It’s tough to write a blog for teachers in the final days of June. Some of you have been done with your 2012-2013 school year for almost a month. Some of you are looking at your last few days. Retailers are blatantly guilty of starting their back-to-school promotions. And we will not give you even a day of respite before you attend your first summer PD workshop.
So instead of asking you about the tough subjects (like last week’s inquiry about fixing education budget shortfalls), I’m going to ask you a few simpler questions. You can answer as many as you’d like. Everyone who responds gets an A+.
– How much antibacterial hand sanitizer is enough for your classroom?
–When is the right time to start talking with teachers about back-to-school?
–Grade your students’ cursive writing.
–Grade your own cursive writing.
–Do you read books mostly printed on paper or mostly on an e-reader or tablet?
–Glue sticks or classic “white liquid” glue?
–At what age should a child have his or her own smartphone?
– What’s the best name for a class pet?
Enjoy the remainder of your June!
Hand sanitizer – I always need more! We run out all the time. If I had to guess, I would say that we went through at least one regular sized bottle per week this past year. I had some serious germophobe kids however. Most years a bottle would last at least two to three weeks.
It is never too early to talk about back to school. Often, the end of the year is when I do my mostest serious reflecting of the whole year. I look back on what worked well and what needs to change. At that point, I love to bounce ideas off of my colleagues.
My students usually don’t know cursive, but I think my cursive writing is about a B+.
For pleasure, I mostly read on my iPad with the Kindle app. For professional development, I use print because I still find myself wanting to write little notes in the margins and add highlighting and I still haven’t really figured out how to no that on the Kindle. Also, for children’s books, I use print because I write questions I want to ask the students in the margins or at the end of each chapter.
Glue sticks!
Smart Phone – Wow. What a tough one. For students who walk to school, I think they need a phone. If they are going to have a phone, why not have a smart phone? They are practically free with certain phone plans. I like the idea that kids can access academic apps on their phones. If we allow them into the classroom, the possibilities are endless. However, many students only want to use the phones to play and that is a major distraction. So, I can’t come up with an answer to this one quite yet. I do think almost all of my fifth graders will have a smart phone within the next couple of years anyway. Most already do, so I may as well find a way to make it educational.
I need to proofread better obviously. Sorry for the typos in my previous post.