Harry Potter Battles Prejudice

Researchers have found that reading Harry Potter novels increases an understanding of prejudice and tolerance. 

Question Your Questioning K-12

Student Memes

Random Discovery Model Ideas

Engineering: How can you take an aerial picture of the entire school?

Photo Journalism: Take ten photographs of something in your neighborhood that make you feel good/scared/bad.

Politics: Convince a celebrity they should visit our school.

Food Service: Describe your favorite meal without using one of the five senses.

Horticulture: Plan a butterfly garden.

Historian: Collect first hand accounts and second hand accounts of an event in your community.  Use both kinds of research to form your own opinion of the event.

Advertising: Create three ads for a local business.  Provide an explanation of why your ad will be useful.

Accounting/Management: Create a spreadsheet for the cafeteria to help them keep track of which lunches are most popular.

Actuary:  Keep a record of days of school versus type of injury for the class.  Chart the statistics of getting hurt by time of day, day of the week, and week of the month/year.

Investigator: Compare two fingerprints.  Find three things the same and three things different about the two prints.

Designer: Design a more welcoming environment for the front of our school.  Make 5 changes.

Ecologist:  Create a diagram of our school grounds and the plants that surround it.  Name two native species and two non native species.

Cost Estimator:  Estimate the steps and the cost of doing something with the old, empty KFC building.

Urban Planner:  Pick two cities in the United States and compare them.  What makes each city great to live in?  What makes it difficult to live in?

http://kids.usa.gov/teens/jobs/a-z-list/index.shtml

Why do galaxies have spirals? 5-12th

First Free Download on TPT!

Click to Download

I'm making some items for my use in the classroom.  Might as well share and get feedback (number of views, number of downloads, comments) on my work.  Check it out.  It's free!

What Works

Why can't standards be provided in multiple formats?  The interconnected nature of these topics cannot be fully understood displayed in list form.  I'd love for there to be a graphic organizer version.  And it's so repetitive.  Ugh.

Teacher Improvement Memes

What makes a good teacher?  Not this website.  However...

Great teaching is a beast, a marathon, a mountain.  It's more than a list of best practices or good ideas, which is basically what I use this blog for.  Even so, I hope to collect tangible changes and at least document anything positive, no matter how small.

Furthering the Discussion on Quality

Another way to frame a discussion on great teaching is to view teacher evaluation systems in context of the individual, community, and the system.  Here is a link that describes the four domains of the Danielson Model: Planning and Preparation, Classroom Environment, Instruction, and Professional Responsibilities.

The Ultimate Meme: Relationships!

A great TED talk from Rita Pierson.

No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship.- James Comer

Kids don't learn from people they don't like.

Minus eighteen sucks all the life out of you.  Plus two says I ain't all bad.

We teach anyway!  Every child deserves a champion!

Wow.

Temple Grandin.  Watch the movie!  But here's a talk that gives feedback on what teachers can do for their students.

Educational Leadership

Loving the first two readings for my graduate classes!  Both texts highlight weak spots in the discussion on how to improve schools in the United States.  The first example here gives insight to acknowledging and maintaining the politics of schools and the second develops understanding of human beings as capital within a system and provides real-world suggestions on how make improvements based on these reasonable assumptions, instead of using a business model of capital.

I've enjoyed both of these texts and if you are serious about improving your school district, would recommend these reads!

          

They also reference some of my favorite authors, one being Daniel Pink, a psychology and business guru on motivation in business.  See his TED talk below for a quick overview of his book Drive.

Reading Conferences 4-6th

There's nothing that compares to a one to one reading conference.  Students and teachers get time to demonstrate and analyze reading habits.  Honestly, more than whole group instruction, memes becomes meaningful in small group or individualized settings.  Here are forms that might be helpful for running reading conferences and reader's workshop in a balanced literacy classroom:

The Curriculum Corner Forms

The Daily Five/Cafe

Reading Conferences Documentation

Common Core Checklists K-8th Grades

Here's a great list of the Common Core Standards.  You can use it as a checklist when making your unit plans over the summer.  We use an online grade book/lesson plan system where we can link CC standards as we enter our weekly plans, but this is essential reading for refreshing understanding of the standards over the summer and it is even organized nicely.  And it's free!  Enjoy!

 http://www.thecurriculumcorner.com/thecurriculumcorner456/7th-8th-grade-common-core-checklists-2/

http://www.thecurriculumcorner.com/thecurriculumcorner456/4th-5th-6th-grade-common-core-checklists/

Writing Contests 5th and 6th

My research on possible writing contests for students to enter this year.

NJ350 Writing Contest

Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Contest

Schneider Family Book Award

Patriot's Pen 6th Grade

Get To Know

River of Words Poetry Contest

Poetic Power Essay Contest

Grade 1-3 PBS Kids Writer's Contest

Letters About Literature Writing Contest

The Prakhin International Literary Foundation (Holocaust) Writing Contest

Ghandi Art and Writing Contest NJ

NJAGC Art and Writing Contest 

NJ Trout Writing and Art Contest

Kids Are Authors Scholastic Writing Contest

Flocabulary 5th-6th Review

Seems like a fun review!

Language Arts 5th and 6th Grade

Here comes a new assignment for a new year of teaching!  Needless to say, there is much to do and lots of preparations underway this summer.

      

I've started reading some new, updated texts I hope to incorporate into the program soon.  The first novel I've read this summer is Smile by Riana Telgemeier.  It's a great beginning fifth grade read.  It might be on an easier level, but it has great comprehension aids (it's a graphic novel aka comic book) and a great theme for kids in this age group.  Buy a copy of  your own! 

In addition, I've gotten my files together for 5th and 6th materials.  Here are some interactive notebook ideas for teaching theme, tone, mood, literary elements, figurative language, and story devices. http://imlovinlit.blogspot.com/2013/06/interactive-notebook-linky-party-five.html

And last for today, I've gotten a lot of great information and teaching tips from www.teacherspayteachers.com.  There's lots for sale to preview to snag ideas from and there's also  A LOT of freebies that are ripe for the picking.  It includes useful pages and activities for content as well as management.

Grading 5-6th

See this link for information on best practices for grading.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov11/vol69/num03/The-Case-of-the-Illogical-Grades.aspx