Well, I’m neck-deep in paperwork, meetings, and planning, but everything is working out well. Still, I want to accomplish three goals this week: to have the students write in a different (and more fun) mode, to force the students to review a literary work, and to encourage my students to write with more sentence variety. I am giving my students ...

Thanksgiving at the Tappleton's is an adorable holiday read aloud with a great message of finding gratitude in all situations. The Tappleton's traditional Thanksgiving meal goes all awry when Mrs. Tappleton lets the frozen turkey accidentally slid down the icy sidewalk into the pond. The meal plans go from bad to worse shape from there on in! It's ...

My class has loved reading Patricia Polacco's The Keeping Quilt the past two weeks. It's such a special story about the importance of family and traditions. Students completed their own family tradition quilt square too and were proud to share a piece of their heritage. After reading The Keeping Quilt, I read aloud some of her other books: ...

We and our students are immersed in media today. Look at the numbers: 80% of children under six watch at least two hours of TV or other screen media a day. The average American is inundated with 11.8 hours of information a day. 57% of an American’s information time is spent on the TV and on the internet. The average American is exposed to 560 ...

I'm an established children's writer, based in the UK. I visit dozens of schools, libraries and literary events every year to talk about my work and to generate enthusiasm in young readers for books and all things literary. You can find more info at my website www.simoncheshire.co.uk or at the Skype An Author Network.I have a couple of new ...

I’ve been on vacation and upon returning I had a full inbox of questions about how to integrate multiple language arts elements into a single assignment. I thought I would use an example from my own curriculum to illustrate the idea of integration. One novel we teach during the Sophomore year is Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, and we also ...

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “The English language is a vehicle. A vehicle to connect pople. Teaching and learning English is not the ultimate goal. We can use this language as a vehicle to study other school subjects. Or topics which are actually interesting to our students. Human topics. Engineering, history, ...

Over the summer I have been making a number of lists of different Web 2.0 Tools that I would like to use in the classroom this year. I made the lists so that I would remember what tools were available whenever I am planning a lesson. I do have a Smartboard in my classroom, so there's great potential for demonstrating tools when teaching or using a ...

One day teacher B said to teacher A, ''I'm glad, ya know?, because my elder daughter has told me she has begun to write a book, a novel. I like the idea. One person who decides to write a book, well, or a story, a shorter story, sounds great, you know? She reads a lot of novels, kind of one every two or three weeks. I'm after she wouldn't lose ...

One day teacher B said to teacher A, ''Writing is communication. Our learners must learn to write essays, and create stories. For that purpose they need to practice. They need to read massively, and focusing on the expressions that appear in novels, for instance. Thus, they will learn meaningful ways to express their thoughts, elegantly, and more ...