Fun Friday: Clearing Cobwebs

(Image by mazeo, Open Clipart Library)

Cabin Fever, that dreaded dis-ease also known as The Winter Blahs, has set upon us. Well, at least my family and I are suffering from it. Unable to go swimming or run around an amusement park to blow off some steam, we are thinking of different ways to punctuate our days with fun breaks.

Teachers can also experience a kind of cabin fever when they are in burnout mode. We work hard, every day, including weekends. Writing lessons, creating content, meetings -- when does it stop?

Right now. I'm calling it. This weekend is your Moratorium on Working Yourself to a Frazzle.

How will you beat the blahs? That part is simple. Do something you really like for an extended period of time. No, really. REALLY. Don't just say that you'll join those at your house for a board game in a few minutes. Do it. Now. It is important to pull away from that sense of duty that drives us to be better teachers if we are actually going to be a better teacher. I cannot tell you how many times I have played with a toy, used an arts and crafts supply or watched a movie and said, "Wow! That's IT. I know how I would use this in my classroom."

A rolling stone may gather no moss, but a tired brain tends to produce less than stellar ideas. Revive yourself this weekend by remembering the hobbies and interests that you enjoy most, and having fun. Here are just a few websites to get you back to the Fun Zone:

Crayola: Coloring Page Maker

Drag backgrounds, elements and words into place to make a page to print and color. It gets a little addictive once you start finding the images that really work with your idea. 

FreePatterns

If you like to crochet, cross stitch, work with plastic canvas or create paper crafts, then you will enjoy downloading PDF patterns of a wide array of arts and crafts.

PennyDell Puzzles: Free Puzzles
Get the free puzzles du jour in a variety of formats, including crossword, sudoku and variety puzzles.

PopCap Games: Book Worm
An oldie but a goodie, this game brings out the word (and game) lover in all of us.

(Image by StudioFibonacci, Open Clip Art Library)

Thinking Thursday: What's the Plan?

(Original image by nlyl, Open Clip Art Library)

I apologize for the late post today, but family matters superseded blogging until now. I am actually glad that they did, as it gave me time to put some real thinking into this week's "Thinking Thursday" ideas.

During one of my family meet-ups of the day, a relative of mine (who also teachers . . .lot of educators in our clan!) lamented her recent experience of being asked to give up some of her planning time for the day to "sub" for an absent teacher, even though she is a full-time teacher with responsibilities, as well. It was to be "for only 15 minutes" -- which turned into more than an hour. While my relation is a very accomplished teacher in her own right, it is always nice -- when being thrown to the wolves -- to have a bone. After panicked searching, she did find enough teacher information to make an attempt at teaching a group of children she did not know, er, something. Pitfall after pitfall ensued, mainly because the teacher who was not there was REALLY not there. Where was her presence? You know: overview of the year/marking period/month, key questions to consider/answer, objectives of some kind -- materials in a stack for others to use in case one is absent?

I was going to rant on and on about this topic of unpreparedness in a field striving to have its members considered professionals -- which they most certainly are. However, the whole "extra thinking time" came into play at this point. Rather than protest loudly at the few who drag down the many, or relate my own war stories (you have yours, too, I know), I would prefer to end this on a productive and collaborative note.

Question 1: What do you do to make sure that your room has you in it, whether you can show up that day or not? What do you leave for a substitute teacher at all times to make sure that things run smoothly in your absence (and the day does not turn into a glorified babysitting gig)? 

Question 2: In what form (i.e. paper, Word doc, Intranet server forms) do you write and manage your daily and weekly lesson plans? Are they easily accessible for the substitute teacher to  understand and follow?

Questions 3: Is there a standard operating procedure in place in your building or district that requires your lesson plans to be in a certain format? What, in your opinion, is the actual compliance rate for those specifications?

Any comments or best practices that you can share in a "Comments" post would be greatly appreciated. Many teachers work countless hours to make their classrooms run well, with or without them. Let us laud the hard work of those professionals who do so.

Some Online Lesson Plan Authoriing Options

• PlanbookEDU

• Planbook

• CorePlanner

(Image by TheStructorr, Open Clip Art Library)

Wacky Wednesday: Tweet, Tweet! #seriously

My husband will tell you that I am not someone who "got" Twitter right away. I found Facebook's constant invites by "friends" to farm or fish or whatever very annoying. Please, I do not need any more distractions! Does anyone? Twitter seemed like "Facebook, only shorter", and I could get behind that -- I just didn't want to go the whole "@someone, I ate #breakfast and it was #fun." route. Why would I want to continually tweet my whereabouts and happenings? Where is the return on my time and (heh) talent?

My initial misgivings quickly melted when I gave it some thought. Social networking provides great parent-teacher-student connectivity opportunities and is much quicker and efficient than a daily website update. Here are some Twitter-driven suggestions to get yourself up and running (if you are not already hash-tagging everything in sight):

• Begin slowly, with an account for personal use (@yourname). Watch some how-to videos on tweeting, adding tags and how to add followers. 

• Type in some #education-type searches in Twitter's search engine, and begin to follow your favorite bloggers, teachers, publishers, education groups and government agencies on education. The content to which they will link you will be worth the effort alone.

• Spruce up your profile with a uniform, but fun for you, look (see my Fun Friday post on Themeleon). This is more than a "time waster" activity. A smart-looking Web presence is a good thing to have when dealing in professional circles.

• When you feel comfortable with Twitter, register a Twitter feed handle for your classroom or organization. Be sure that you are very careful in how you use this feed, as this is the "face" that you put on your classroom, teaching ideas and professional contacts. Avoid discussing topics that are not school- or child-appropriate in this feed.

• Remember that Web presence makeover you did for your personal Twitter feed? Do the same for your classroom feed, and begin to "make your brand" by using school district colors, images (to which you have the rights) that tell of your content area or education interests or other style choices that resonate with what you are trying to say about yourself and your classroom/organization.

Terrific Tuesday: Make Writing More (Adjective)

I remember fondly the days of my youth, thumbing through the latest flyer offering from Scholastic Book orders. Mad Libs were always a classroom favorite, and I recall many hours filling these in with my best friend. They never failed to bring laughter and good times.

Laughter and good times: Wouldn't those be 2 words you would like to associate with your next language arts lesson? We all tend to get stuck in our writing ruts, and using the same, tired words is a pitfall that few writers can say that they do not experience. If your students are feeling the word usage doldrums, take a mini-lesson to (re)introduce Mad Libs to them. It will show them that just one word choice change can make a big difference in the final outcome of a story. As the Mad Libs books are still published, the website has recently been relaunched, and an app is available for iPad/iPhone, there are many ways to play with words at school and home:

 Be sure to follow @OriginalMadLibs for a daily Twitter feed dose of a Mad Lib sentence to start your lessons. Remember the rules: Do not show your audience the story. Simply ask them for the words missing from the story (i.e. a name, an adjective), then see the silly results unfold.

If students have forgotten their parts of speech, Houghton Mifflin Company's Education Place website has a quick refresher webpage about them, along with some "Wacky Web Tales" of their own. Here is the beginning, and end result, of my version of "The Perfect Day Show":

Math Monday: A Good Worker

I remember when my son was in kindergarten. His teacher remarked, in our first parent-teacher conference of the year, that he was her "go-to guy". I was especially happy to hear this -- that he was the one on whom she relied for dependable help with classroom responsibilities.

When you are looking for a "go-to" website for math practice, remediation or enrichment, WorksheetWorks is one that I would strongly recommend. Still in its beta launch (so, expect even more goodies and functionality to come), it already serves as my first stop when I am tutoring a student or working with my own children on a specific math skill.

Certainly, there are many websites that serve as online warehouses of worksheets for the PreK - 6th grade learning community. Some are quite extensive in the skills in which they provide practice. What I especially like about the math offerings at WorksheetWorks is the level of customization available.

For example:

If I was working with a student who had only a basic understanding of algebra, and needed more practice in solving binomial equations, I would navigate to the WorksheetWorks Pre-Algebra section, then click on the "Solving Binomials" sub-section. A short paragraph describes the kind of worksheet that will be generated after you make some selections regarding its content. THIS is where I think that WorksheetWorks shines. While some websites allow you to customize parameters for the layout (i.e. vertical or horizontal math problems), or the number of problems and print size, this website accounts for very specific learning objectives, which allows you to practice just the subset of skills that are needed for this student at this time:

For "Font Size" and "Vertical Space", sliders are provided (along with popup explanations) to make sure that the worksheet created is tailored to the needs of your particular student (i.e. vision-impaired, large writer):

The final printout comes out in a highly readable, organized form, and can be printed or saved for later use. It is important to note that these forms, currently offered for free in its beta iteration, are NOT to be posted on your website. (Full copyright information regarding personal and classroom use can be found at WorksheetWorks.)

I encourage you to test out WorksheetWorks for yourself. Create a few forms, altering their options settings to see the different versions possible. It may become your "go-to" website, too.

[Note: WorksheetWorks is MORE than a mathematics worksheet website. While I focused on it in a Math Monday post, you will find many more curriculum areas represented. Maps and organizations tools (i.e. calendars) are also available -- a real multitasking website.]

Fun Friday: Finding One's Marbles

I have always had a fascination with marbles. They are smooth, shiny jewels that fit in your pocket, and can be used to play a myriad of games. I have a special place in my heart for handcrafted marbles and wooden board games made for marble play. Perhaps this is why, when I started taking digital pics for my TpT store, Learning with Craft, marbles were going to be an early item featured. While I cannot make a marble myself, I have added a few free products (more to come) to the store this week that you can use for school websites, multimedia presentations, newsletters, white board activities and the like. Eventually, I will be posting activity ideas for doing a marbles unit there, too. Enjoy your weekend, and hold on to your marbles!

Marble-Related Store Items, Thus Far

• 15 Marble Images (.png files)
• Black and Blue Marbles Template (for PowerPoint/Google Slides)
• 3 Pearl Marbles Template (for PowerPoint/Google Slides)

Thinking Thursday: Musing About the Ol' Book Report

I remember very well the day that Mike stood up to do his book report on a James Bond Jr. book. I want to say it was 007 1/2, but I have only been able to find one James Bond, Jr. book and its spy number is 003 1/2. He talked around it for a bit, and the teacher did not believe he had read it. I am not even sure that he had a copy with him, or the instructor believed in the book's existence, period. Sigh.

We were assigned the same book report assignment, on lined paper (at least we got to draw on its construction paper cover!), with the same topics in the same order every month of that school year. I think we all just got burned out on the whole assignment.

Inventive teachers have been putting their own twist on the traditional book report for years, creating comic strip retellings, trading cards about the book's characters and highlighting specific story elements (i.e. setting, plot climax, character arc) during different parts of the school year. As retelling and summarizing are no less important today than ever, good ideas regarding how to get students motivated to talk about the books that they read is always a topic of interest to the language arts teacher.

Enter another Smilebox project: Valentine's Day cards, created by your student, for the characters in the books that they have enjoyed most this school year:

Another ecard by Smilebox

Students are able to alter the titles of these valentines, and can also add their own photo and signature at the bottom of each one. Here are some ways that these could be used in your classroom or learning setting:

1. Students can record a list of potential valentine recipients from the names of characters in their recently read books in their writing journals. Have small-group discussions to determine which characters will finally be chosen, and why those characters deserve a valentine ("My favorite character always makes me smile when I read about him/her. He/she says the kinds of things that I do."). The reasons for the choices can also be written in the journal.
2. As a whole group, consider short sayings that can be added to the tops of the valentines (i.e "Character Fave", "You Are Brave!", "So Special to Me"). Be sure that students proofread the front display (great white board activity) so that all students write and spell the titles correctly on their final project.
3. Students can take digital photos of themselves holding a favorite book, and add them to the valentine template.
4. Drawings can be made of favorite scenes of the book, or of a favorite character, digitally photographed and added to the cards.

While the students are at it, some time could be taken for a random act of kindness here, too. Students could create valentine cards for cafeteria helpers, teacher aides, support staff members and many other community helpers whom they may have forgotten when they created their original Valentine's Day list.

Did you download your free edition of the Smilebox Teacher's Toolbox yet? Be sure and do so, and have a wonderful Valentine's Day!