I Love to Teach too!

What a beautiful day it is for a grade level field trip!! The sun is shining bright and the temperature is a mild 70-75 degrees. Such an ideal day to travel to Charlotte, NC to visit the Discover Place.

Wait… what about those select few children who didn’t go on the trip.. for whatever reason.. what does the lucky teacher who stayed back do with them?? Sure I could load them down with drill after drill, or I could  give them the old faithful of crossword puzzles  and mindgames, but why not use this time for something truly useful and totally different from what the students may be used to.

Though various puzzle can increase mind activity I have found it beneficial to continue the lessons, but in a different manner. Watch a movie!! What kid doesn’t enjoy watching one of the new animated films.

Currently we’re watching Pixar’s Up which offers great examples and great practice for making inferences, drawing conclusions, and making predictions!!  The first 15 mins of the movie doesn’t have any dialogue between the characters.  Many of the movies that kids enjoy always provide a way for them to practice using important skills such as inferencing. Let’s think outside the box, outside the books, and try our same reading skills while viewing materials!

Another hand-dandy resource is Laura Candler’s Teaching Resources.  She provides tons of materials that are useful across grade levels and curriculums.  My current favorite is the Buddy Test Prep Strategy. Thanks Laura!!

In has been quite some time since my last post.  When I look back at the few posts Iactually DID complete I quickly realize that they were pretty void of anything of substance. So, I am here… again.  I will try, again.  Though the posts have been few, I have actually come across many resources that I find quite valuable.  As a matter of fact, i just found one yesterday that got me so excited, I now think Iknow what it would be like to win the lottery.  This one site is like Reading EOG Heaven (if there is such a thing).  A plethora of activities that I only though feasable in my mind… but someone (I’ll have to find out who later) actually took the time to make this stuff.  Once I find this amazing, thoughtful, ingenious, studious, limitless teacher – I will give him or her all the praises for such awesome work.

Maybe I should come up with a plan as to when I will blog… nah… that won’t work… I don’t stick to my schedule for anything else. Thank goodness for bells!!

In all hopes… I’ll be right back (BRB)

xoxo

Burrrr…. it’s cold!! All this snow and ice in North Carolina is such a lovely sight! It makes me think about the Winter Olympics. Courtesy of a great coworker and some fellow tweeps, here a few resources. Sled safely!!

*Wooo—sssh* I feel a poetry lesson coming on. One that focuses on onomatopoeia. We’ll see what happens.

Teaching map skills? Have your students follow the torch on its journey around Canada.

Teacher Vision offers a variety of resources.  Some items are free, however the membership is worth it (split the yearly fee with other teachers). Indiviual activities to follow.

2010 Vancouver Olympics is the official site for the Winter Olympics. Keep up to date with wins/losses and medal counts.

Since my general purpose is to create a site for “goto” resources it is important for me to explain from where the idea sprouted. North Carolina Teacher Academy offers professional development to teachers so we may continue our growth as professionals.  The world is constantly changing, our students constantly change and as teachers we must constantly find ways to adapt to our given situations.

A few years ago I realized that as professionals we don’t collaborate and network as much as other professionals do.  Think about it; lawyers, medical doctors, and accountants are always networking.  Around this same time my school implemented Professional Learning Communites (PLC) so we could collaborate and work on expounding our GROWTH (which leads to student growth as well).

To make a long story short, I enrolled in an online class via NC Teacher Academy which focuses on educators building a network via Twitter – a networking site that allows you 140 characters to answer the question “What are you doing?”

Just in two weeks – this network of brilliant educators has shared tons of resources!  It’s important to keep up with the many sites, pdfs, and documents that we’ve shared.  If you are anything like me or any of the teachers I know, then you are sort of a ‘packrat’ when it comes to resources! Consider this blog…. my virtual closet!

As much as I love to write and love to teach I had never considered creating an educational blog.  I’m not sure exactly how all this will workout, but I’m sure its worth a try.  This space will serve a few purposes. Mainly, it’s a spot to post resources, this way my ‘network’ can get to them easily.  The second purpose will serve as a sort of journal… my teacher life, my world, my words, my perspective.  Let’s see how it looks.

This was totally inspired by my fellow edutweeps!

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