More reflection using the RSS Reader

Time is always precious when teaching, but when it comes to conference week this is even more true. I also had a new student start this week and in the midst of everything I was having some trouble connecting to him since he has been so shy and quiet. However, we had our book fair this week and he picked out a Goosebumps book. I remember from the Scholastic blog that I am following on my RSS Reader that the site had games and other activities about the Goosebumps that he had bought from the book fair. I was able at school during a snack break to quickly call him up to my desk to share this site.

First, I opened up my Google Reader. Then I scrolled down to the Scholastic blog and was able to get to the site to show him the interactive games that connected to his Goosebumps book. He lit up and I started to feel a connection. Since the site was on my RSS Reader and not saved to my bookmark bar bar on my MAC at home I was able to access the site anywhere.

The RSS feeds have saved me a lot of time when searching for ideas. I have been able to follow 4th grade blogs that have given me great sites to visit with my own 4th graders. I don't have to read through the whole blog but am able to just get the highlights with what I want to look more into. I also continue to follow a kindergarten website. My classroom is buddies with a kindergarten classroom in the school. I have been searching for a fall activity to do with both ages that is appropriate. The feed had pictures of scarecrows that a class made and then created it into a brace thinking map. I also was able to share this site with the kindergarten teacher since our school is working on using thinking maps. The teacher has been struggling with how to integrate it into her kindergarten curriculum and this site had a few appropriate examples. She then shared it with the other kindergarten teachers. This all was made possible since using the Google Reader.