Karen+Moede



Hello, My name is Karen Moede. I was born and raised in League City, Texas. I am a senior at Clemson University majoring in Early Childhood Education. I have been given the opportunity to complete my Practicum Experience at Lake Forest Elementary in Greenville, South Carolina. I have enjoyed my time in the classroom and I love working with the children, but my dream is to work with children on a sports field. I am currently in the process of applying for advanced education in Sports Management. I am excited to gain more knowledge about education of young children this year so that I can apply it in my future. Outside of school, I am very involved in Crosspoint Church. I work with the three and four year old children every Sunday. These children are such a blessing in my life. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my friends and family. I enjoy being outdoors and I love to play soccer, ultimate frisbee, swim and dance. The highlight of my year is college football season with college basketball season in close second. I am looking forward to the rest of this year and all the things I will learn about Early Childhood Education.

= Karen Moede's PLN =



__The Inspired Apple__: The Inspired Apple is a blog by a first grade teacher, Babbling Abby. This blog consists of many great lesson ideas, recipes, and other helpful hints. The blog provides lessons that are engaging, hands on and allow the students to be active and explore in the classroom. She provides teachers with ideas on how to teach lessons, tools that enhance learning in the classroom and links to other great sources. She also gives advice on how she manages different aspects of the classroom, for example how she does homework in the classroom. Overall, she provides a teacher's perspective and activities that have worked in her classroom. __What the Teacher Wants__: What the Teacher Wants is a blog written by two teachers, Rachelle and Natalie. This blog contains a wide variety of information from classroom management tips to math worksheets. This blog has worksheets for every subject and ideas on how to modify worksheets if they seem to be overwhelming. There are a lot of other teachers that comment on the blog and ask for help with modifying activities and these two teachers respond with how they would modify the activity. The blog has descriptions of activities that they did in the classroom to engage the children and then they discuss if the activity worked or not. __Kindergarten Crayons__: Kindergarten Crayons is written by a Kindergarten teacher, Fran Kramer, who has a credential in special education. This blog is filled with great lesson ideas for kindergartners. It is filled with ideas that she has used in her own classroom. She includes links to websites that may catch your interest if you like on of the ideas she has posted on the blog. Her blog contains many creative worksheet ideas or packets that are used to reinforce the main concepts. She has pictures of the children's work samples and activities for every subject and most seasons. Throughout this process of searching for different tools that I can use in the classroom, I have learned that there is so much out there that can be helpful. I have also learned that teachers blogs provide so many lessons, activities and free worksheet. These blogs will be very beneficial in student teaching by helping me to develop ideas for lessons in a classroom. I have also learned how easy it is to find information through a teacher's blog. I learned that there is so much information out there and instead of sorting through pages of worksheets, a blog is a quick an easy way to find activities that reinforce the concept being taught. I also enjoyed the blogs because I was encouraged to see that even some of the "great ideas" did not always work in the classroom, but that it was okay and they figured out how to modify and adapt the lesson in order for it to work in the classroom. This assignment has given me a new appreciation for blogs and the sharing of information amongst teachers.

= SMART  = media type="custom" key="10840927" The blabberize activity meets both the ELA standards and Guiding Principles. These are meet through the use of an interactive technology that allows students to hear and participate in oral language development. This particular activity allows students to integrate communication skills, reading skills, research skills and technology together in order to produce a product. The standards and the guiding principles emphasize an importance on integrating each of these skills together in order to help the child become an independent reader. This activity, while fun, is still meaningful and purposeful because students need to find a poem to read, rehearse the reading of the poem, and then listen to the poem to make sure it sounds correct. This activity allows students to be involved in the process of becoming a fluent reader. They learn where to find information, how to read something fluently through practice and how to listen for mistakes. This project allows students to hear themselves reading and if used multiple times in a year, students can compare their development in reading fluently and expression. Students are able to independently critique their own reading and make improvements where they feel is necessary. Overall, this activity is great for the development of student independence in their reading abilities and skills.

__Image From__:http://drawsketch.about.com/od/cartooning/ss/cutecartoon.htm __Poem From__: By Shel Silverstein http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/04/27/pm_silverstein