As a writer who works with visual artists, I was inspired to address Iris Jaffe’s recent post, "The Anti-artist-statement Statement." “I hate artist statements,” Iris began. “As an artist, they are almost always awkward and painful to write, and as a viewer they are similarly painful and uninformative to read.” No! I disagree!

20 weeks later and "A Stick Figure Macbeth" has finally come to an end. In case you're just joining me, here's what happened during the past 20 weeks:

I l.o.v.e.d the 2nd grade version of this packet that I created, that I went ahead and adapted it for grades k-5 to meet the needs of buyers! Hands down, this has been my favorite packet to do the first few weeks of school. You can grab all grade levels 20% off for Thursday...

German Bilingual Children's Books Bilingual Children - Week #20 This week on our Bilingual Children series I'm focusing on German resources. This is actually a language I studied at school and although I'm very rusty, I'm considering introducing it to my son as his third language.&

Top 20 Memes of The Week - Cheezburger Users Edition # - World's largest collection of cat memes and other animals

DIY Catapults are easy to make and fun to use and the best part is there are so many ways to do it! We found twelve inventive catapult crafts for kids of all ages. If

Inspiring Life Coach and Nerium Brand Partner ~ Create the life you've only dreamed of living! Just #AskCoachRoxy how to manifest success ~ Contact Roxy Feller at (208) 713-2949 or by emailing...

Groovy Cat Week: Fun ideas for teaching prepositions to your preschool or kindergarten students using Pete the Cat story book character.

First Days Day 1 In the first day os school, we did some different things than the other usual classes. In Integrated Science 3 we did th...

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I am officially on Spring break! Two whole weeks off to rest and get ready for the home stretch of this school year! :-) I am so excited to catch up... on chores, seeing friends I haven't seen since Christmas, blog stalking, and so much more! Here is one of my very favorite art/writing projects we do all year!!! They always turn out adorable and they never fail to get some laughs from the adults! I got the idea from Patty at Deep Space Sparkle. If you haven't checked out her blog, you SHOULD! It is full of amazing (and doable) art ideas for your classroom (even if you aren't very artistic like me!) She even has them organized by grade level! So...the kids first did their writing about what they would be in 20 years. Here's the template we used: You can get this {HERE}! Here's a completed one: "In 20 years I will be 28 years old. I will live in a college dorm. I will be a police officer and I will take bad guys to jail. I will still love my family and I will still love meat loaf. I still won't want to eat spinach. And most importantly, I will be happy." The writing always turns out absolutely adorable! Then they drew what they would be in 20 years. They used an example I purchased from Deep Space Sparkle (from the "Fun with Self Portraits" pack!) Then they colored it in with markers and outlined their self portraits with a black marker. We painted the backgrounds, and a parent volunteer mounted them on construction paper and attached their writing. We had: Police officers (love the handcuffs!) Race car drivers (love the 'stache! And the braces!!!) Marines (so grouchy!) Ballerinas (adorable!) Artists (too cute!) And football players (not just football players- quarterbacks!) among many other things! Like I said, these are always a hit, you can keep them up as long as you want (i.e. until the end of the year because you're too lazy to change your bulletin boards LIKE ME!) because they're not holiday-ish (??? not a word! I know) and the kids love creating them! Check back soon...I'm thinking give away in celebration of Spring break! :-)

If I Were a Superhero Identify a few well-known superheroes with your students and brainstorm adjectives that describe these superheroes and their actions. After reviewing the list, ask students to identify people in their real lives that possess these characteristics. Ask students to complete this thinksheet and describe what kind…

This article discusses lectins and their impact on human health. It will also go into ways on how to reduce your lectin exposure.

Hi! I found this plan last week – you might like this one. It’s called the Monterey Nouveau Q1 from here. You can also click on the image to enlarge it. I know it’s similar to a lot of other narrow houses, but I did think it was a good…

We have been focusing on the 20th Century for Blaze's history lessons this year. We are currently learning about the Great Depression, but we spent quite a bit of time learning about World War 1. The causes of WW1: We read the following two novels: When Christmas Comes Again was about a young military telephone operator during the war. After the Dancing Days was about a girl dealing with the loss of a beloved uncle during the war and the injured and deformed soldiers who returned to the United States after the war. Blaze was particularly interested in aviation during WW1. We found a simple model of the Red Baron's plane that Blaze was able to assemble without help, at a local hobby shop. We watched two movies about German pilots, The Blue Max and The Red Baron, along with some short documentaries about WW1 planes on YouTube. We then focused our attention on trench warfare. We also watched War Horse. Blaze used a shoe box to make a diorama of a WW1 trench with American soldiers. The soldiers were paper dolls that were originally printed in 1918 and can be found here. We didn't use the paper stands for the dolls, but instead glued them onto 1-inch wooded blocks, so they wouldn't tip over so easily. To give the shoe box diorama a real "hole in the ground" look, Blaze painted the entire box with school glue and sprinkled it with dirt. After the glue was dry, I sprayed the whole thing with clear coat, so the dirt wouldn't fall off. The sandbags were made from Crayola Model Magic. The culmination of all of our WW1 studies was Blaze's display for the Tallahassee Homeschool Group's International (Social Studies) Fair. Here is a recipe for the donuts that were passed out by the Salvation Army to soldiers during WW1: http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/bread/sweet-bread/original-salvation-army-world-war-1-donut.html

We've been working on sorting according to the th sound in the beginning of the word or at the end of the word. First we practiced as a class using a pocket

The Naaman cup craft is a seriously simple yet incredibly effective craft that will go along with your kids session on Naaman.

Quotes bring people together, and this blog post includes 20 of my favorite teacher quotes that are relatable and inspirational. Read them all here.

Friday Funny: Scottish Jokes! For the last few weeks we've had a fair few Friday Facts which whilst great can get a little serious. So this week w...

Stop and read these words of wisdom to enrich your world.

The third week in October is Character Counts! Week. In honor of Character Counts! Week October 19-25, I'm sharing 20+ free character education printables. These are great for Character Counts! Week, but can be used throughout the year to encourage good character in your children and/or students. I'm especially focusing here on character education activities, posters, and bookmarks. Free Character Education Printables for a Variety of Ages Downloadable Resources for Character Count! Week from Josephson Institute (I especially like the 'Tips for Parents' and 'Seven Days of Character: One Idea for Each Day of Character Counts! Week') Character Trait Comic

Complete Guide for Tech Beginners: Every starting is heard but if you have the motivation and strong determination you will be successful. Most of the students especially of the students of engineering want to build and make something. Practical experience of making something makes o…

Hit the mat and try these moves in your next workout.

I never thought I would feel and look better than I ever have AFTER having 2 kids! I’ve always lived a healthy lifestyle and be involved with athletics but even though I continued doing Cross…

It's been quite some time since I've been able to sit down, relax and look through my favorite block reference books. A couple weeks ago, I pulled out Nancy Cabot's Quilt Collection , complied by Rose Lea Alboum. You can see more about it on my blog here and ordering information here . This ti

Want better posture? Learn three simple stretches for better posture that will help you relieve tension and improve your posture safely and easily.

Project Status Report Template The goal of a project status report is to focus the team members, vendors, clients, stakeholders and management on the most important & urgent issues while giving them decision making information. In today’s technological atmosphere the problem isn’t acquiring information, but rather filtering, sorting and analyzing it in order to understand the current status. The same logic applies to most projects, where the information is readily available but the sheer amount of raw data can be overwhelming. Download This Template Now! Project Status Report Word Project Status Summary in the word template The top section of the project status report aims at presenting a high-level overview of the main areas that the report covers. Each area should be color-coded, according to the following criteria – Green color typically represents that the area is on track (with a variance of up to 5% from the original plan). Orange represents that there is variance between 5% and 10% from the original plan. Red represents that there is a variance which is larger than 10% from the original plan. The typical areas in this section are - Scope, Schedule, Cost, Risks, and Quality. Plan vs Actual The PvsA (Plan vs. Actual) section typically covers the detailed tasks which were planned to be completed since the last meeting took place. The relevant task owners update the progress, raise issues and concerns which may impede the completion. This section also covers the future tasks which need to be completed by the next meeting, to make sure that the responsible parties are aware of the timeline and are ready to begin. Project Status Report Word Open Issues and Risks This section includes the main issues and risks for the entire project. The best ways to present these is with a table, and track them in each meeting. This section is basically a “to-do” list for the PM. Deliverables and Major Milestones This section includes a table of the projects’ deliverable and MMS (Major Mile Stones), which need to be tracked in each meeting. If the project is 6 months or less, then all of the deliverable and MMS need to appear. If it is more than 6 months, then this section should include only the deliverable and MMS for the coming 2 quarters. Change Requests This section needs to include all the open CR’s (Change Requests), their status and estimated approval date. Status Report Word Template Best Practices Color coding can very easily relay the status of an aspect of the project and should be used to focus the readers on the more important issues. Consistency is key in a status report, so all the formatting shouldn’t change in the report. Cadence: The reports’ frequency should be a direct result of the projects’ timeline. For example, A project which is planned to take 4 years and has tasks with an average duration of 6 weeks doesn’t need a weekly report, but a bi-weekly or a monthly one. Check out our one-page project status report template built using the word.