Non-Fiction Text Structures -- A great blog post...

Krsitin Jordan has written a great blog posting about teaching non-fiction text and working on those new Common Core Standards.   You can check her blog and the great information she has written by clicking on the link below: 

http://kristinmjordan.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/non-fiction-text-structures/

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Ten Great Ideas about Engaging Math

Dan Meyer has a great post on his blog about engaging math tasks.

I found the article to be a great inspiration - even though I'm teach Kindergarten students (SPED) currently, they are just beginning to grasp the concepts of adding and subtracting. This article has reminded me that I have  an opportunity to generate an interest in math that could last a lifetime.   The article and the subsequent comments are a great read and full of great ideas.   You can check out Dan's article by click on the title below:

Ten Design Principles For Engaging Math Tasks

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Got Data? Here's some ideas on what to do with it.

Are you collecting data? Do you have excel spreadsheets or, more like me, hand-captured sheets of paper that has collected data on your students? The website www.weareteachers.com has some great ideas for helping to put that data into good use. Check out their "5 Ways Teachers Can Use Data in Unexpected Ways to Improve Student Performance."  Click HERE.

It is a great read with really good advice on how to use the data we are to be collecting daily. 

Remember, districts wants us to collect the data, but they don't always tell us how to use it. Here are 5 great ways!

Let Technology Enhance Your Teaching...

A great new post about how technology doesn't have to over power your teaching... Check it out www.community.weareteachers.com    They also have other great blog posts as well.


5 Ways Technology Can Enhance—But Not Override—Your Teaching

Microsoft Teacher Guides Available...

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Teacher guides

Getting started with teaching tips and step-by-step guides for popular teacher tasks is easy and free. Use these teacher guides to learn ways to inspire your students and to better use new tools and technologies in class.  Check them out by clicking HERE.

10 ways to differentiate learning…

The blogger "What Ed Said" has provided 10 Ways to Differentiate in the classroom.... It is a great list for everyone who wants to be proactive for student learning to read...


"Once upon a time in the olden days, the teacher stood out front and taught the whole class the same material in the same way. Everyone was expected to do the same tasks, some passed and some failed and were labelled ever after. The focus was on teaching, not on learning. One size was supposed to fit all and if you learned in a different way, too bad for you.

Time passed and it turned out that everyone didn’t learn in the same way after all. The teacher realised that learners have different needs, interests and abilities. Differentiated instruction was invented. The teacher prepared different tasks for each group in her class and preparation now took a whole lot longer. The needs of the learner were being better catered for, but the teacher was up all night."

10 ways to differentiate learning…Read the list here.