AFTER READING WORKSAMPLE
BEYOND READING WORKSAMPLE
Reflection on Frog and Toad Cyber Lesson
I am fortunate to be working at brand new school that recently received a huge grant for technology. This has allowed every classroom in our school to be outfitted with a Smart Board, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. We also have access to ninety laptops that are housed in our school along with the two desktop computers that we have located in each classroom. Currently, my students use the laptop computers during center time every Tuesday morning. During this time, students have been working on a program called MathTrek. When they have completed the assigned activity, they visit Starfall.com. This website allows students to read short stories and then complete various activities that relate to a phonics topic in the story.
These are great activities yet I wanted to connect more of my guided reading stories to computer activities. This assignment has allowed me to begin this process. The Cyber Lesson that I created is for my higher level reading group. It was based upon the book, Frog and Toad Are Friends. This book is a guided reading level 18. During the month of April, the students in my class began to study life cycles. We focused mostly on the life cycle of a frog. I thought that creating this Cyber Lesson for this time of the year would be a perfect way to connect reading, writing, and science.
I began the Cyber Lesson by first talking to my students about friends and what it means to be a good friend. We took a picture walk through the book and discussed the pictures and titles of the different short stories. We discussed what the stories may be about. I then gave each child a laptop and directed them to the Cyber Lesson. Each day for five consecutive days, we worked on the Cyber Lesson.
On the first day, before our picture walk, the students explored the introduction activity. Then, they began to work on the before reading activity. They discussed with one another what makes a good friends and what good friends do for one another. Students then began to read the text. While the students read the text, I monitored their accuracy and comprehension.
During the second time that my students worked on the Cyber Lesson, they completed the during reading activity. The students worked hard to tell what made Frog and Toad good friends. I was very impressed with the student’s completed Venn diagrams. The student’s work showed that they were comprehending the story and relating to the characters.
The after reading activity required students to write a letter to a friend to tell them why they were special. We have been working on writing friendly letters for the past two months. I think that this helped lead to the success that I had with this activity. My students were able to easily write letters to a peer telling them how they are special. Their letters included all five parts of a friendly letter. The bodies of the letter included many ways that their friends are special. Many of the ideas that the students used were some of the same ways that Frog and Toad were good friends. I loved the way that they incorporated what they learned from the story into their letters.
The beyond reading activity turned out great. The students created wanted posters for a good friend. Around the picture of the good friend that they drew, they were also responsible for writing words that would describe a good friend. All of my students were able to easily complete this task. I really liked the way that this activity forced them to think about the characteristics of a good friend.
Overall, I think that this Cyber Lesson activity was a huge success. The students were able to easily navigate through the entire lesson and they were very motivated to work because it involved using the laptops. The activities forced them to think about what was going on in the book and they were able to relate what they learned to real life. Due to the success and enthusiasm shown by the students, I am considering making more Cyber Lessons based on other books that I use in guided reading lessons.