Teaching Ideas and Tips
Every day I share ideas and teaching tips. As you may know, there are some authentication issues with Diigo and blogger, so here's today's tips posted manually.
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Some more ideas for behavior management including some tips from experts. If your students don't mind the first time it is time to rethink. (Fred Jones Tools for Teachers is also a great book for this as well as Todd Whitakers - what good teachers do differenty.)
- Teaching Ideas and Apps / Simplifying classroom rules This is a very simple, nice #classrules posterThis is one of my favorite simplified clasroom rules posters. I am thinking to do something similar to this.
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If you're on pinterest and use the hashtag #classrules in the description it will show up on this lovely board. This is an example of how hashtags can do incredible things on Pinterest (like on Twitter.) Now is the time to share these.
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My favorite graphics for classroom rules are from Pinterest! There are some ideas for class voting, etc. but some very nice photos and graphics. I see some ideas here. One that I'm pinning to my board says "stick together" and I like that.
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When looking for graphics like for Classroom Rules, I like to do image searches on Google because you can usually find some very brief summaries. Here are some short ideas for those of you working on your wall posters now. Simple is better.
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Great page on Classroom management and Class Rules from Jerry Blumengarten. If this is an issue for you and you really need a TON of ideas, Jerry is one of the best curators on the web!
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As you talk about Classroom Rules, you might want to use this hilarious Sesame Street Parody - "Share it, Maybe" - a parody of "Call Me Maybe" -- just so funny. (All they need is a baseball team in the back.)
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Some ideas and great pointers from Education World about classroom rules.
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Review and consider your classroom rules. My best advice is to keep them simple and few and if you want to go into detail, let the students collaboratively write out the details in a google doc or using post it notes as you talk about what kids should and shouldn't do in the classroom. It is great to talk about these things up front because you will understand the "pet peeves" that drive kids crazy about each other (saving yourself time.) I find that spelling out my bare minimum and involving kids in the detaiils gives them ownership.
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Parents Day is July 28th. Here are 15 ways to incorporate parents into your classroom with some great ideas. You start off the school year trying to establish a positive, encouraging relationship with parents. It is one of the most important things you do. You each have a role with children. Plan NOW how you are going to relate to and encourage parents in your classroom this year - here are some ideas.
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Bastille Day is July 14th. If you want to teach some French words, about the French Revolution or French culture, you could celebrate this holiday. You could create a fun "storm the bastille" event (of course they didn't have water guns, but it is summer in the US.) Here are some other lesson plans you can use for this holiday.
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I think that #engchat and reading teachers would be interested in downloading this list from Linda. She has shared a spreadsheet of reviews by graduate students of teacher books for teaching reading in the content areas. This is an example of how college professors can understand and share resources to help K12 teachers.
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Another great example of a persistent man was Sir Winston Churchill.
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Abraham Lincoln is a great example of a man with persistence. Bankruptcies, lost elections, and lonely days as well as depression plagued this great man. Teach about Lincoln but teach about the whole man.
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As you talk about the Olympics beware of putting too much emphasis on gifts. Many people are gifted but few are willing to pay the price of persistence and seeking of wise counsel to get where they are. It is a great time to look at habits and examine our own. Are we Olympic in our pursuits of our own dreams or are we happy to sit in our chair eating popcorn complaining about how we never get a lucky break.
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Great resources for Parent's day. Review these and plan ahead.
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Sesame Street has taken more than 1000 videos (all for elementary school) and aligned them with Common Core standards on the sharemylesson website. This is a great account for elementary teachers to follow on the site.
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Take time to teach children to write thank you letters. Here are some ideas.
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My year long technology project (Google 20% project) can be downloaded here along with a link to the website where you can see my student work. This was an incredible project and I'm integrating it into all of my courses this year.
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I'm testing the share my lesson site, in particular, the friending feature. I've friended some people that I know but was hoping that some of you who are planning to join the site or are already there would friend me. (If you're doing common core, it is a must join to get free resources and lesson plans aligned to common core.) This is the sister site to the TES site out of the UK that I've been using for some time now and if you have a profile there, just log in with that and accept the terms to move things over. If you uploaded to the TES site, you'll want to move over those resources. Thanks for helping me test it. Full disclosure, I've been doing work for TES and share my lesson for some time now. As you can tell, I do love what they are doing and their passion to help teachers mobilize and organize their own free content to share with others. the TES site uses the UK system and standards and now they've done the same thing in the US. Thanks for helping me test. (I would also appreciate someone sending me a message to see if that works too and you can message me any feedback and I'll pass it along.)
