Kagan strategies are nothing new – if you haven’t been to a conference then surely you know a teacher who has. I was one of those teachers that absorbed all the information teachers could give me about Kagan Learning since I was never lucky enough to attend. While I pushed cooperative learning and being interactive, […]

When I first started out, I tried to make sure my sub would do everything that I would do if I was there. This was probably pretty stressful for the sub, and it was frustrating for me to return to work and see that things were not completed or hadn’t even been started at all. DON’T MAKE IT COMPLICATED. Your sub isn’t you. I Here's a helpful checklist I like to use to make sure all of my sub bases are covered! I run a very scheduled ship, but one or two off days won’t kill my class. Even when I had two students with autism that thrived on my routine, I just wrote them a note, left them a treat, and provided them with a new visual schedule. I also provide the entire class and sub with a huge schedule on chart paper. I use sub days for my kids to still learn of course, but they also have a lighter load than if I was present. I incorporate a lot of whole group activities to involve the sub and help him/her get to know the class. I also plan a lot of activities where my students work independently or in pairs, and then share out with the class. We don’t always have time during our regular days to have everyone share out, so they really enjoy it. Writing about what you might be doing while you are missing from class is always a hit with the kids, and fun to read when you return! I make sure to leave a fun incentive behind for the students to work towards and be rewarded for upon my return. In addition to what I typically do (tickets), I also have the entire class working towards a goal. It’s something the substitute announces at the beginning of the day, and just another helpful management tool for them to have in their back pocket. What I do is leave behind tickets announcing that anyone who receives a ticket will earn a special surprise when I return. They LOVE it! I think it’s important to leave additional work or suggestions for what early finishers can do. I let my substitutes know that early finishers can read a book, or go work on the extra activities that I left behind. Make sure your expectations are clear of what they may or may not do. I ask my teacher neighbor to check in on my sub in the morning, or just let them know that there will be a sub to possibly have to assist. If I have a particularly hard to control student, I see if I can leave that student with another teacher with plenty of work to keep them busy. I also like to let my subs know what do in case an emergency situation happens. I leave them little cards so that they can quickly ask another employee or the office for help. Don't forget to leave plans for what to do if someone gets hurt, sick, or has a bathroom related accident. Also think about how you want your sub to handle serious incidents in your classroom. I leave an incident report behind. P.S. Another great tip is to make sure you have Band-Aids available for the sub, so they don't have to send more kids than necessary out of the room for something small. Missing a day of work is the worst, hopefully you find this helpful when planning! XOXO, Mrs. O'Brien Click here to find out more about this resource!

I was chatting with a History teacher this week, who like most history teachers, was discussing how much content he had to get through and how some students just couldn’t handle the load. I n…

When I was a brand new teacher, I thought the quality of my teaching was ultimately tied to the quality of my resources, so I spent hours searching for great materials. I believed that if I had quality resources, ones that my students enjoyed and were engaged with, then that would make me a good teacher. Well, I still believe that having quality resources is extremely important, but over the years I've also come to realize that being a good teacher is SO much more than the tools in my toolbox. Everyday has a million moving parts that need our constant attention, focus, knowledge and skills of best practice. So even though I now believe that being a good teacher is more than the quality of my teaching materials, knowing that I have a good variety of kid tested and teacher approved resources at my fingertips allows me the time and energy to focus on other aspects of my teaching day. So today, as a follow-up to my original "favorite resources" post, I want to share with you MORE of my "go-to" resources that I consistently use in my classroom with my students! Build a Sentence I love this resource, and so do my students! This resource gets beginning and intermediate ELs speaking and writing! First, a photograph is posted. Then students generate a word bank by telling what they see in the picture. I ask for one word at a time. No matter the level of my ELs, everyone can come up with at least a word or two. I get additional details by asking about colors and quantities of items they see. Once our word bank is sufficient, they use those words to create varying lengths of sentences. They are asked to create a 3 word sentence, then a four word sentence, then a five word sentence, and so on. I'll ask, "Who thinks they can come up with a 4 word sentence?" My students all start thinking and counting on their fingers, then quickly a hand shoots up, then another. They love it! This activity is heavily scaffolded for beginners. Students orally create the word bank and sentences, but I write the words and sentences on the board using correct spelling and grammar. Then they copy. I am a big believer in modeling for beginners, and I model a LOT! This activity is a definite favorite among my students. They practice their oral language skills as well as their writing skills. I do this with my small groups at least once a month. Writing with English Learners I created this resource to prep my students for the writing portion of the annual language proficiency assessment. In Virginia, where I'm from, ESL students take the WIDA ACCESS each winter. Being that writing is the literacy skill that usually takes the longest to develop, I wanted to explicitly teach the skills students needed to be most successful on this assessment. In my lesson plans, I incorporate a listening, reading, speaking and writing focus each week. For the writing focus, I usually pull from these two resources. Whether I am teaching how to stretch out words, write a story, explain a process or analyze information, this resource allows me to choose the skills my particular groups need to work on. For my intermediate and advanced ELs in grades 3-6, I focus on "language formats" found in writing. Whether they are asked to describe, provide an opinion, analyze or compare and contrast, understanding and applying the language with that format is key. 5 Ws and H - A Writing Resource for Adding Details This resource is a new favorite! It teaches students to add meaningful details to their sentences. I often ask students to "tell me more." This writing activity gets them in the habit of giving more information in their sentences by adding thoughtful details. This resource is designed for gradual release. The first set of activities can be done in a whole group setting. A photograph is projected and students are asked to answer the 5W & H questions about the picture. This information is then used to write two thoughtful sentences. As students become more proficient with adding details to their sentences, the next set of activities can be done in either a small group setting or as an independent activity. The last set of activities are writing prompts that students can independently respond to in their notebooks. Posters are included which add a great visual reference for a classroom display. Restate the Question This is a simple, yet effective, activity that teaches students to restate the question or prompt in their answers, both orally and in writing. As a writing activity, either project a prompt on the whiteboard and have students write their responses in their notebooks, or print out the question and have them glue it into their notebook. This takes modeling the first several times, but afterwards should be a quick independent activity. For a speaking activity, pull out a card and ask the question. Students take turns answering several of the questions. This works great in a small group setting. My students often ask if we can keep on "playing." VIDEOS! VIDEOS! VIDEOS! Incorporating videos into my lessons is a MUST! When I plan a new unit, one of the first things I do is to scour the internet looking for fun and meaningful videos. My go to place is YouTube. There are some real gems out there, but it does take some looking. When I find a goody, it goes into my collection and I use it again and again. Here is a blog post that I wrote about using short films to teach reading comprehension skills. I continue to add to the list as I find new films. Click on the image to see the list! Check out my Short Film Bundle here. Monthly Themed Vocabulary This is an great resource to use with primary learners and beginning ELs. Each month contains 20 vocabulary words. I love this because it's relevant to what's happening around students at the given time of year. Along with the terms, which I use as a monthly word wall, matching cards, writing activities, a vocabulary booklet and BINGO games are included. In closing... As I create my weekly lesson plans, these "tried and true" resources are many of the activities that my students use throughout the school year. Having a collection of reliable and engaging materials available frees up the time I'd otherwise spend searching. I'm sure you have your go-to resources too. Happy teaching!! (Affiliate Link)

Hi, Jane here from SillyOMusic! Today I want to share a song that I (and pretty much every other Korean person) sang as a child, Santoki.

My cartoonist friend Alex Matthews tells me that he has been trying for ages to get a talking-object cartoon published in a magazine. And he's finally succeeded, with a cartoon featuring a talking stagalmite (or is it a stalactite?) in Prospect magazine. You can see it on his new blog. This got me thinking because I've really not done a great deal of talking-object cartoons. I've done plenty with talking animals, but not your actual inanimate everyday objects. And, really, you don't see that many around, unless they're by the master of the technique: the New Yorker's Charles Barsotti. He's given life to many an lifeless object. A great talking pasta gag springs to mind. Anyway, I looked through my files and could only find one published example, and it's almost ten years old. This was published in 1999 in the now defunct Metro supplement which came with the The Times on a Saturday. I've always had a fondness for this one, probably because it's so very, very daft, and I never thought anyone would actually print it! I like the world-weary look on the ironing board's, er, face. Looking through my unpublished gags, I found I've done maybe three or four others but none I want to share here because one is quite recent and is still "doing the rounds" of the magazines, and the others are, well, not that great. OK ... I have no shame, here's one. Talking punctuation marks, anyone? Actually I rewrote this cartoon for a commissioned job. It became one of several cartoons illustrating an in-house style book (a guide to grammar usage etc.), but the rewritten line came from the mouth of a human. It was an interesting exercise to look through my talking-object gags because what I realised was this: in every one of them the technique is used to illustrate a pun! So maybe a little thinking outside the box is in order and I need to find other ways of utilising this little-used cartoon technique. But I don't think Mr Barsotti will be too worried just yet. If you have any links to great talking-object cartoons that I may have missed, let me know. Royston's portfolio website

Fun scientific notation activities

A few weeks ago, when I posted my lesson plan template, I was asked to show how I would actually use this template in planning. With that ...

Creative ways to handle classroom management.

Growing up I was totally one of those kids that read early, talked early, all that jazz -- but hated math. I can't even pretend that I just strongly disliked it, as my feelings were those of straight-up loathing. If I have to place the beginning of this hate-hate relationship, I can safely say it started when I got my first B in sixth grade in algebra.

I began teaching at my current position in 2012. My interview had gone very well and I was 99% sure I would be offered the position. ...

If you remember, I originally had my planner set-up to also hold my coaching notes. While the system was working out okay, for a lot of reasons, I wasn’t really diggin’ it. So I took some time to rewo

The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 181 Transcript Jennifer Gonzalez, host GONZALEZ: The backlash against critical race theory in schools has grown steadily over the past year. While opponents initially targeted a relatively obscure branch of academia, they are now coming after everything, using CRT as an umbrella term for any kind of instruction related

The Shakespearean Bingo train keeps rolling with today's follow-up to last week's Shakespearean Comedy Bingo . Today we take a look at the histories.

View the comic strip for Basic Instructions by cartoonist Scott Meyer created March 09, 2012 available on GoComics.com

Your students are bright, but they don't always sound like it. Help improve student vocabulary with these 600 ways to say common things.

After seeing Grant Snider's cute and clever illustrations pop up on a number of blogs, I was led to his site where I ended up spending a good part of my

I remember when "graphic organizers" was the buzz word and at the school district in which I worked, if the teacher had "g.o." on his/her le...

UPDATE: The Hobbit has been released in Latin as of September 2012. It is available in book form as well as for Kindle devices. Click here for information: Hobbitus Ille Our Latin II summer boot camp will be translating Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat into Latin. Yes, Cat in the Hat is a child's book but it's also quite difficult to translate. The course should prove to be challenging while at the same time fun. One thing I find really interesting is that there are a good number of children's books translated into Latin. Even Harry Potter. No matter your feelings about J. K. Rowling's books, it is something that such a large book can be read completely in Latin. Here are the books I found on Amazon that are available in Latin. Let us know in the comments of any Latin treasures you've found and we've missed. By Dr. Seuss: Cat in the Hat (Cattus Petasatus) The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (Quomodo Invidiosulus Nomine Grinchus Christi Natalem Abrogaverit) Green Eggs and Ham (Virent Ova! Viret Perna!!) By A. A. Milne: Winnie the Pooh (Winnie Ille Pu) The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie Ille Pu Semper Ludet) Other: The Little Prince (Regulus) Ferdinand the Bull (Ferdinandus Taurus) Fairy Tales (Fabulae Mirabiles) Olivia There is even this: Easy Latin Crossword Puzzles Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum) I never knew there were so many! I encourage you to check your library as a few are quite expensive. If you have trouble finding any at the library then put in a purchase request. It's usually quite easy to do and can be done at the library's website. Have fun exploring kid lit in Latin!

“It’s about engagement, not technology!” That’s what stuck with me from Rhonda Blackburn’s section of this shared session. I was dead-tired by the time this session wr…

Some people are great at math. You, however, are not one of those people.

I created Writing Power Standards to use in my classroom, and this was a poster to help my students with figures of speech. Not all 17 figures of speech are there, but eight main ones (alliteration, simile, metaphor, hyperbole, irony, personification, onomatopoeia, oxymoron) are included. If you ...

Once three, now two. Ten languages, common problems and lotsa linguistics.

The fad that is MadPad! What is MadPad, you ask? MadPad is the ultimate app for the iPad in the music classroom. MadPad, created by Smule, allows students to create music from anything, yes anything! The app, which costs $2.99, comes with over 50 FREE preinstalled sets to play, anything from drums to bottles. Students can also record their own sounds to create a set. A set features 12 video clips. Students simply tap an image to play the sound. You can also loop a sound and/or record your performance. MadPad also allows for multitouch, so multiple sounds can be played at the same time. The multitouch is perfect when a limited number of iPads are available. Here is what a set looks like: I am fortunate to have 1:1 devices in the fourth and fifth grades at all four of my schools. Each fourth grade student has MadPad installed on their iPads. Since my students and I were so excited about this new app, I wanted to use it in our upcoming music program. Luckily our transportation theme for the program fit perfectly with the Honda Accord set on MadPad! I then decided to create a composition project for my fourth grade students using MadPad. To begin, I found a wonderful composition worksheet from O for Tuna Orff that she used for Boomwhackers. I created a similar worksheet that could be used for MadPad. For this activity, you will need a die, pencil, and worksheet. I first partnered up my students for this activity. Students roll the die to determine the rhythm to fit in each beat, or oval. Once all ovals are filled in, the students placed the MadPad number in the square. This number designates the sound clip used for that rhythm (shown below). After students completed their rhythms and sound clips for their compositions, they then practiced their parts. Due to time restrictions, I had each pair of students pick their favorite line to create a rhythmic ostinato. We then combined pairs of students to create a group of 8 students. The students decided how they wanted to put their parts together. They also decided on a name for their composition, an introduction, and an ending. The collaboration was incredible! Even though each student has an iPad, I only had room to plug four iPads into the sound board for the program. As a result, students shared their iPads to play their parts! I was so proud of all their work and collaborating! The results were AMAZING! Our next project (in the future) is to create our own MadPad sets using found sounds in our classroom! My students LOVED Madpad! You NEED to try it! Your students will fall in love too!

Potty Talk: A Flow Chart, a Bathroom Management System, and a Mysterious Puddle % %

A great start to a great year! Welcome to all of my new kinders and parents. You are now "o-fish-ally" a kindergartner!

Have you ever felt like as a teacher, you’re doing most of the work to learn, organize, pace, and dispense the curriculum while your students sit back passively waiting for you to tell them w…

(edited June 2017) I did up this poster in 2015 when I was trying to find ways to cope with my child’s meltdowns. After working with my child for a few years, I have come to have a better und…

This 6-page "lesson guide" is a great resource for teaching your students the art of persuasion! You could also use this in a Rhetoric Unit. This document is an easy supplement to your Pathos, Ethos, and Logos lesson. Present this to your students or print for them to use as notes. It includes writ...

La tassonomia di Bloom è uno strumento di formalizzazione delle fasi di acquisizione di abilità e competenze nel processo educativo. Prende il nome da Benjamin Bloom, presidente del comitato di edu…

I hope you have recovered after Thanksgiving and are settling back in to your routine at school! My husband, Josh, and I had a wonderful visit to Indianapolis to spend time with his family. Since they live 500 miles away, our visits only happen a couple of times a year, but we had no trouble packing in a lot! We saw our youngest nephew play basketball and then Josh's brother coached a high school game later that same night. Trips to three, yes - three, different malls and a stop to Lakeshore Learning! Our closest Lakeshore store is in Washington, DC, which is still several hours away, so I took advantage that we were nearby and got everything on my list (and a few extras!). The trip went too quickly and we look forward to going back this summer. Looking at the calendar before Thanksgiving, we realized that we have four long weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. We are trying to plan as many fun things as we can, while still teaching everything that we need to! This week we are working on writing friendly letters. We have talked about the parts of a letter and looked at our message everyday. The children have picked up very quickly on these terms! Today we wrote a letter to our principal. I wanted them to think about 2 questions they want to ask and 2 things to tell her. My favorite question to ask was "How old are you?" This came from my birthday boy! I had to explain that it is not polite to ask an adult - especially a lady - how old she is! We all signed the letter we finished and took it up to the office. Unfortunately, the principal was in a meeting and we couldn't give it to her in person. She found me after school and is writing a letter back to them! The kiddos will see it in the morning! here's our letter to Mrs. Moore Here's my mini-packet for letters. Enjoy! Click HERE to download. Happy writing to Santa!

When I started writing up my analysis, I realized I couldn't point to the kind of evidence I was supposed to have. There was no way to BS this one. I had to actually get better.