I miss storytime. Storytime was my favorite part of the day when I taught. I loved to read aloud with fun character voices! I could let my inner actor go crazy, and my students would eat it up with a spoon. But we all know that reading with expression is something that doesn’t happen immediately…
Language Arts
A Big Ole Plug
Plug can mean a few different things. For some reason, I immediately think of a hair plug. No, I don’t have any—it’s just my slightly off-center sense of humor! The big ole plug I’m making today is filled with fantastic opportunities for teachers. For example, $750 worth of classroom cash (yes, you read that right!)…
Artifact Introduction
The start of a new school year is always such an exciting time. In our district, fourth grade marks the transition from elementary to intermediate school. Each year, I tell my fourth graders that the upcoming school year will be a new and exciting time for them—a new school, new classroom, new friends, new responsibilities,…
Chapter Book Giveaway
Are you familiar with the book series The Imaginary Veterinary? I’m only learning about the books now, and I’ve just added them to my list of read-soon books! I’ve been told that these books, in which veterinarians are heroes to animals everywhere—especially mythical, special-needs animals—are stuffed with adventure and high jinks. The chapter books are…
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…
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…
Surviving Math No-Man’s-Land
At the age of 44, I finally understand just how beautifully simple it is to figure out the area of a triangle. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I thought it wasn’t beautifully simple before. It’s that I didn’t know how to figure it out before. I’ve had to teach myself math. Yes, I…
What Fiction Would You Save?
Today, I have a reading comprehension sort of question. One of the bigger shifts in language arts courtesy of the Common Core state standards is the move away from fiction texts toward more focus on nonfiction texts. As a lover of the expository essay (and as someone who wishes he could write a whole lot…
The Common Core Pickle
Is there any better feeling than the one you get when, after struggling with a difficult or unusual task, someone says, “Hey, how are you doing?” Like when you’ve wrestled with a pickle jar, straining your wrist, feeling veins bulging on your forehead and disks bulging in your back, and you finally get that blasted…
Questions About Curriculum
Curriculum – noun – 1. The courses offered by an educational institution 2. A set of courses constituting an area of specialization. Cross – adjective – 1. Involving mutual interchange 2. Extending over or treating several groups, conditions, or classes. Maybe it’s because I’m an education nerd, or maybe it’s just because I think it’s…