Motivational Games

Are you gonna use games in your classroom?  Yes, I will be using games in my special education classroom. 
How are you gonna use games?  I plan on using games in every content area, maybe once or twice a week if possible.  Maybe have stations depending on the grade level, maybe have children help to come up with their own version of a game.  Maybe incorporating technology. 
Why are you games important?I believe that using games as a learning tool will help to motivate the students.  They will be so engaged that they will be learning at the same time.  This will also help in sharing, teamwork, self-determination, and will also help some with social skills. 

Blog 2 Motivation

Blog 2 Motivation


Define Motivation.
Motivation means something or an action that helps someone to move toward a particular goal.

What does motivation mean to you?
Motivation to me means something that moves me into accomplishing a goal, whether in school or personally.

How are you motivated?
I am motivated by my family. I have a big family and being a good example (good role model)to them helps me to do better in school, life, and whatever it is I set out to do. Also, changing my financial situation such as, being able to contribute to my family financially helps a lot. As an adult, I am motivated by personal achievment, being able to say "I tried, I accomplished what I set out to do and I did it or I finished it".

Blog 1

For me the connection between culture and learning, would have to be my upbringing, I am a Hispanic, I grew up in a big family.  I was the 2nd oldest out of 6 children.  We grew up in the SW side of town and I was known by my peers as either Valerie's younger sister and Mark's older sister.  My Dad was a quiet and stern growing up, while my Mother was loving and nurturing.  My Dad was a business man and my mother was a hard-working waitress.  I believe that I tend to be a little of both.  I get my organizational skills, neatness, and getting things done from my Dad.  I get my lovingness and caring attitude from my Mother.  My Mother's parents were pastors when I was growing up so I spent a lot of time with them in the summers. 

So the connection between culture and learning is that I tend to use all that I grew up with to help me to learn.  I was not exposed to a lot while growing up, because being one of the oldest, I was always caring for my younger siblings.  I found that education was important however, I did what I had to do just to pass.  My junior & senior year, I was pregnant.  I walked the stage pregnant.  So I didn't belong to any social groups. Even though my family did expose us to church, I didn't really understand the whole concept of having a relationship with God as opposed to just thinking about a whole bunch of rules and things I could not do.  If I had a relationship with God then, I would have understood the concept of keeping myself for my husband and maybe would not have been a teen mother.  So where I grew up most of my friends were having babies at an early age.  I was the last of my friends to get pregnant.  One of the reasons, I decided to further my education was because a vice principal told me, that because I was pregnant again I would never amount to anything. 
This negative account helped me to change the way I thought about learning.  So culture is important in influencing our lives. I learned to appreciate the positive and negative about how I grew up.  So these experiences in my life have cultural/learning connections that have led to my strengths and weaknesses.