Critique of Kelly Jacobs' Blog

Kelly found a resource that gave her ideas on how to teach first graders how to count whole numbers up to 100.  The purpose of the activity was for students to look for patterns while counting, reading, and writing whole numbers to 100.  The lesson required students to add blocks and keep track of their place value, regrouping when necessary.  Kelly made note of a website, illuminations.nctm.org that virtually allowed students to add the blocks on the computer.  The technology incorporated into this lesson helped make it more efficient, effective, and enhanced.  Kelly argued that by doing this activity online, the teacher was saved from a mess, while the students remained more focused with technology being incorporated.

Critique of Kelly's blog: I really liked her idea and concepts illustrated on how she was going to teach first graders to grasp the concept of counting whole numbers to 100.  The website she listed, illuminations.nctm.org seemed to have a lot of neat, helpful activities; however, I was not able to find the activity she planned on using for this lesson.  I think it could have been more useful if she would have provided to actual link to the activity.  I still think this is a great idea in order to teach young children how to count and the concepts of regrouping.  I think this activity would work best if the teacher demonstrated it first, then decided to let the kids play around with it by themselves, allowing them to be familiar with the program before they are face with it alone.

Standards Workout for Lab 3

For this workout, I went to the Indiana State Standards Website. The subject area I explored was English/Language Arts for the 2nd Grade. I examined the standard indicator 2.5.3., which is "Write a friendly letter complete with the date, salutation (greeting, such as Dear Mr. Smith), body, closing, and signature."

The resource I decided to use was from the standards website, which explored the format used in writing a letter. The purpose of this activity was for students to "write a friendly letter complete with the date, salutation (greeting), body, closing, and signature."

The lesson requires the teacher to discuss with the class how special pets can be to people and then have each student pick a particular pet to talk about. The pet can be either theirs, a relative's, or a neighbor's. The students then are asked to describe what the pet looks like and why this pet is so special to them. They are then told that they are going to learn how to write a letter to a friend. This letter will be called, "Can you find my pet?" and will consist of the several characteristics that the student recalls about their pet and what their pet means to them. One way to incorporate technology into this activity is allowing the students to go to the computer lab and type up their letters, focusing on the correct format used for friendly letters. Also, maybe have the students find a picture of a pet that looks like theirs using google images. Then, have the students print out their letters so they are able to see how the format is neat and precise.

Technology was integrated into this lesson to make it more efficient, effective and enhanced. By encouraging students to type their letter, not only were they learning the format of a friendly letter, but they were also becoming more familiar and efficient typing on a keyboard. The activity is effective because it allows students to get a better view of a letter printed out, making them feel special and professional. The lesson is enhanced due to the pictures of their pet they included either attached to their letters, or directly on the front.