Katie+Sharpe

**My name is Katie Sharpe and I am a senior studying Early Childhood Education at Clemson University in South Carolina. I am from Greenville, South Carolina, where I have lived my whole life. I have three wonderful sisters, Emily, Allie, and Julia. My mother's name is Sherry and my father's name is Robert. We have two cats as pets, Charlie and Clementine. Some of my hobbies include exercising, playing sports (volleyball), painting, hiking, and traveling. I absolutely love to travel. I have had to privilege of going to several different countries in Europe, such as Italy, Austria, Slovenia, and Turkey. I also have a passion for missions and spent part of Summer 2011 in Kenya on a mission trip with my church.**  **My hope is to one day teach Kindergarten. I love this age of children. They are so playful, energetic, and eager to learn. I would love to go overseas and teach somewhere for a short period of time. I would also love to do the Teachers for America program. What I want most is to be able to reach out and help the students in the areas that need help most. I am full of passion for children and I want to help every child be successful.**

Katie Sharpe's PLN **1) Kindergarten Hoppenings is a blog written by a Kindergarten teacher, Shannon Martin. In her blog, she lists books, helpful games to teach the ABCs, youtube videos that help with counting, and songs to sing with the children! Her blog is very interactive and fun for the children. I really like this blog because of the variety of games and activities is has for the students. I will probably use it a lot in my classroom.**  **2) Mixbook is a really neat way to customize your own photo albums and books for the classroom! You can design creations such as albums, yearbooks, calendars, invitations, stationary, scrapbooks, gifts, etc. for the classroom. I will definitely use this in my classroom because it is a great way to incorporate your students (and maybe their families) and have their pictures posted on the walls and around the room.**  **3) Pinterest is a blog that is full of all kinds of interesting, funny, and inspiring ideas. By selecting a topic, Pinterest pulls up a variety of different pictures related to that subject. This website is great for teachers because it has so many different creative crafts and inspirational teaching ideas. I love this website and definitely plan to use it in my class because I have gotten so many great ideas for activities with my students from it. And the activities are cheap and easy so they won't hardly cost me a thing!**    **Through my PLN, I have discovered that there are unlimited amounts of resources available for teachers to use in teaching. Before, I would have never thought to develop something like a PLN but through my developing and researching, I have come to see that it is important for teachers to have a PLN because it makes it a lot easier to find resources that you may need in the classroom. I am excited to continue developing my PLN throughout my teaching career!**

**Blabberize** **Poem from** media type="custom" key="10858310"
 * http://www.ibiblio.org/farming-connection/ruralwri/lucas/cowdream.htm**
 * Image from**
 * http://showingourpassion.wikispaces.com/Gabrielle**

**Blabberize correlates to the ELA standards. If I were teaching a kindergarten class, according to standard K-6: The student begins to access and use information for a variety of purposes. This standard could be demonstrated in the classroom through Indicator K-6.1, which states that the child will be able to identify print and non-print sources of information including books, pictures, charts, and media, such as videos, television, films, music and Internet. It could also be demonstrated through indicator K-6.6, which states the child will use appropriate voice level when speaking, if you had your child record his or her voice in the reading of the poem for this activity.**  **This activity correlates with the Guiding Principles as well. An example of this is Guiding Principle 4: Reading, writing, communication, and inquiry are interdependent. This is shown in this activity because in a class of kindergartners, if I had each child write their own story to the best of his/her ability, and then record his/her voice as the reader, he/she is demonstrating skills in writing, reading, speaking, listening, inquiry, and later viewing their Blabberize.**