Memories..

Today in class we talked about five memories from our past. I talked a lot about the funny memory about my father and his rollerskates,but I am going to elaborate more on the warm memory. Growing up with a dozen or so cousins, it was always a packed house, especially around the holidays. We were always getting into something or another, good and bad. When Christmas came around, we always know what room the presents were hidden in, so my grandparents gave us a "gift" when we were young. They gave all of the grandkids a ribbon with a bell on it that we would wear around our necks. Everywhere we went, they would know because they could hear the bell ringing. Those things got me in so much trouble back in the day. When I went away for college, I felt as if things woud be different when I went home for the holidays. Instead, I was greeted by my grandparents and a shiny red bell an ribbon for me to wear.

All About Me Book

Today in class we made these "All About Me" books. Mine consisted of my love of baseball. And how my favorite team is the Texas Rangers. I decided to make my blog about how my parents fell in love at these games.

Once upon a time, there were two huge baseball fans that were both in the same game at the same time..sitting next to each other. Both were young and both loved the Rangers, so after a few innings, conversation sparked easily. Soon, converstaions about games became conversations about likes and dislikes. One thing led to another, and then came the first date.

The first date was nerve-wrecking for them both. They were scared that baseball was the only thing that they had in common. Once they first saw each other, sparks flew. The nerves just disappeared. And love began to grow. Dates consisted of dinners, movies, and of course, games.

As time went by, thheir love became a romance and they knew that they were meant to tbe together. After three years of dating, my mom wanted nothing more than to go to an away Rangers game on their anniversary. So he wisked her away, for a romantic little getaway. At the game, they were so excited an the Rangers were winning. Without warning, and totally unexpected, they turned my mom's attention to the jumbotron. There, in front of thousands of people, was a proposal. Shocked, she turned and there he was on one knee. That's where the beginning a long and happy marriage. The End.

P.S. This is a true story. : )

If I won...

If I won the lottery, first of all I would probably freak out. I would be so excited! I would split the money between my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. The first thing I would do is to pay off my student loans. I would probably get a nice apartment, but nothing that is ridiculously priced. I would save my money and not blow it on pricey things. I could keep my car and everything until I actually needed to get another one. I would also give at least a quarter of what I earned to a local charity. I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity so it would probably go to them. Other than that, I would probably save the rest of my money and build onto it from my job.

Writing is a PROCESS

I vaguely remember hearing my elementary school teachers saying that, "writing is a process." When I first learned this, I followed the steps that they laid out for me at the time, but as I went through school, it became harder and harder to abide by these steps. As I have found though, by following these steps, it makes the writing process faster and makes for a better paper.

Step 1: Prewriting. By using graphic organizers, it is an easy way to map out your ideas and topics. In school, I used to make my semantic maps that looked like clouds and from there I would link smaller clouds that related to one another.

Step 2: Drafting. Once you have your thoughts organized on a graphic orgnizer, the next step is to put those thoughts on paper. Once you do this, you can think moe about the content of your paper and what you are writing about.

Step 3: Revising. This is when you go back and look at your rough draft and make changes, such as adding or deleting sentences. You don't focus as much on grammatical errors, but on content and the ideas that make up your paper. A really good idea is to have others read through and give you advice on how to make it better.

Step 4: Editing. This is after you have gone through and revised your story, you go back and fix your conventions. Check your spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. You can also get others to go through and find and correct mistakes.

Step 5: Publish. This is the final step. Once you have created a wiriting piece, publish it! Frame it and put it on the wall. If it is a letter, then actually send or deliver it to the person who you wrote it to. Reward yourself for doing a great job!!

Circular Stories

A circular story is a story that starts off with one particular event or object, and circles around with objects that relate to each other to end up with the same event or object that originally started the story. The objects/events must relate directly to each other but can go far off from the original object/event.

Circular stories can be used in the classroom to teach students many things, from listening to sequencing and just overall better understanding. Having the students interact with the story and participate in activities that relate to the events in the story will help them get a better understanding of it. By having the students read or perhaps just listen to the story, and have them put the events in the order that they occurred in the story, could help to expand the students' memories and teaches them to learn to pay attention.

Reading can be made fun in many ways. Teachers can have the students make drawings, or perform skits, or create their own stories that go along with the same story or type of story. Also, the teachers could bring in props from the story, or ones that relate to the story, in to help give a visual understanding to the students. Plus, it excites the students to get to hold the objects or see them, engaging them deeper into the story.