Great Professional Development Opportunity

Teaching for Tomorrow:

2011 Martin Institute Spring Feast

February 3-4, 2011

Presbyterian Day School, Memphis, TN

This would be a great professional development opportunity for educators! To get more information and a schedule check here.

Registration, Info and Schedule

A lot of work but well worth it!

(Image from chicagonow.com via Google images.)

I love seeing what public and independent schools are doing to improve who they are. I came across an article in Chicago magazine, this month, about a school that has been transformed in the past decade. Nettelhorst Elementary has a great group of parents, faculty, administrators and community members that have put in a lot (to say the least) of hours to turn the school around. From grants to annual funds, from cold calls to sheer begging, the community within this school took a challenge and ran with it. The urban neighborhood school is not a thing of the past and these folks made theirs shine! If you are in an urban school district and want some fresh ideas or if you are just an educator that gets motivated by people doing good for children, check out this great article.

Click here for the article.

Click here for the book How to Walk to School, written as a result of many long hours of work at Nettelhorst.

Great Idea for Centers

I will begin this post by saying that this was not my idea. This great idea was that of my co-teacher, Holly's. We have center time every day from 11:30-12:00. Holly mans the Art Center and I man the Writing and Listening center. The boys are independent in the rest of the centers. We rotate every day so each boy gets a chance to visit each center once a week. The games and puzzles are changed out about once a month and the manipulatives are changed out on an as needed basis. The art center goes along with the letter or theme of the week. During the first semester the writing and listening center was broken up by 15 minutes with a book & and CD in the listening center and then 15 minutes doing handwriting with me. I would work with 2 boys while the other 2 had a book and then switched. This semester I switched it up a bit. I alternate weeks and work with the whole group all at once. One week we will work on handwriting the entire 30 minutes. The next week we will read, round robin style, as a small group. It breaks it up for me and the boys so we don't get burned out on one thing or the other. This center system has been a great addition to the classroom and I highly recommend it to all teachers! Please let me know if you have any questions about this great idea.

PS 22 Makes Me Want to Dance!

(Image used is from Google Images via http://murmurator.com)

I was on at Twitter tonight when a fellow teacher posted a video of the chorus at PS22 in Station Island, NY. As I watched the video, I watched the students as well as the teacher. The students were excited and involved and the teacher's joy for what he does almost cam through the screen. I find motivation in many things and seeing teachers with a genuine love for what they do always lights a fire under me. I love what I do and witnessing people demonstrate their passion for teaching in different ways give me a whole other level of motivation.

Here is a link to PS22 singing Just Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0FPZolbYns&feature=related

This video reminds me of a few things:

1) How lucky we are to call ourselves teachers.

2) How great it is to work with children on a daily basis. Children have a joy and sincerity that adults sometimes loose in their daily lives. Their joy and innocence is amazing to witness daily.

3) Even if you do not teach a chorus or music class, you can use music in your classroom any time. Music is such a great medium for learning. I can still sing you the Declaration of Independence from Mrs. Jackson's class circa 1988!

PS 22 has a blog: http://ps22chorus.blogspot.com/

New Year's Teaching Resolutions

Many people don't like New Year's Resolutions but I always look forward to setting goals for myself. I have some easy personal resolutions like quit picking at my fingernails and the always present lose weight but I have never made teaching resolutions. As I was thinking about this blog over the Christmas break I came up with a few goals/resolutions I wanted to make for the new year.

Here are some of my teaching goals for the new year:

1 - Maintain my blog and Twitter accounts. I need to post more frequently!

2 - Explore different schools. (No, I don't mean change jobs. I love where I teach.) I would like to look at the way kindergarten is "done" all over the world. What are some new ideas and resources I could find in other areas and at different schools?

3 - Don't get flustered! Have you had one of those days where the lesson didn't go well, the kids are bananas and you are internalizing all of it? I think we all have! I am going to approach those days with a calm attitude because getting flustered doesn't help anyone.

I would love to hear some of your teaching goals for the new year.

Please share with me if you like!

Happy New Year to you all! We have one semester under our belts.

Good luck with the Spring semester!

Where did the year go?

I cannot believe it has been so long since my last post! As many of you teachers know, once November rolls around, it is crazy at school. Special programs, special activities, class parties, school programs, holiday breaks, etc. We had a fun Thanksgiving in my class with the traditional hand print turkey place mats and indian garb. Since then, we have been traveling around the world and learning about how Christmas is celebrated in Italy, Sweden, Germany and many other international locations. I have learned a few new things, myself. I always love teaching Kindergarten but being with a group of kids at this time of year is just magical (although exhausting). The kids are so excited and the fun activities that we get to do in class are what we were all thinking about when we decide we want to be kindergarten teachers. Another one of my favorite things to do with my class during the holidays is share great books. Here are some great books we have read in class this month. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! Enjoy your breaks, all you teachers and I will be back to my blog more diligently in January.

Web tools for students, parents, and teachers

I was in a meeting today where the topic of discussion was the turn that education has taken, and is still taking, in regards to technology. Some great resources were discussed and, while these don't always relate to kindergarten per se, I think they are great tools to have with your list of Web resources. I have listed a few below with a short explanation of what they are. Check them out if you get a chance and pass them on. If you have any great resources you would like to share, post a comment.

Khan Academy: The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit educational organization created and sustained by Salman Khan. With the stated mission "of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the Academy supplies a free online collection of more than 2,000 videos on mathematics, science, history, and economics.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

ePals: ePals is the leading provider of safe collaborative technology for schools to connect and learn in a protected, project-based learning network. With classrooms in 200 countries and territories, ePals makes it easy to connect learners locally, nationally or internationally.

http://www.epals.com/

School of One: This is a new way to look at teaching and learning. School of One re-imagines the traditional classroom model. Instead of one teacher and 25-30 students in a classroom, each student participates in multiple instructional modalities, including a combination of teacher-led instruction, one-on-one tutoring, independent learning, and work with virtual tutors.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/School-of-One/113172042987?v=wall

Go to Meeting: This site was discussed because a teacher used Go to Meeting as a tool for tutoring students in reading. There are a plethora of ways to use this site.

http://www.gotomeeting.com

QR Codes: A QR Code, also known as a Box Code, is a matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera, and smart phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data. You have probably seen these in magazines, lately. These were places outside our classrooms this week. A parent can download any QR Code app on their smart phones, scan the code, and be instantly taken to our class web site. A great tool for all schools!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code