My nine-year-old niece is a huge environmentalist and she recycles. Yesterday, she calmly asked her teacher, “Do you know how many trees died to give us homework for this week? You really should not give us homework. How are we supposed to breathe when we grow up and all of the trees are cut down?” I have [...]

Is It Finished?   I recently took a step of faith and downloaded the Oblique Application for my iPhone. It seemed intriguing enough. It definitely makes me think.   Use Filters   Just what is Oblique Strategies? Oblique Strategies is essentially a card game.  But it’s so much more than a game. As best as I can tell, each card ...

I believe that every teacher has the potential to reach out and impact the life of every student they have in their class. The key is that it takes a whole lot of dedicated attention and effort. My theory is that it is relativaly easy to positively impact about 60% of the kids in each of [...]

I have learned from many wise people (including the children that I have taught over the years) that nurturing a child’s self-esteem is one of the most important jobs a teacher has. Here are some ways to help, repair and enhance a child’s self-esteem: If you have to discipline a child (especially in front of the [...]

Everybody makes mistakes Everybody has those days Everybody knows what what I’m talkin’ ’bout Everybody gets that way Nobody’s Perfect! I gotta work it! Again and again ’til I get it right Nobody’s Perfect! You live and you learn it! And if I mess it up sometimes, Nobody’s perfect! Oops. I got a ...

Pat, over at Successful Teaching, recently tagged me in her blog challenge. She suggested that I write an article about the single most important piece of advice I would give a new teacher. It’s odd that she would write that, as it has been something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. So much so, in [...]

My son Will started kindergarten on a very sad note. His grandma had died the day before school started, so missed the first week of kindergarten. To make matters worse, he knew no one at his new school, was a week behind in learning “all the rules”, and his heart was still broken about the [...]

This idea was given to me years ago by a principal I worked for. I still think it’s one of the best ideas for classroom management and enhancing a child’s self-esteem. This is how it worked: At the beginning of the year, my principal gave each of his teachers a little red plastic telephone. He explained that the telephones were [...]

We have a number of videos from the 2008 National Conference that we will be sharing in the next few weeks. To begin with, here is a short 2-minute clip of Ann Lou Pickett, the founder of the National Resources Center for Paraprofessionals. Anna Lou shares how she became interested in paraprofesssionals, some of the early lessons she learned and ...

Write a rhyming poem about bats. (I love this activity because a lot of words rhyme with bats.) Make a nonfiction shape book about bats. (The shape could be of a bat, a cave, or  a bridge.) Begin a story with, “Bats are useful because…” Write a persuasive story asking your parents to let you have a bat [...]