Planning a party can be challenging—take this recent occurrence at my house. My husband and I decided to invite a couple over for dinner. (We’ll call them Couple #1.) Couple #1 went to school back in the day with another couple we’re friends with (Couple #2). So we decided to invite them as well. It…
Math
From Apples to Watermelon?
What’s 92% water, classified as both a fruit and a vegetable, and is available in roughly 1,200 different varieties? That would be watermelon! In case you’re wondering, the heaviest watermelon on record to date is a 350.5 pound whopper grown in Tennessee by Chris…
Say Zoop! Win This Book
Some words are just fun to say; serendipity, zoink, lollygag, and superfluous are among my favorites. With Say Zoop! by Hervé Tullet , I’ve added a new, super-fun word to my list. (Go ahead, you know you want to say it, zoop, zoop, zoop….) You probably know Tullet’s other books, including Press Here, Mix It…
High-Flying Math, Art, and More!
Who’s the most special reindeer of all? Why, Rudolph of course! You’ll be reminded just how special Rudolph is when you discover how easy it is to add this reindeer-related activity to your lesson plans. All you need are large sheets of drawing paper, brown paper strips, scissors, glue, and crayons or markers. The activity…
A Frosty “Mathcraft”
No time for arts and crafts? Then plan a “mathcraft”! For each student, cut a circle and a hexagon from white paper; then cut each circle in half and each hexagon into a rectangle and two triangles. Choose a Common Core skill from below to incorporate during the formation of Frosty. Look at Frosty now!…
Number Bonds
I’m not talkin’ finance, folks—I’m talking about a nifty math tool. If you’re unfamiliar with number bonds, they look like the one shown. A number bond shows a whole number and its parts. It can be used for composing and decomposing numbers, for adding, for multiplying, and more. Are number bonds a part of your…
History Without Standards
I went looking for a different kind of standard. We have the Common Core State Standards, which cover mathematics and language arts. We also have the Next Generation Science Standards, already adopted by six states. But what about history standards? (And the arts? And civics? And common sense?) What I found was the National Center…
A School Year in Review
Let’s review, shall we? During the last school year, I touched on a wide range of subjects, both serious and not-so-much. On a few of them, I received many comments. On many of them, I received none. Good or bad, I think some of them are worth revisiting. And the passage of time may mean…
Common Core Outcomes Giveaway
Your time at the end of the school year is valuable. So this will be a short and, hopefully, sweet blog post. Roughly 97 ideas crossed paths in my brain at one point this morning (not unusual, really), and I was left with the following questions that I want to ask you: Did you incorporate…
To Code or Not to Code
One of the most beautiful things in the world is the IBM Selectric typewriter. It looks like a work of Mondrian, sounds like a tango, smells like the future, and responds like a thoroughbred beneath one’s fingertips. (That covers four out of five senses. I’ve never tasted a Selectric.) When I was quite young, I…