Teaching with Tradebooks

This week, we finished up completing our trade book projects and then, we presented them to the class. For this project, we had to chose a book that we could use to teach for our lesson plans. After completing this project, I've learned a lot and will teach with trade books in the future.

The book I chose for this project was, Will We Miss Them? This book discusses the types of endangered animals living in this world, why they are becoming endangered, and how we can save them. The book fits perfectly for my unit plan. My unit plan is on The Changes in Ecosystems. The unit plan teaches students about extinction but doesn't teach about endangered species. It think it's important to teach students about endangered species because these if these animals do become extinct, other species may be effected by this change in the ecosystem. As a community, we can save these animals and students should be informed of the ways in which we can help them. 

I planned out my trailer to be persuasive and descriptive without providing too much details. I created my trailer using iMovie. Creating a trailer using iMovie was challenging and it took awhile for me to finally get the hang of it. I wouldn't suggest to use this tool unless you have worked with it before and have had an efficient amount of practice using it. Creating my trailer enhanced my knowledge of using iMovie. The images I used are free of copyright violations as I downloaded them from websites that contain free, useable images. After I finished creating my trailer, I uploaded it to YouTube. Here is my trailer. 

After creating and uploading my trailer, I had to focus on my book talk. We were provided with a template to use for presenting our book talk. Here is my completed book talk worksheet. To present my book talk, I wanted to use a digital tool that I have never used before. I decided to use one of the tools that Dr. Smirnova suggested, Screen-o-matic. This tool records your screen and either your voice or a video of you from your webcam. I decided to create a slideshow using the information from my book talk worksheet to present. I recorded myself present my slideshow with my webcam. This tool was very simple to use and I definitely recommend this tool. I enjoyed it and will use it in the future. Here is the link to my digital book talk. I was very content with the way my project came out. 

I first learned new presenting tools that I can use in my own classroom. Each project I complete using a digital tool, my learning of integrating technology in classrooms increases. I really liked the idea of creating movie trailers for students to pique interest and grab their attention. In my classroom, I will create trailers when I introduce a new book to the students. Many of my classmates used Animoto and their trailers looked great. I will use that and iMovie. Teaching with trade books enhances learning. It gives students better understanding of the content as they are provided with different ideas that teachers may not have pointed out to the students. Teaching with trade books also integrates science and literature. Students' reading and comprehension skills and knowledge of specific science topics increases as they are reading a trade book. There are so many benefits of teaching with trade books as it connects reading and science. Students can get a lot out of this and I will teach with trade books in my own classroom whenever students need to get better understandings of specific science content.