Integration

This week I noticed my mentor Meghan's ability to effectively tie lessons together and integrate nearly all lessons we teach.  For example, I was doing a phonics lesson on the letter "f," doing reader's workshop lessons on "realism vs. fantasy," about fish and fishing trips, and she was teaching a science lesson about worms all in the same week.  She instinctively knew to remind our students each time we talked about the worms in the books during science that it was just like the worms in our fishing books from reader's workshop.  She reminded me to ask if anyone "knew what people used for fish food when fishing" when I had the students talk about their prior knowledge about "fish and fishing trips," having the students think about their connection to science again. She mentioned that I ask "what letter do you see on this book about fishing that we've just learned about in phonics?" (F).  Doing this for our student caused them to truly make connections, showing their excitement to see something they already knew and eagerly wanting to explain their observations.  She emphasized that they were becoming "experts" about fish, worms, and the letter f which also increased their confidence.