For many years now, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has been known as March Madness. Sixty-four teams from all over the United States compete for the ultimate prize: to be named National Champions. It's not easy! The team that wins it all has to prevail in 6 consecutive, pressure-packed game...
February 1st has been named Digital Learning Day by the Alliance for Excellent Education. Given the explosion in technology use in our classrooms, homes, and as part of social communication, dedicating a day to this topic seems only fitting.
The technological focus of 21st Century skills goes ha...
Classroom games are fun, motivating, and educational. Many years ago, I came up with a way to reinforce importantvocabulary words with something I call The Vocabulary Game. All you need to play the game is a pocket chart, which you can find at your school, or at your l...
Some of the most interesting teaching opportunities stem from taking advantage of the many "awareness" weeks and months which are built into each school year. In this article, I'd like to propose some activities for you to use during the upcoming National Aviation Awareness Week.
The Smithson...
One of my favorite subjects is physical geography. Ever since I was a young student, I've always loved looking at maps of all kinds and finding out about different parts of the world. I find human geography fascinating as well. The astounding variety of cultures, languages, customs, religions, ...
Throughout my teaching career, I have been consistently surprised by how little my students know about the Pilgrims and the origins of Thanksgiving. Since the Pilgrims are such an important part of our nation's history, I make it a point every year to teach my students about them and the histor...
October is officially National Bullying Prevention Month. According to statistics on bullying, 2.7 million students reported being bullied in 2010 alone, and about 160,000 children miss school every day from fear of being bullied. For students who suffer from depression or low self-esteem, bull...
Let's face it, we've all done it. We enter our classrooms right before the end of our summer vacation and ask ourselves, "How should I arrange my seats this year?" If you're like me, you probably set up your classroom exactly the way it was when school ended in June.
One year I decided to try so...
Many teachers dread Back to School Night. While speaking to a group of students may be easy for teachers, speaking to a group of adults can be difficult and intimidating. I made it through 22 Back to School Nights and, using trial and error, came up with a system that worked for me. As the new sc...
Teaching students how to deal with anger, and coping with their peers, isn’t often in the typical curriculum, but it is one of the things that is essential to a positive classroom environment. Teaching anger management strategies is important to creating a safe, successful classroom e...
Most teachers, whether they are new or a seasoned veteran, are familiar with the concept of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Bloom’s system of classification was developed in the 1950’s and identified six different levels of human thought: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluati...
It’s one of those things you can count on, as school district budgets get smaller, the number of students in classrooms will get bigger. Depending on where you are in the nation, your student to teacher ratio may be 25:1 or as high as 40:1. While there might have been a time in the past when dist...
As educators, we are aware of the enormous value in setting clear, specific, obtainable, and measurable goals for our students. Making those goals transparent, and facilitating students' mastery of them, happens through early and effective teacher planning. Teacher organizations and entire nation...
Interactive whiteboards have become increasingly popular in classrooms across the country. Taking technology in the classroom to new heights, interactive whiteboards provide a diverse array of tools and resources to users.
Setting up an interactive whiteboard brings an excited hush over an enti...
For teachers, using time wisely is crucial. Things are always changing, students always have issues, and parents always want to speak with us. Our planning time is often spent on the phone with a parent, listening to another teacher, or dealing with students who had an argument on the playground....
Recent Comments
Classroom Seating: Which Arrangement is Best?
“I teach high school freshmen and my seating arrangements change every...”
Motivating Activities for Geography Week
“Thanks for the great ideas... just a question... Europe and Asia are ...”