Lesson three

The first part of Lesson 3 requests ways to help a 4th grader with reading comprehension by using Learning Express on the South Dakota State Library site. 
1.  The student must go to the South Dakota State Library site, click on the data base listing, and find Learning Express.  Click on Learning Express. 
2.  Click on the "School Center."  On the left side, click on "Elementary School, English Language Arts Skills Improvement."  To be able to use this feature, the student has to log in as a user.  After doing this, the students should click on "Informational Reading" and do the Practice tests, 1 and 2.
I went through both of these tests.  I would say that the student should do them, get them scored, and then do them again to practice the features that the student does not get the first time.  After getting a perfect score, I would have them work on the Literature Reading Practice and do the same practice with those two tests to help the student practice on skills that need improvement.

Part 2 of Lesson 3
This lesson requests ways to help a high school graduate improve his/her skills in office management in order to be able to get a job in this field. 

First of all, I would make sure the person was able to access the South Dakota State library site by having a library card number and password.  I would then show the person how to find the data bases and the section on "Learning Express."  I would show the student how to find the section on careers.

I went through all of the lessons in the section "Learn More About a Career."  This section is excellent and would be useful for any person who works with others in any business or organization.  The sessions I would recommend are called "Build Your Workplace Skills."  These sessions would be good reminders for teachers at the beginning of a school year, or any person who works with a group to refresh proper etiquette and communication to keep a positive business atmosphere. 

I would certainly recommend that the student read all of the information, take the quizzes, and the test.  I would also encourage the student to go back and see what questions were missed and what the correct answers are.  If the student had difficulties, I would suggest that he/she go through the information more than once and take written notes to help recall the information.


Part 3 of Lesson 3

This lesson has the student go through the section in Learning Express on the Career Center.  First of all, I would make sure the student is able to access Learning Express and has a library number and password to make full use of the site.

After the student clicks on "Career Center," he/she should look on the top listings and click on "Guidance,"and then "Explore Careers."  The student should read the information found under "nurse," and "pharmacy technician."  The preparation tests and information should be read and instructions followed on each page.  After these steps have been completed, he/she should look on the left side of the page and go through each item:  "Succeed in the Workplace; Prepare for Workkeys Assessments, and TOEIC."  I have read through this information and found it very helpful.  I would have liked to had this information as a high school student when I was looking for the career of my choice.  I would have also really appreciated all of the practice tests to review information that I may not have understood during my high school education or may have forgotten.  This information is excellent as a refresher course once a year, or when a person is anticipating a job change.

lesson 2

Lesson 2
I think the person could fix their steering wheel by watching the videos and reading the fact sheets. Since I am not a mechanic, I would print everything and have it right beside me so I would not make a mistake. I would be concerned about the air bag deploying, but the explanation is complete, and if directions are followed, the person should not have a problem. I thought it was great.
The part number for the 1989 Geo Prizm is A131L.

Lesson 2: the Mango lesson
I would show the student how to connect to the main library site, make sure the person had a library card number and knew their password. I would then help them find Greek or Hebrew and go through a lesson with them. I did Lesson 1 in the Greek. It was very well done, and it makes me think that it would be a fun challenge to learn a different language for my own information and experience. It would certainly be a helpful aide for a student who has other homework to do as well, and their time to practice a new language is limited.


Lesson 2, Tumblebook exercise
First of all, I would show them how to sign in to the library site along with their password, go to online resources listing to find the Tumblebook site.
After that, I would show him how to click the word "Mysteries," and then go to the Junior site and have pick the listings he would like to go through. I would suggest the 40 periodic references for a starting point, then go back and check the others. He should be able to find a book he has not read. He can also check further when he is reading these references to see if the book is appropriate for his age level and interest.

Tumble book activity

     The assignment was to match 2 fiction story books from Tumble books with a science lesson for third graders.
     I looked through the science stories, both nonfiction and fiction, listened to several of them and decided to use Ace Lacewing Bug Detective, and Ace Lacewing, Bad Bugs are my Business.  These stories would fit it very well with lessons on insects.  I would use it to introduce a unit on insects.  I would have the children listen to the stories or read them on their computers.  Their objective would be to collect information about insects that the stories included.  Their next objective would be to recognize how the author used those facts to make an interesting mystery story.  Last, I would have the students give a try at writing a fictional story about one of the insects used in the stories.

Lesson 1a World Book for Kids Lesson 1b, Lesson 1c

First of all I checked the Science Projects section.  I enjoyed looking over the projects and found some simple projects for younger students using worms.  The hydrofoil experiment was an easy project.
The second place I checked was the Games and Activities.  I tried the mazes, the tic tac toe games, and the math activities that involved coloring.  I tried different levels to see how difficult each level was.
I tried the flag matching activity.  I found that to be challenging.  I think the students would enjoy giving that a try as an activity that they don't spend a lot of time studying on a regular basis.

For the lesson 1b, I checked out the section, "Behind the Headlines."  I read through articles on animals, weather, space, and historic celebrations.  I also tried the Current Events game for several weeks.  I discovered that I needed to do more careful reading before I take the quizzes.  All of these articles would be very helpful to teach critical thinking for older students, plus provide up to date information for them on a variety of topics.  A student could choose an area of interest, read a certain number of articles and summarize them.  Following that activity the student could try the current event quiz and see how well they comprehended what they read.  The articles are quite easy to read and are interesting to read as well.

For the lesson 1c I checked the Advanced World Book section.  First of all, I looked through the story list of Hans Christian Anderson.  I decided to read through the Ugly Duckling.  After reading the story, I checked the notes and articles related to the author.  I didn't find a great deal of material that was as helpful as I expected, but I did find historical notes.
Next, I looked at the story of Huckleberry Finn.  I checked out the historical notes, the articles that could be found about Mark Twain and other available information.  I found this story to have some very interesting articles linked to the author and the story.  I especially enjoyed the news story of Mark Twain's visit with Helen Keller.  I would think it would be quite an experience to tell a story with a person touching your lips to follow the story and the teller's expressions.  The story was very interesting.  It would be particularly helpful to use after students did a study of Helen Keller and watched the movie of her and her teacher Anne Sullivan," The Miracle Worker."
I also think I would use the feature of having the story read aloud to the students.  I would encourage each student to sign in to the story and listen to it personally and then read the articles of interest that the teacher assigns and one that the student has chooses.  Students enjoy some illustrations when they read, so since there are no illustrations, it would be helpful to have them listen to the story to help hold their interest.

For the next lesson on World Book Discover, I checked out the World Book videos.  They were interesting and would help a student find a topic of interest.  The section on how to do a research project is definitely very helpful.  I would definitely put each student to work on an individual computer and have them work through this whole section.  Too often students do not understand the differences between primary and secondary resources.  They do not know how to cite and they do not what to take the time to gather all of the information.  World Book Discover has all of the information in one site.  I think students would enjoy making their own podcast, too.  Making a podcast would be a good addition to their written research paper because it would help them realize what they understood about their research.

comment

I was rereading my blogs and saw I typed "Gentle Reader" twice when I listed the blogs, sorry about not rereading my work carefully enough.  I have learned that it is best to write down the name before I switch to the next page.  I forget blog names pretty easily.



I am hoping to download some ebooks.  I am presently looking for some picture books that I can use for my students for group reading at the Promethean Board.  I am reading some of Beatrix Potter's books to them.  The pictures are so nice and big on the Pr. Bd.  Plus they are in color, it is marvelous.
  I am trying to find more books that have illustrations that I can read with the group.  It is so nice to have everyone look at the same page at the same time.

World Cat lesson

I looked up the site, I misnamed it.  It is entitled Church of Changing Frontier by Helen Belknap.
I put it into my book bag and then tried to download it, but my computer did not recognize the print, and I  had it search the internet to find the right program, but I was not successful.  I am thinking about trying sections of it at a time, rather than the whole thing.  I thought I would try to email it to myself, and see what happens.  I think some of the chapter titles look quite interesting in the Table of Contents.

notes on reading other blogs for lesson 7

I read through the blogs of "Gentle Reader," "Discover FCS," "Gentle Reader," "Teacher CJ," and "My Library Blog." 
I found that several of them had very similar comments to my own.  I was interested to see what topics they chose and the books and publications they found.  I noticed that they didn't have the same library listed at the top as I did, but we also didn't look for the same book.  I noticed that when I was looking for juvenile literature stories that involved dogs and horses, that Alexander Mitchell Library came up first several times, and Brookings Public Library came up several times.  I decided that they must have excellent children's sections in their libraries.  I have visited the Alexander Mitchell Library in Aberdeen and did find it to be a wonderful place for children's stories.  Since I teach younger children, I am always looking for good picture books and quality stories for children in grades K-5.