On teachnet.com blog, they have a list of almost 300 Comment Ideas for Report Cards & Progress Reports. This would be an awesome list to print off and save for use in our future classrooms. They also have a post that has a lot of Ice Breaker games for students to play at the beginning of the school year. They look like they would be a lot of fun for our students! They also have an activity to use in your classroom called Attendance Chart. They tell how you can turn your absences into a learning experience. This would make a neat math activity!
On the Road to Teaching blog, they have a post telling you what to do you if you are applying for a teaching job at an unfamiliar school.
If you have only a day before the interview they offer you these tips:
a. Conduct online research of the community. This will give you an idea of the socio-economic and ethnic background of your students.
b. Visit the school’s website. Read everything but especially the school newsletters so you know what is going on at the school.
c. Review the school’s test scores. This will show you the strength and areas of improvements in student achievement.
If you have several days before the interview, they offer these tips:
a. Do everything mentioned above.
b. Send an email to your teacher friends, tell them you have an interview, and ask them if they have any insight on the school where you applied.
c. Go to a café near the school. Observe and occasionally talk to some of the people there.
d. Drive around the school and the local community. This will give you an opportunity to find the school prior to your interview.
On the Two Writing Teachers blog, they have a post titled First Attempt at Poetry. Ruth (one of the bloggers) and a teacher named, Lori, launched a poetry unit of study in Lori’s kindergarten classroom. They wanted to see if the students could write a poem. Ruth read them a poem called Pencil Sharpener by Zoe Ryder White. In the poem it talks about how it sounds like bees are buzzing inside the pencil sharpener. Lori sharpened pencils while the students listened to the sound of the sharpener. They asked the students what else they heard when the pencil sharpener was going. Some of the responses were, “It sounds like rushing water. It sounds like a rusty old car. It sounds like a song is in there. Sh-sh-sh.” They have posted a couple of the students poems and a video of one little boy’s poem that they taped. This is a neat idea and I can’t wait to do something like this in my classroom!
Over on the Answer Sheet blog, I read a post called 10-year-old: “I want to know why after vacation I have to take test after test after test.” The writer of the article is Carol Corbett Burns, a principal at a school in New York. Her ten-year-old neighbor said this to her, “ I want to know why after vacation I have to take test after test after test,” she asked. “I know what math I’m good at. My teacher knows the words I can’t spell. My mom knows I’m a fast reader…. So what’s the point?”
Carol didn’t answer but asked a question of her own, ““Why do you think the tests are important?”
The ten-year-old answered, ““No idea,” she said, “but my teacher says that we need to do good on them. She’s nervous about us taking the tests. Now here’s what I think. I am supposed to learn in school, right? But either you are test-taking or you are learning—can’t be doing both at the same time.”
Carol says that the little girl is right and I think so, too. We are pushing these tests so much that students aren’t learning all they need to know. I know I have said the same things over and over, so if you would like to read the whole story you can here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/10-year-old-i-want-to-know-why-after-vacation-i-have-to-take-test-after-test-after-test/2012/04/10/gIQA1sOz8S_blog.html#pagebreak
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