April 03, 2024

Spring Bulletin Board: See how we've grown!

April 03, 2024/ Contributing Blogger

It’s not always easy to see how much we’ve grown in one year, especially for a child. Physical growth might be the most noticeable because we can feel it in several ways. For instance, we can tell when our clothes are too big or too small; they don’t fit right. We know when our feet have grown because our shoes are too tight, and our feet hurt. Also, we can tell when our hair has grown when it starts covering our eyes and ears. Intellectual growth, on the other hand, is much more difficult to notice.

April 04, 2023

Spring Bulletin Board: See how we've grown!

April 04, 2023/ Contributing Blogger

January 22, 2020

Student Toolbox: How do I choose a career?

January 22, 2020/ Contributing Blogger

Do you remember what prompted you to choose the teaching profession? How old were you when you made that decision? Research surveys have shown that many people don’t decide on their professional career path until they are already in college, and some don’t make a decision until later in life.

If you are a middle school or high school teacher, chances are you will have the opportunity to discuss future college and/or career plans with your students. Students will benefit from these discussions because the sooner they begin working towards their future career goals, the likelier they will be to turn those goals into reality.

Today, I would like to show you a great resource you can use with your students to help them begin exploring career paths:

October 16, 2019

The Joy in Play—Benefits of Unstructured Fun

October 16, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

In previous blogs, we’ve discussed the benefits of taking some time to slow down, relax, meditate, and focus on being more of a human-being rather than a human-doing. For teachers and students alike, that all seems easy to do during the summer months, but how do you avoid getting sucked into the busyness of being that human that is always “doing” during the school year? …“PLAYTIME” might just be the answer for both you and your students.

I recently read an interesting article in a local health magazine that focused on why children need unstructured fun in their lives. Trust me, I don’t need to be convinced that playtime-fun is beneficial to human development, but I wanted to read what the experts had to say. Play was described as

September 05, 2019

Step by Step: The Value of Following Directions

September 05, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

For my birthday, I received a beautiful interior sliding barn door as a gift. I envisioned that this hefty, rustic door was going to be a unique addition that would bring more style to my home. With a few extra hands, how hard could this DIY project be if we just followed the instructions? Right?

Well, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be!

Have you ever experienced a situation when you didn’t need to read the directions for a simple recipe or to assemble a new toy? I’d venture to say that sometimes that works out, but not every time. Even when you’ve read the instructions, they sometimes aren’t clear enough to get the final product you’d hoped for. If that’s the case, you may end up with holes in your wall and a barn door that is now taking up space leaning against the wall. (Ugh!) When it comes to reading the directions every time, I’m just as guilty as the next person—I don’t always do it.

In the classroom, many students bypass the instructions and head straight to number one on the assignment. Shurley English students are not immune to this; it happens all the time. As a teacher, it’s frustrating and heartbreaking to see the defeat in a child’s eyes when they realize they haven’t followed the directions and must start the assignment over.

August 23, 2019

Having Fun with Analogies

August 23, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

An analogy is a way of thinking about how pairs of words are related. It’s a special kind of word puzzle that lets a student have fun and exercises their brain at the same time! If you need a language arts activity to help keep your students on their toes, teach them how to create analogy puzzles! They can be done at any time, and kids seem to always enjoy the challenge.

June 13, 2019

Summer Learning: How to create a positive summer reading experience

June 13, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

Summer vacation is supposed to be a break from the usual routine of school, but many parents worry their kid’s reading skills will digress without some sort of action plan. According to the "Kids and Family Reading Report," a survey done by Scholastic, an American publishing company, those fears might not be far from the truth for some.

Scholastic’s most recent report showed that among kids ages 9-11, 14% did not read any books during the summer of 2018, compared with 7% in 2016. Among kids ages 15-17, 32% did not read any books during the summer of 2018, compared with 22% in 2016.

Now, before you hit the panic button, it’s important to let you know that

May 14, 2019

End-of-School-Year Activity: Creating a Summer Bucket List

May 14, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

As eager as your students are for the school year to end, it won’t be long until they are actually bored during their summer break. Yes, I said “bored.” Help your students stay focused and creative while they gear up for that day with this fun and creative classroom activity.

In this blog, I will share an activity that will teach students a valuable lesson as they create their own Summer Bucket List. The catch is that they will create it while working in small groups. As always, you can do as much or as little as you like with this idea. Here’s how to get started.

May 07, 2019

Writing Extension: Exploring Appreciative Inquiry

May 07, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

Spring brings longer days and more light into our lives. It’s the time of year when flowers bloom and tree buds turn into luscious leaves before our eyes! With everything outdoors transforming anew, it’s so hard to capture the attention of students experiencing spring fever! So, why not capitalize on the fresh change of seasons, using a writing activity that will inspire students to appreciate spring and ‘Carpe Diem’ at the same time!

May 02, 2019

Grammar Reinforcement: Creating Confidence Cards

May 02, 2019/ Contributing Blogger

I love teaching! I love the challenge of finding ways to teach children how academic content connects to their real life. My love of teaching has carried over into the world of life coaching, and in this capacity, I can help teens feel good about who they are.

Let’s be real. Life can be tough for many children these days, and many of them could benefit from a little more positivity in their lives. For this reason, I found a way to connect my