Kelly Clarkson is a famous American singer. Everybody knows her as the winner of American Idol in its first season. Real name: Kelly Brianne Clarkson
Love movies of the 90's? Find out with 90's girl you are here! As if!
Teaching theme in fourth grade is not easy, but it is very rewarding to see the students' little light bulbs come on! In my experience, students need many
#booktasting menu! Love it! #tlchat #tlelemchat #elemchat #caedchat
Have you always dreamed of taking a European river cruise? I'm sharing my Viking Cruise Rhine River Travel Tips including favorite tours, excursions and things to do so that you have a once in a
Find your next favorite author like Kristin Hannah. Explore female authors who write emotional historical fiction and get their best books.
Learn how to make ceramic doodle houses. This is such a cute craft and she provides great tips and tricks as well as source info and detailed photos to copy
Kelly Clarkson has joined up with the stars of the fabulous Pentatonix group for a Christmas musical collaboration. Together they have delivered a powerful rendition of Kelly Clarkson’s hit song, “My Grown Up Christmas”. You will remember Kelly’s humble beginnings as a winning competitor on the televised reality show, American Idol, and now look at
Let's create beautiful, organized spaces where you and your family can thrive!
These amazing book sculptures by Kelly Campbell are made with little more that some scissors, tweezers, and blades.
Lymphedema leg exercises can help you reduce swelling, build up muscle strength, and make you feel more positive. Start with these 7 exercises!
Read English world 2 grammar practice book by Kelly P on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!
New theory on the identity of Jack the Ripper to be tested.
Capitol Police Officers Jackson and Pagel got to join music star Kelly Clarkson at the Sprint Center for a karaoke version of "Stand By Me," during her "Meaning of Life" tour. The police duo is well-known in Topeka for their #PoliceCarKaraoke videos. These guys are the real deal, folks. Most officers participating in the national lip
I decided that before I can start posting about what I'm doing this year, I needed to share some of my favorite strategies from last year that went really well with the students. I was completely inspired by Kelly Gallagher after reading devouring all of his books at the beginning of the school year! I had the opportunity to go to a Kelly Gallagher workshop at Judson this spring, and it was absolutely amazing! He was so nice when I went up to him (I was terrified and starstruck), and even wrote "You're Welcome" on this piece of paper, because my students actually asked me to THANK HIM for changing the way we read novels in class. Students + asked me + to say thank you to an author + about school stuff = UTOPIA! Here are some of my abbreviated notes from the day: His TOP Points: Kids should write 4X more than you can physically grade Students suffer from word poverty. Must get students reading more in order to be exposed to vocabulary. We need to teach kids WHY they need to write, while we teach them HOW to write. Literature and poetry should be the core of a language arts program. No one else is being asked to give up the core of their content! Use narrative to strengthen argument If your district requires a cheese ball 5 paragraph essay, wait till the week before the test to teach that formula. Bring me a five paragraph essay published in the real world and I'll buy you lunch. "If students don't write at least three times a week, they are dead." Donald Graves Amazing Activities: Narrative Writing Modeling Exercises: The Six Word Memoir Take it to twitter: 140 characters Encyclopedia of an ordinary life by Amy rosenthal Make an alphabetical encyclopedia of life The unofficial and unwritten rules of... Band, choir, drama, etc... Explain a photograph (fictional) Write one sentence Share with your group Mini lesson on first and third person pov Start telling a story You have four minutes Stop Pass Continue the story Mentor Text: This I Believe Do this at the beginning of the year, on the first day of school. Read these that Friday in class Who made that? (Informational Writing) Have them research who made that and why. One page, has to have a graphic. Bind and put in classroom library. Explain a photograph (non-fiction) Tell a story Students bring in a photograph and write about one Use TED talks so kids can learn to take notes The one strategy that elevates writing the most is MODELING Instead of teaching grammar separately, incorporate it into the writing curriculum Grading Practices (MY EPIPHANY!) 4:1 Do four timed writing a quarter, staple together have them pick the one they want graded. Second time tell them you will randomly pick one. For me I would do this in the Interactive Student Notebook: 10:2 Every ten assignments collect notebooks. Tell students to put a post it on the assignment you want me to grade, and I'll pick one randomly. I created and ordered this stamp last night to keep track of checking in notebooks from Vistaprint. See my FB page for a $10 off link! Daily Practices: SOW (Sentence of the week) Although it was warm, she wore a sweater. After the game, we ate pizza. As the evening progressed, I relaxed. 1. What do you notice about them? Write the rule Commas, front branch, dependent clause, etc... Every time a sentence starts with an AAAWWUBBIS WORDS, it will need a comma. Aaawwubbis phrase commas After, although, as, when, while, until, before, because, if, since 2. Can you imitate it? Then do a table check, grade one person at the table for the whole group. 10 question quiz every Friday, including AOW (Article of the Week), SOW, lesson of the week, and what I'm reading now Don't grade final draft, grade level of movement. Staple all drafts together My favorite strategy from him: CLOSE READING! The reason my students asked me to say thank you was because we read Flowers for Algernon this year, and we just read it. I would assign a certain number of pages that needed to be completed by a certain day, and they just had to read. NO vocabulary, no guiding questions, just reading. On the day the reading is due, I had taken random pages from that selection of reading, and made copies. I grouped the students, and gave each group the same passage. First, let me back up. On the first day, we modeled a passage together. Marking things such as details, questions, important vocabulary, and I would create two questions to focus the close reading. Let me preface that this was very time-consuming, but totally worth it! Students were given their passages, and worked in groups to do the same thing we had modeled together. Above are their questions to focus the reading. I would then grade their close reading, making sure they showed careful consideration of the questions in a short response, and had highlighted and marked sections of the passage they felt helped to clarify the section of the reading. I discovered that instead of quizzing students on completing the reading, we took it to a deeper level. Students who had possibly not finished the reading realized, on their own, that they needed to catch up in order to have a valid discussion with their peers about it. To make it uniform, I created keys for my students to use. This made them easier to grade, and helped students get into a routine! In reference to some of the activities above, I did the six word memoir and "This I Believe" with my 8th graders on the second to last day of school, and had them put it in a sealed envelope. Many students said in their course evaluation that it was their favorite activity, and they couldn't wait to come back and pick them up. A few even put dollar bills in their envelopes, saying they were starting a savings account, and to ensure they would come back for it! :) Although I literally just had a mini panic attack realizing there are only 2 1/2 weeks of summer left, writing this blog post showed me the things that are so exciting that I'm looking forward to going back for. I am not excited, however, to leave this little sweetheart. Coming Up Next...I have an ERIN CONDREN shipment coming in today! I already received my new teacher planner, but I figured I'd wait to post pics until this other little package arrives!
Viking River cruise Rhine review - everything you need to know before you go on a river cruise. This cruise from Amsterdam to Basel shares itinerary details
I finally conquered making homemade chicken broth in the crockpot! It’s so easy – I don’t now why I didn’t try making it sooner. Here’s everything you need to know to make some broth yourself…
This journey of life is more than a simple ‘reach for what you want in life and get it’, sometimes we need to allow the old that is holding us back to surface, with support. Sometimes we have old trauma stored in the body that we may not realise links up with current day events or issues that are causing us problems. Today, I discovered some old trauma I had…
A STEM and science experiment inspired by the children's book Pumpkin Jack. Learn about the pumpkin life cycles/decomposition. #kellysclassroomonline
Explore pilllpat (agence eureka)'s 58952 photos on Flickr!
Are you back to school yet? The schools in my area returned last week. As you get settled into your routine and start shifting into the academics, prepare for the painful reminder that most of your kids have no idea how to read -- like no clue at all where to even begin! Remember those kids you waved off in May or June -- those BIG kid READERS AND WRITERS? Well, you gotta start somewhere. So today I'm going to share a couple ideas for going back to the basics with Print Concepts! When your sweet little kinders happily prance into the classroom on Day 1, half of them won't know how to handle a book, let alone read one. It is my suggestion that, after some assessment to see where they are in the process, you do majority of your Print Concepts teaching and learning in small groups so you can truly focus in on individuals and you're teaching what THEY need to know -- not more, not less. I like to use posters and lots of modeling to teach the concepts. Posters are a great way to introduce an idea because of the visual component. Then, they are always accessible and visible for kids to refer back to as needed. Concepts of Print is a pretty big undertaking -- so I like to break it down into three main focuses *Parts of a Book/Book Handling *Reading Behaviors (Tracking Print, Return Sweep, Pictures Vs. Print) and *Conventions of Text (Capital letters, Punctuation, Word/Sentence Study) Teaching the Parts of a book obviously requires a lot of modeling and a lot of repetition. I suggest getting their hands on real books as well as taking this time to introduce small paper books, like the ones you might have them reading each day in Guided Reading. Confession: I LOVE take-home emergent readers. LOVE LOVE PUFFY HEART LOVE. I don't have a picture of what I actually use, so you will have to settle for the digital version. I use a pre-labeled teacher modeling book and an emergent reader as well as some cute little prompt cards. The card might say "Show me the front cover of your book" and students would point to the front cover. The next prompt card might say "Highlight the page numbers in your book" and they can DO THAT in these little paper readers -- because they are THEIRS! Then they can take them HOME and tell their grandma all about it! ;) When teaching Reading Behaviors you really learn where your kiddos are as readers. Some of them will know where to start reading, and some of them won't even know that we read words! Here are a few activities I love for teaching students to track print one-to-one and to practice that good old return sweep. I also like to give students a variety of maniuplatives to use when tracking print. Fingers are great (hey, they always have them!) but sometimes you have to up the ante to up the engagement and motivation! Love these little Magic Wands (10 for $3 at Target in the Party Favors Section!) When it comes to teaching Conventions of Print, I really like to hone in on the difference between letters, words, and sentences. Students need to know that letters are the building blocks of words and that words are the building blocks of sentences! We do a lot of highlighting, underlining, and counting in our Emergent Readers (again, they're paper, and they belong to the kids so they are free to mark them up!) One tool I LOVE to use to teach Reading Behaviors AND Conventions of Print is the Morning Message. Reasons: 1. You can model Concepts of Print while you read it aloud. 2. You can manipulate it as you go. 3. Students can share the pen to show their understanding. We mark ours all up! I start out by reading the message aloud, using a pointer or my finger to point to each word as I read it. I read it aloud by myself once, I invite the kids to read it with me (still tracking print) the second time, then we dive into it! We circle capital letters in one color and punctuation end marks in another. We use a dot under each word to count them. We underline each sentence to count them. We pull out a focus word and count the letters and recognize the first and last letters. It's the PERFECT tool for pulling everything together! I like to do Morning Message whole group as it is something that we can truly complete TOGETHER. And of course, after teaching a lesson, modeling the skill, and working together with the kids on it, I like to release them to work on it independently. Sometimes this just means sending them off to "read" in their book baskets, sometimes it means completing a printable and sometimes it means working on the same activities we did together during their station time. I absolutely LOVE teaching Kindergarten students to read. If you're like me, then your favorite part of Kindergarten is looking at those sweet babes at the end of the year knowing EXACTLY where they started. They make such a huge transformation over the course of the year. They leave as readers and they start RIGHT HERE! All the activities and printables you saw in this post are available in my TPT store. Just click them image below to check it out! Happy Reading!
Old books are very easy to come by at thrift stores and garage sales, and they make the perfect base for creating scrapbooks and journals. You can use the book as is, and just add your own photos, …
Artist Tracy McGuinness-Kelly shares her inspiration and processes.
Woman and Siamese cat, 1952 Eileen Mayo was a versatile English painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, designer and calligrapher. I recently discovered her, and was fascinated by her talent, versatility and interestingly adventurous life. Mayo worked with many different media, and her artworks and books were often centered on animals. She was born in Norwich in 1906, and educated in Yorkshire and Bristol. After her father's death in 1921, her mother and two sisters emigrated to New Zealand, while she moved to London to study art at various schools, and was taught the art of linocutting by Claude Flight. Cats in the Trees, 1931 Mayo was penniless but very beautiful, and after struggling with extreme poverty she became a celebrated model for some of the most important artists of the day, including Laura and Harold Knight, Dod Procter, Bernard Meninsky, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Here's a link to an interesting 1928 magazine article titled "Saved form Suicide; Snatched from an Existence Worse Than Death - Starving, Friendless, Discouraged, Eileen Mayo Tells How She Battled With Despair and Suddenly Found Herself Surrounded With Prosperity and Fame, Her Portrait the Center of Attraction in the Royal Academy Exhibition in London." The Children's Circus Book, 1934 From 1928 to 1938 Mayo took part in the British Linocuts exhibitions. As her reputation as a printmaker and illustrator increased, she found work as a freelance designer, and later held teaching positions at St. Martin's School of Art and Sir John Cass College in London. In this period she also started illustrating and writing children's books. Sheffy the squirrel, c.1941 Best Cat Stories, 1942 One Day on Beetle Rock, 1946 In 1936 Mayo married Dr Richard Gainsborough, and during World War II she helped him run his practice in Sussex while creating nearly 1,000 illustrations for her book The Story of Living Things and Their Evolution. After retiring from medicine her husband founded the magazine Art News and Review, and she designed its first issue in 1949. Spread from The Story of Living Things and Their Evolution, c.1949 (click to view larger!) The Nature Lover's Companion, 1950 Mayo's books on animals and nature also include Larger Animals of the Countryside, Shells and How They Live, and Nature's ABC. After separating from her husband, in 1952 Mayo emigrated to Australia. Besides teaching at the National Art School in Sydney, she designed murals and tapestries, illustrated books, and wrote for Australian and English periodicals. She also created many beautiful stamp and poster designs depicting the unique flora and fauna of Australia. The Australian Commonwealth series of six postage stamps issued between 1959 and 1962 and featuring platypus, kangaroo, banded anteater, tiger cat, rabbit bandicoot and Tasmanian tiger, was awarded the Vizard-Wholohan Prize for prints in 1962. It was one of the earliest representations of Australian flora and fauna on stamps, and the first series to be designed by a woman. Black Swans, colored linocut In 1962 Mayo moved to New Zealand to be close to her family, and in 1965 she settled in Christchurch, where she continued to live until her death in 1994. She taught at the University of Canterbury until 1972, and worked for more than three years on an underwater diorama with Otago Museum. After being a founding member of Sydney Printmakers, she was on the Print Council of New Zealand, but it was only when she retired that she was able to buy a printing press and make prints full-time. After she started suffering from severe arthritis, Mayo turned to the easier medium of silkscreen prints, but in 1985 she was forced to stop. Days before her death, she was created a Dame of the British Empire. Humpback and Bottleneck screenprint, 1980 Many thanks to The Visual Telling of Stories for uploading its precious scans!
Read for the Record Day features Not Norman. Enjoy these Not Norman activities to build literacy skills for a fun filled day.
