During class on Tuesday, February 3, 2009, I introduced a book that I had found called Incredible You! by Dr. Wayne Dyer. The reason that I chose to introduce this book to the class was because it was a self-help book for children with questions in the back to see how they would apply the information in the book to their own lives. Not only did this text have great info, but it also had great illustrations and was rhymy. However, it did mention God a couple of times... so be cautious with reading it to your class! I also lead a discussion about a 2nd grader's writing sample. During this discussion, I asked the class what they thought this child had done well. Some of the things that we agreed were well done was: spacing in between words, punctuation, writing on the lines, and the use of "time" words. We also discussed some things that we thought that the child should work on. We decided that this particular child needed to work on: using the lines effectively, spelling, and possibly concentrating on another topic.
Next, Rahkia and I presented a lesson plan called Veggie Monster. During this lesson plan, I read the book called The Veggie Monster by George McClements. The story line in this book is based around a child that turns into a "veggie monster" whenever he is forced to eat vegetables. After reading the book, we passed out worksheets to the class and crayons as a "warm-up" for them to brainstorm ideas for their writing task. After completing the worksheets, we had the class write a story about anything that the book reminded them of and gave them an opportunity to share their work with the class. There is also a way to incorporate mathematics into the lesson by making bar graphs from the worksheet information. Anyways, I feel as though the lesson went very well and I am posting the lesson plan on blackboard if anyone wants to use it in the future!