Week 10 Blog Kelsi Vidal

I thought the Tompkins chapter was beneficial for me to read because I have not been in a classroom that uses a Basal Reading Program and this gave me a better idea of what they are.  I have obviously heard of them and had a little bit of knowledge about what the program was and how it was used in the classroom.  This seems like a good way to take a comprehensive look at a book and discover all of the elements and components.  It definitely seems like you would have to have an entire morning or at least a good portion of the day devoted to literacy to do lessons like Mrs. Ohashi demonstrates in the book.  When I visited my placement classroom for next year, the teacher told me a little bit about what an ordinary day might look like and she mentioned having the entire mornings as uninterupted literacy blocks and it sounded like she implemented similar kinds of lessons and stations focused around stories.  I am interested to see what this actually looks like when I go observe in May.  This chapter stressed the differentiation in the way students learn and strategies we can use to attempt to reach all of our students.  This is a point that is brought up again and again and it reminds me that we need to use different approaches and strategies to help students learn.

The article on centers by Linda Holliman was something I could really relate to because my CT implements centers everywhere in her classroom!  There are countless numbers of centers in the classroom and the students use them all the time.  Many of the areas in the classroom I didn't know could be considered centers, but after reading this article it makes sense why they would be considered centers.  Students have nothing but choices when choosing what centers to use and that was an important aspect in using centers in the classroom.  The article also talked about the teacher not being behind her desk, the classroom not being chaotic, but definitely not quiet.  I think this perfectly describes my CTs classroom because in the beginning I was surprised at how much freedom she gave the students and how she allowed the students to pretty much do what they wanted with minimal interference.  Now I am used to it, but before I wondered how she managed to let students have free range on what activities they wanted to do and do them as they pleased (the classroom definitely seemed like "controlled chaos" even though it may not have seemed like it my CT had complete control the entire time - which is a positive for center use).  I am also continually impressed with my CT as every week she seems to have come up with a new activity for students to engage in.  She will buy little things from all over the place and create new lessons and games for the students.  I'm sure this is a skill that comes in time, but she always seems to be thinking up new ideas and integrating them into her classroom...it's amazing!