helped. However, she tought, after reading the article, that it is not possible and thinks its a waste of money. The 10th grader, on the other hand, believes this is possible and that he hopes they find something that won’t melt to be able to get to the mantle. He stated that it was easy to read, he understood, and disagreed with the fact that it was a waste of money. He tought it was important to find out whats under the crust.

This is the URL to the article: http://www.dogonews.com/2012/10/7/scientists-plan-billion-dollar-journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth

TIME For Kids is a weekly news magazine available in both print and on-line. The magazine covers issues from a wide range of real-world topics across content areas and grade level. Also, TFK meets standards across the curriculum, including language arts, social studies, science, math and geography which are clearly listed in the teacher’s edition to guide instruction. I think that the articles available in site are great resources to get students motivated and engaged in reading and learning about new topics.

I chose the article entitled “Sleep Tight! More sleep helps children do better at school” as a One Great text to share with a fifth grader. The article talks about how in a new study students with less sleep were actually more cranky, frustrated and distracted. When I showed this article to my student her reaction was very positive. She seemed to be very interested in the topic since she immediately agreed and mentioned “sometimes I feel like that like when I stay up late watching T.V. I feel tired and don’t want to wake up in the morning.” She was able to relate to the article and talked about how she sometimes feels like she can’t pay attention in class because she gets sleepy. Overall, her attitude toward the text was very positive and she was very interested in learning about this topic particularly because it was something she could relate to.

Here is the website address to the article:

http://www.timeforkids.com/news/sleep-tight/54321

“The Chaos” is a poem written by a Dutch writer/teacher named Gerard Nolst Trenité.  The poem highlights numerous cases of the English language’s irregular spelling and pronunciation.  I really like this poem because not only is it written in a humorous way, but it really  surprised/reminded me of how irregular the English language can be.  You could use this poem in teaching blends, digraphs, or diphthongs especially (I think that you could pick the poem apart in doing this, as in maybe use a snippet from the poem in teaching these concepts since this poem is pretty long).  You could also use it in a writer’s workshop to inspire students or have them mimic the style/theme of the poem, etc. or you could even use it just to point out how irregular the English language can be.  I think that this poem can add a bit of fun to many language lessons in a classroom.

I showed this poem to three 4th graders, an 8th grade student and a 10th grade student.  The 4th graders’ responses were all positive, although they mainly said that they liked the poem because it had rhyme.  I think that, in a 4th grade class, this poem would be better utilized if I used it along side instruction.  I think that 4th graders still need guidance on a poem like this because none of them commented about how it highlighted irregularities in the English language.  The 8th and 10th grader also liked the poem, and they were able to see the intention of the poem very easily.  They laughed while they were reading it because sometimes they stumbled and had a hard time pronouncing the words themselves.  One of them said that they forgot that a sequence of letters [in the English language] could have so many different pronunciations.

“The Chaos”

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!

The one great text I chose is a video from The Miniature Earth Project. It is an updated version of a text originally conducted by Donella Meadows in her “State of the Village Report” published May 24, 1990. Instead of using the earths actual population, Miniature Earth reduces the population of the world to a statistically representative 100 people. By reducing the world’s population to 100 people, it helps conceptualize who the world is made up of and the stark reality of the conditions in which many people live today. I like this video because it could be used in conjunction with a text entitled If the World Were a Villiage: A Book about the World’s People. This text goes into greater detail about than the video; however, both would be great resources to use for a math and or social studies lesson. I introduced both of these texts to a fifth grade student attending Fulmore Middle School. She said she preferred the video because it was “shorter and easier to pay attention to”. She said that the book was interesting, but that there were so many facts that it was hard to remember all of them. I assured her that she didn’t need to remember all of them, but rather she needed to understand what those facts represented and how they contributed to how we see the world. Overall, these two texts are a great way to pair math and social studies together in a way that helps students become conscious about the world around them. Below is the video from The Miniature Earth Project.

This famous image is entitled “American Progress”. Painted in 1872 by John Gast, it portrays an allegorical female figure of America leading pioneers and railroads westward.  This image is synonymous with the American belief of Manifest Destiny.

I chose this particular image not only for its metaphorical meaning, but also complexity and the potential it would have for an amazing discussion during Social Studies. This image would work very well during a unit on America’s expansion westward. This beautiful painting has the possibility of sparking conversations about technology, transportation, culture, families, and jobs.  Additionally, I selected this particular image because it contains a multitude of smaller vignettes that illustrate a deeper meaning. A discussion could be had about what the ethereal woman represents and how each of these vignettes underneath her relate to a particular aspect of westward expansion.

I shared this image with a few students in my 4^th grade class. Here are a few of their responses:

“She looks like a giant angel, a long time ago. There’s storm in the corner.”

“I like this picture….I want to know more.”

“It looks like all those people are running from her…a ghost.”

“It’s a god. Nobody’s looking at her. I want to find out what’s happening.”

The One Great Text that I shared was a poem by Kenn Nesbitt. I found this author while looking through some of the author presentations made by my fellow classmates. One presentation, over Kenn Nesbitt, explained how his poetry could be used for science. I went on his website poetry4kids.com and found one poem that I thought was not only funny but a great educational tool. The poem is entitled My Senses All are Backward. I thought this poem was great when talking about the five senses with students. It’s a fun way to explore and check for understanding.

Click here to view the full poem!

I shared this poem with my reading group that consisted of five students. They really enjoyed the poem and found it very funny. Here are a few of their responses:

“He was funny”

“I love the poem”

“I like that the senses are backwards”

“I like that he likes the smell of skunks”