We were both coming to work every day feeling that we were teaching on the surface level and struggling to teach day to day. amazon - home - blog - shop - read
We are so excited to be rolling out the House System at our school! We are here to show you how we did it and give you some amazing tips and freebies!
Simple graphic organizer to accompany the fun loving, exceedingly humorous School House Rock video, How a Bill Becomes Law. I like to begin the class probing students ideas of how they believe a bill becomes law, then I show the School House Rock video, which they usually find hilarious. We review the graphic organizer through a cold call and I ask students if they agree with each other. I close the class with the SNL skit of how a bill comes law. School House Rock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKyihoV9z8 SNL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDSeb2zHQ0 FOLLOW & Rate us on TPT! Leave feedback and earn TpT money! We love hearing from you! It helps us grow and improve our resources. Once you've made a purchase, be sure you're logged in, leave us feedback, and you'll earn TpT credit - TpT Money! If you have any questions about our products, please do not hesitate to contact us! We're here for the students and you!
I am starting my second year as a curriculum coach so over the summer I was able to plan all the back to school things! I have had the mindset with this position that I want to treat my teachers just like I did my students. So I am always trying to build community, make professional development fun, and build my street cred! Ron Clark is my teacher idol and his house system is amazing. I thought having a house system would be a great way to create camaraderie with my teachers. We tend to stick with our grade level and/or our content area in the secondary world so I wanted to mix things up! And bring on the competition for motivation! Look at that super fun wheel! It is not the Ron Clark 47' wheel but it was made with a lot of love. We {and by we I mean my husband} started with a trip to Lowe's for lumber and paint. But it was a day date and we were in my car so this is what that looked like! I created the wheel in PowerPoint and printed it poster size. We found a piece of plywood already cut in a circle so I just had to measure. Then it was ModPodge for days! I love the way it turned out! For the first day back, we rolled out the red carpet, played loud hype music, dressed up in house costumes, and got ready to greet the teachers! The House Sort started and each teacher took their turn spinning the wheel. My administration went wild when someone landed in their house and it was oh so much fun! After everyone was sorted, we explained how the house system would work and what they could earn points for. Everyone sat with their house and enjoyed breakfast. Then, we sang the Welcome To My House {to the tune of Flo Rida's version} school-wide song to give them an example of what we would be doing at each faculty meeting. The point system has been a little controversial because admin are our house leaders and some like to make it rain with the points! Also, we have two houses that are tiny, a medium sized, and a ginormous one. The luck of the wheel! Points are given to teachers for teacher-y things using Class Dojo and I keep house totals posted in the workroom. The added competition has made it a lot of fun so far! We have had two faculty meetings and at those we have one person from each house spin the wheel for points and we all do our house chant or song. I hope this continues to bring us together and gives us something fun to look forward to each month at faculty meetings! I also hope we can expand it to our students next year once the teachers feel comfortable with it. I love my teachers and how they go along with all my ideas. I am so lucky to have this dream job with these people!
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Image 10 of 65 from gallery of An Underground House in Ukraine and an Extension for the Glasgow School of Art: 12 Unbuilt Projects Submitted by our Readers. The Air . Image Courtesy of YD / Yakusha Design
'Schoolhouse Rock!': Our Top 15 list
We have started our unit on plants and I am so excited. I love teaching plants! There are so many things that you can do to teach plants and the kids love everything. Today, I introduced the topic by doing a graphic organizer with the class. Then, the kiddos completed one on their own. I...
Swimming along in Kindergarten
We have started our unit on plants and I am so excited. I love teaching plants! There are so many things that you can do to teach plants and the kids love everything. Today, I introduced the topic by doing a graphic organizer with the class. Then, the kiddos completed one on their own. I...
When I was a teenager, I sweated out my adolescent angst in a barely listenable garage band like countless other young, hopeful musicians with grandiose visions of rock stardom. Eventually we had our chance to prove ourselves to the local rock scene at a major battle of the bands at an area high school. We asked ourselves, while scratching our heads, quot;How did we get this gig?quot; Apparently someone had slipped a cassette to the booking person, claiming it was our demo, when in actuality, it was material recorded by our favorite semi-professional and polished local band. We played and unintentionally provided some much needed comedic relief for the packed house. I'm sure this was never the case with Boulder's Statewide Emergency. The young band's chops would not allow for this aberration. Vocalist/guitarist Matt Paradis, guitarist Luke Johnson, bassist Caleb Kronen and percussionist Keith Slack - all in their teens -have proven themselves in the Boulder and Denver club scenes. Their debut disc, last year's Another Point of View, was an auditory testament to the quartet's strong work ethic and ability to craft loud, guitar-based rock with influences that predate them by decades. The band owes an obvious debt to '70s-era rock gods whose debauchery involved smashed motel television sets, squealing groupies and binge drinking. The follow-up, Carnivorous Carnival, which will be released digitally on May 30, continues this tradition. The disc showcases a solid, capable band and sounds like it could have been recorded in 1975 - it's vintage glory aided by the capable hands of local studio techies such as John Macy, Mark Oblinger and James Tuttle. The band's limited recording fund is hardly noticeable. quot;We were on a decently low budget, so we wanted to be really tight on all our songs going into a studio,quot; Paradis says. quot;So once we got in there, everything went pretty straight-forward and as planned because we [were] pretty prepared and ready for it. quot;We actually tracked all to analog,quot; he reveals. quot;We tracked through a 24-track tape machine and then into ProTools from that. Analog has that warm kind of tone that most digital recordings don't have. Then on the way out, when we were mixing it, we went back through tape. I'm sure that helped [with the vintage sound].quot; Production choices and musical tightness only go so far, though - the content has to match. Paradis and company rise to the task by blasting through Carnivorous Carnival's six tunes with power chords and bombast galore. This is stoner rock with enough swagger to split the seams on a pair of polyester skinny jeans. Don't come to the Statewide Emergency table hungry for sugary pop or over-produced radio fare; feast here if you like your rock loud and straightforward. quot;The Inside,quot; which starts off Carnivorous Carnival, contains the album's finest moments. Heavy guitars and muscular vocals arise from the mix and sucker-punch the listener in stereo. Drums and bass swirl in the background, providing a propulsive rhythm section, while a strong melody dives and rises up continuously. All the elements work together, and the result is easily likable. quot;It was probably the song we worked on the most. I think it's the one that we're going to promote as our single, and we had a feeling about that going in,quot; Paradis says. quot;The biggest problems we found with that song were getting the vocals to fit right in there. The vocals are really what drive that song - just the effects and levels and processing
Close reading is an essential skill for middle school and high school English Language Arts. Students need to be able to decipher complex texts, and this strategy will help students take their literary analysis to a deeper level during reading workshop. It will also help facilitate writing worksho
Hay ocho palabras simples para compartir a Jesús: Aquí están: ¿Cómo compartes a Jesús naturalmente? Simple: G.O.G.O. El amor de Dios, nuest...
I know this is shocking, but kids don't always behave like I would like in our classroom 100% of the time. In fact, some continually make choices that I am not crazy about even after reminders and consequences from our class behavior system. Gasp. I know I
Connect: This thinking routine was to continue the work our class has done on Fridays with non-fiction articles. We had been doing the red/yellow/green light as our normal routine, so we thought it would be fun to switch it up. I have been very hesitant to use this routine, but after reading it had wanted to try it. I finally was brave enough to get it a shot! What I did: Lately our Friday lemonades have been very student directed as we had done the routine for over 14 weeks! They share and lead discussions and I just facilitate more than anything. This week I was very deliberate in my demonstrations and modeling. We had examples from previous articles and newspapers to show them what they could look like. They had very little schema about writing them, and so we did a lot of examples together about our field trip from the day before. We were getting a lot of answers like “Field Trip” and eventually through examples from me and Jaime they got to “Students see Tropical Rainforest in Denver!”. For dividing the students this week I took all the girls and Jaime took all the boys. I made sure to keep circling around and helping them through their thinking. The final product was actually pretty good! The girls seemed to get a deeper understanding of what we were looking for and the boys didn’t quite get there. Extend: My plan is to use this routine again because it was a great way for students to pull from the 3 parts of our traffic light and then synthesize it together in one sentence. I also think I will continue to have them work in groups or partners as it still seems like a lot for each child to do at this point. Challenge: I think the students overall did a great job on their headlines. It was much more successful than I thought it was going to be. I think the biggest challenge was building enough background information and schema about what the headlines look like.
I am currently working on some Spring Literacy and Math Centers! Don't worry- I am taking lots of breaks to go outside on this BEAUTIFUL day, to watch March Madness (my Cats play tonight), and to take my son to his book fair (holy cow he has talked about it ALL week). I found some super cute spring clipart that got me really motivated. You can check out some samples from my unit here: And just because I can't get over how cute they are- If you have my old button- I would love for you to trade it for this one!
. Click on the picture to download this packet. Our school theme this year is "Mission Possible". In keeping with that theme, I ...
Can you imagine your reluctant writer winning a statewide essay contest? It happens! It happened to one of ours, much to our (and his) amazement. We all had to learn a few things about writing
Forget the idea that school days are the best days of our lives, happiness study suggests that turning 70 marks the start of a golden decade
We are twin elementary school teachers that are passionate about teaching an share our resources and teacher tips with other eager and passionate educators.
Suggestions for scheduling the middle school years in preparation for high school in your homeschooling program.
Explore Anne Frank's Diary through StoryboardThat's free lesson plans which includes timeline, summary and character insights for profound student understanding.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure policy for more details. I love planners, planning, organizing schedules, etc. When I first started homeschooling, I over planned, over organized, and over scheduled to the point that everyone was consistently feeling like a failure. Slowly and painstakingly I have been able to turn…
I have been reading Petit Nicolas stories with my students since I began teaching 25 years ago. Although a lot of the resources on interpretive reading assessment tend to focus on non-fiction, I think that it is important to make sure that we are also exposing our students to literature from the target culture. […]
There are a few topics that once you get me talking about them, I pretty much can't shut up: Mary Poppins, natural childbirth (two babies sans epidurals, thankyouverymuch), the superiority of the A&E film version of Pride and Prejudice, beauty pageants (grrr!), and the flagrant use of pluralostrophes, just to name a few. But, without a doubt, books are at the top of that list. Nothing gets me as excited, emotional, and passionate as the topic of books and the importance of reading. In fact, it's taking pretty much all the restraint I have to not go on and on about my love of reading: my bookwormy childhood and adolescence, my college experience as an English major, the time I spent as a Community Relations Manager at Barnes & Noble, how The Read-Aloud Handbook shaped a huge facet of how I parent, share my other all-time favorite books, refer you to my bibliophile Pinterest board, tell how I'm writing a novel....see, I'm doing it anyway. Stop, Heather, stop. As you can imagine, I also have strong feelings about the importance of libraries as well. As Walter Cronkite said, "Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation." Libraries are absolutely essential. That said, my local library and I sort of parted ways for a while. Quite a while, actually. I could never find what I wanted. The selection seemed paltry. Granted, I live in smaller city, so I can't totally blame them. I didn't really even bother with the children's section because I'd had the same kind of luck there, too. So I fed my Amazon habit and bought a lot of books instead of borrowing them from the library. I used PaperbackSwap (an excellent resource) to curb my expenses, but I was still spending a lot of money on books. It wasn't my fault that I couldn't use the best money-saving resource for books there is -- it was the library's fault, right? Right? Riiiiight... Then in 2012, when my oldest started kindergarten, I had an idea to listen to audiobooks with the kids in the car since we had a little bit of a drive to school (about 15 minutes each way). I knew the local library had an audiobook section for kids so I tried it out. Pretty soon, we started checking out some of the picture books in the section nearby and before I knew it, trips to the library were becoming a biweekly thing, if not a sometimes weekly trip, with us leaving with a stack of books. What I've learned is that I wasn't really approaching the library in very constructive way before. Sure, the selection wasn't great (for the record, it has gotten better), but I expected it to serve me, thinking I could just walk in, find exactly what I wanted easily, and leave. That doesn't always work with a smaller library like ours. It takes some advance planning, as well as use of all of the library's resources. Here are five ways how I have finally made our local library work for us -- and save us money in the process: 1. Make a list. There are so many great resources for finding reading suggestions! I love all the great lists you can find on Pinterest; Goodreads is also a great resource for book recommendations. I'm sure there are plenty other resources to find books that I haven't tapped into. I used to try to write them all down, but I found the best way for me to keep track of all the books I want to read and the books I want to get for my boys is through PaperBackSwap. Signing up for PaperBackSwap is totally free (you can read more about the program in a past post of mine here). I use the wish list and reminder list in my PaperBackSwap account to keep track of of the hundreds of books I want to read. (So many books, so little time...) 2. Check the library's website first. When I've found a book that has piqued my interest, I head over to my local library's website to check their online catalog. If the book is in their catalog, I put it on the reminder list in my PaperBackSwap account; if it's not in the catalog, I put it on my account's wish list. This helps me know at a glance what my library has. If I think ahead enough, I'll check the library's website before we go to see if the books on my reminder list are available or if they're checked out. 3. Keep a list with you. A lot of the time, my boys and I will just hit the library on a whim while we're out on an errand. Instead of trying to remember what I have on my reminder list, I just pull out the list I keep in my wallet. (Granted, I could log in to my PaperBackSwap account on my phone but the site doesn't really have a great mobile version -- at least last time I checked). I also keep a list in the bag I take to the library for our planned trips, just in case I'm in a hurry and don't have the time (or I'm too lazy) to check online. This list is just a bunch of titles that are on my reminder list, along with the last name of the authors. I really like and often use this printable for a good pocket-size list, but your list doesn't have to be fancy. Take the picture above -- that pink pad of Post-It notes next to the stack of books is the list I've been keeping in my library bag. 4. The library's waiting list is your friend. I totally under-utilized the waiting list option back when I was frustrated with my local library. I would complain about the library not having what I wanted, but I never did anything about it besides leave empty-handed. Now, I'll get on the waiting list for books that I know I want to read, even when I'm in the middle of a bunch of others. It's always a fun surprise when I get an email from the library when I've made my way to the top of a waiting list. I do this with books for the kids, too; I'm off to pick a book for them up off the hold shelf today. 5. OVERDRIVE! I don't know how long my library has had OverDrive, but it's pretty new to me. And let me tell you -- I. Love. It. Basically, it's a way to download books from your library onto your computer, e-reader, iPod, and/or phone. My first love will always be tangible books, but I'm trying to be flexible and open-minded when it comes to e-books. Quite often, the library won't have the physical copies of some books I want, but they'll have the e-book version as an option. The books are available for 1-2 weeks (depending on the limits set by your library) and when the time is up, they automatically return themselves. No need to worry about overdue fines or the library cop coming after you. I use OverDrive in two ways: I first learned about OverDrive when I read about it on this post about getting into audiobooks. Listening to books with my boys in the car had been so much fun, I wanted to do it just for myself. I followed this helpful tutorial to help me download audiobooks onto my iPhone via the OverDrive app. It's so easy! I love that I can take whatever audiobook I'm listening to with me everywhere. Unlike with CDs, I don't have to worry about losing my place or having a CD player. I just plug it into the adapter in my car or into my portable speaker. I also love the feature that lets me speed it up -- lately I've been listening to the book pictured above at the 1.5x speed. I resisted getting a Kindle for so long. However, once I realized how that there were a lot of books I could get via OverDrive, I was finally convinced and my husband got me a Paperwhite for my birthday. Like I said before, I definitely prefer holding a real book and turning real pages, but I'm digging this little Kindle. Today, I downloaded my first e-book via OverDrive and it was really pretty easy; I used this tutorial to help me do it. I still have my book-buying Amazon habit and I still fully intend to keep buying the books I love for my home library, but I have saved quite a bit of money since the library and I got reacquainted. And I have to say, I didn't realize how much I'd missed that feeling of carrying an armload of borrowed books out of the library, because it is a pretty fantastic feeling. Note: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers.
Teaching is a hard job, and much of the stress involved is beyond our control. Being organized, however, is one way to reduce stress.
We really like school nurseries with a great design. Although some of them are quite far —this is located in Denmark— they are a good way to dream and see what can you find in those places that seem have been created by kids, with lots of play spaces, atmospheres plenty of fantasy which take […]
To those afflicted with Fisheye, some students appear “larger” than others, grabbing more of our attention and making the others fade into the periphery.
Except for my family and a couple of close friends, I am most at home and most wholly happy in the company of former members of my unit in Vietnam. I see these men only rarely; I don’t know them we…
