Hot Pumpkin

Shelley Lovett at Childcareland has started posting YouTube videos about the lessons she teaches with the materials she creates and gathers.

This month she posted a lesson about playing a game "Hot Pumpkin" (similar to hot potato) during her large group time.


Here are the features that I think Shelley does exceptionally well with her site and her pumpkin video:

• She provides and models the materials.
• She gives suggestions for alternative materials.
• When she purchases materials, she tells where they are purchased and the cost.
• She identifies potential problems and provides cautions against them.
• She creates a lesson that can be naturally differentiated!
• She demonstrates how she differentiates with different skill levels.
• She explains how she makes her teacher decisions.
• She tells where she gets her music and offers alternatives.

Check out more of the videos of Shelley's Lessons and explore all of the creations on her site.

Book lists and vocabulary

Have you noticed my Shelfari shelf has changed? (You may have to scroll down the blog and look to the right hand side to see my shelf.)

I was originally playing with the features of Shelfari with the books that I read for myself. Then the Boardmaker listserve on Yahoo had a thread going about favorite books and correlating vocabulary.

That made me think.

Since this blog is really about education and educational strategies, what if I used Shelfari to organize the books that I use in my classroom? So I started playing with the features again.

Here's what I've decided so far:

I will post the book and how many stars I think it deserves for classroom use. Under the review feature (move your cursor over the picture of the book on my Shelfari shelf and you will be able to see my review), I will post:

theme/unit
age/grade level
concept
vocabulary words

I will try to have a blog post with a list of all of the books in a particular theme.

Since I'm still in the "playing with the features stage,"
I reserve the right to change my mind. :-)