Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Affective Dimensions of Reading

It's hard to say if I am a good reader or not because I don't want to seem biased, but I do believe I am a good reader. I mean I enjoy reading and being able to totally lose myself in a book. It makes me feel like like I am living two different stories. One story is of my current life and the other story is the one I am currently reading. I don't really have a certain genre of books that I prefer over others. All that I care about is if it has a gripping story line and a plot that I can get into quick. That is the down fall for me though, if a book doesn't catch my interest within the first or second chapter, then I stop reading it because my interest has been lost. I don't have the patience to keep reading to see if I would like the book or not. When novels were introduced as part of the curriculum, it was hard to stay focused because I didn't like to be forced to read a book I didn't choose on my own. This idea followed me all throughout my schooling years. Yes there were a handful of books that I did actually enjoy, but that list was very small.
I am the kind of person who goes through stages of liking and disliking reading and books. While I was in elementary, I loved to read. When we were able to go to the library and choose a book to read, I loved to look at all the books and see the possibilities that I could read and get lost in. As I moved into middle school, reading books was put on the back burner. I had other things to do and reading didn't fit into my life. Also, at this time, if I did want to read, I couldn't find a book that I had an interest in. This would discourage me and I wouldn't try for a long while. It wasn't until my sophomore english class that I found the appreciation for books again.
In my classroom, I want my students to have a love of reading. Reading is such an important skill and I want to convey this to my students. I plan on having all types of books in my classroom because if there was down time, students can go and pick out a book and look/read through it. Of course I will have plenty of books on my content area. For example, in an interior design class, I would have books on all types of housing features, color schemes, floor plans, principles and elements of design, etc. Another example is in a foods class. I want to have a big library of cookbooks. Cookbooks will allow the students to apply what they learn in class to making some sort of food.
Reading is different for everyone and being able to understand this will improve my classroom and my students because of the level of mutual respect we will have for one another.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Connecting School and Home Experiences....

Since I was a little girl, I remember being with mom as she was sewing. I loved to watch her and see how she created her projects. This sparked my interest and one day so she took me to the fabric store and let me pick out some fabric to experiment with it on the sewing machine. I remember just going to town on this piece of fabric as I learned how to control the speed and maneuver the stitches. I didn't create much at the beginning, but being allowed to experiment and create what I want, I was able to find a love for creating articles of clothing, quilts, accessories, etc.

Managing my money has always been a big priority in my life. When I turned 8, my parents started to give me an allowance. The rule was that I had to put half into savings and then the rest I could spend. I never was given much money, but the important learning lesson is that I was able to manage money at a young age that I have kept for the most part as I move into my adult years.

Being able to know how to best take care of children that I learned in my child development classes helped as I started to babysit for my neighbors. Being able to know how to keep the children entertained as well as feel comfortable while being watched by someone other then their parents helped me greatly.

These are just a few examples how FCS has played a big part in my life growing up. I have always succeeded when I was in these classes because the content came easy to me. All in all they are they are real life experiences. FCS has become my love because I can use these experiences to shape who I am and will be. I hope as I become a teacher I can show my students to find the love for these subjects as I have with the same understandinsg of my passion for FCS. FCS can be explained in one word. Life. Every component in FCS can be used to benefit anyone's life now and in the future.


I believe it is best to understand my students and their background of FCS because it will create a better class environment by integrating their interests into the curriculum. Teaching my students with topics that
interest them will allow better classroom involvement because it is something they know and feel comfortable talking about. By showing my students the state standards and how the topics of FCS are made to better their lives will hopefully increase their interests and want to continue their learning.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Required Introduction

Hello! I'm Jaymie Soderman and I am a Family and Consumer Sciences Major and I am so excited to start teaching! I am a senior this year and I cannot wait to be done with school so I can start my teaching career. I am the youngest in my family and I have only one older brother. I love to sew, cook, read books on rainy days, go camping, be with my friends and family, watch movies, design, be creative, go fishing, playing in parks, shopping, and the list goes on. I love to do pretty much everything if it means having a good time. Family and Consumer Sciences to me is a discipline that relates most to everyday life. With the content matter I will teach, I know that my students will be able to take specific topics and content into their lives now and into the future. These topics include: budgeting, finances, family dinamics, entrepreneurship, cooking, sewing, fashion, etc. These life skill classes are important because they will benefit from them as well as everyone around them also will. When I was in highschool, I thought I was going to end up in the medical field or something to that extent. Becoming a teacher was pretty low on my list of what I want to do with my life, but that all changed when I took a sewing class my junior year. My sewing teacher was the kind of person who was just so sweet and kind and always wanting to help her students anyway she could. The way she taught, she made sure everyone was on the same page and if they were not, she did what she had to make them understand. One day she was asking about what I wanted to become and I said that I kind of had a plan but wasn't too sure. She went on saying how she thought the same thing and after researching FCS she knew it was what she was supposed to do and told me to do the same. So I researched it out and I knew from then on that I was going to become a FCS teacher.