I recently saw this video and it blew my mind! Such a cool science video. It totally inspired me to see the world around me differently. I’m dying to share this with my class!
If you know me, you’ll probably know that I love to use games in my classroom! I think playing games is the best way to create a fun learning experience. I usually have some blank game boards (like these) handy in my classroom to use with one of my favorite review games. I decided to make some new ones for fall, since I didn’t have very many. So here’s my first one: I call it “Fall is fabulous!”
There are so many things to keep track of at the beginning of the school year. There’s so much information to make sure your students and their parents know! I recently made a sheet of teacher contact cards. To along with that same idea, here’s my class contact page. Print out the page, write in the information and then run copies for your class.
It’s really helpful, if not essential, to have open channels of communication with the parents of your students. That all starts with sharing contact information. Here’s a free editable file you can use to make your own teacher contact cards. Hand these out to parents at the beginning of the year or throughout the year as needed. Encourage parents to keep this in their wallet or somewhere they won’t lose it, so they can communicate to you conveniently and quickly if needed. Enjoy!
A reader recently submitted this picture of a box of Cracker Jacks with a fun saying. Her principal gave one of these to each teacher and staff member in celebration of a successful first week of school. Too cute!
I recently learned about a cool free resource for teaching! It’s called Khan Academy. It provides tons of free educational content-based videos, with topics ranging from math and science to humanities and economics. With a log in, students (or anyone) can complete learn by watching videos and then complete tasks to earn badges. Teachers can track the data for their students and use the materials in lesson plans. You may also want to refer parents to this site if they’re looking for supplemental materials for helping their child. What’s not to love!?! I wish I had learned about this when I started teaching!
Turns out cursive is really good for your brain! Click here to view a quick video by Discovery News that shows some study results that show how good cursive is for your brain! Here are some highlights from the video:
Cursive teaches the brain a functional specialization
Cursive activates multiple areas of the brain at once
Cursive improves fine motor skills because it’s more demanding (in terms of movement tasks) than print is
Practices handwriting increases neural activity
The broad range of letter shapes in cursive increases visual recognition skills
Cursive engages students more in by giving them a better sense of style and giving them a sense of ownership over their own handwriting