The Rigors of Math According to CCSS

Regular readers know that math and I get along about as well as oil and water, or perhaps open flames and gasoline. However, I do find it fascinating that the Common Core State Standards have what is called the “Standards for Mathematical Practice.” These are eight types of math expertise teachers should look for in…

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Sign Up. You Could Win!

There are a lot of things you can do to feel good about yourself. One of them is winning the lottery. On a more practical note, you’ll feel good when you have the tools you need to do your best in your classroom. To help you, The Mailbox has created two new weekly e-newsletters, Literature…

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The Unknown Future of Hand-Generated Communication, part 2

I thought for sure that there’d be a bit more debate in the wake of my most recent post about the future of cursive writing. You know, that writing “they” have now decided should be called hand-generated communication. Since we last exchanged ideas, I have read some of the information that was presented at Handwriting…

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Clinging to the Lost Art?

While I was getting all misty-eyed about my years at Chapman Elementary School the other day, I stumbled across another interesting piece of debris in the jumbled, cobwebbed recesses of my memory. Sentence diagrams. There were a few diagrammed sentences sticking out of the boxes where my fourth and fifth grade remembrances are kept. Those…

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