Monday, February 18, 2013

Holly's Week 7- What do you think? (Lupita)


Since Lupita is a new student in Mrs. Potter’s class, Mrs. Potter should try to find out what interests Lupita.  In the Breitfelder article, there is a wonderful idea of having the parent of the student write an essay about their child because they know their child better than anyone.  Mrs. Potter could ask Lupita’s parents to do this in order to learn about Lupita, her interests, strengths and/or struggles, and her family.  Mrs. Potter could then keep those interests in mind so that if she has an opportunity to use them in her lesson, then Lupita may have more to say on the topic and get involved or at least comfortable with what she is learning since she can relate to it.  In Maple’s article, it was noted that when a teacher plans a lesson they should keep in mind who could add depth to the class discussion based on their certain perspective or experiences that differ from the rest of the class.  Mrs. Potter should keep Lupita’s perspective in mind when teaching, but first she has to get Lupita comfortable talking in class (which I will touch on soon how to do so).

Lupita has not had much experience with the use of toys, paper, crayons, puzzles, and scissors or experience interacting with other children.  Yet, when she finished her work and had free time she was able to successfully complete a puzzle that was difficult for other students.  Lupita was able to help the other students work on their puzzles.  This shows that if Lupita had more opportunities like this, then she would be more open to sharing her ideas and work with new items she did not often use before.  A literacy center activity could involve the use of paper, scissors, and crayons to make a child’s favorite scene from a book in order for Lupita to share her opinion about the book and have the opportunity to have something common to talk about with others at the center.  At the center, the students would also have to use the tools to make their picture of the scene from a book so Lupita would have a chance to use classroom tools and see how others use them to make new creations.

It is not explicitly stated, but I think that Lupita may be an ELL student because she was raised in Mexico and was able to finish a Spanish worksheet early.  This may be an assumption, but if an issue should be addressed.  Since Lupita was raised by her grandmother in Mexico, her grandmother could be the one to write the essay about the student that was discussed earlier to learn more about Lupita’s past experiences with English or anything else.  Breifelder had some great ideas that can be used for ELL students, visual learners, and just to help out any students.  Mrs. Potter could use visual supports/cues throughout the school day so students can process the English language.  Breifelder’s article gave many examples of how to use pictures in the classroom to help such students.  I like the idea of using pictures for the daily and weekly schedules and have seen my MT use this method.  Pictures can show what the words say for activities that are to be done for the day.  For example, when it is reading time there could be a card that has the word “Reading” and a picture of a child holding a book up to read.  Schedules can give students a “sense of time and predictability,” so they are not as overwhelmed for the work load that day.

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