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May 2010

It's all in the map

Submitted by Peggy on Sat, 2010-05-29 06:30


The resources Joann featured this week are fun examples of how to include interactive maps in your classroom. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you should. Really…who hasn’t wondered where they would end up if they tunneled through the earth? All three resources would be great for a geography classroom, and an interactive piracy map could tie in well in a history class or even an English class if you are reading about pirates.

Teachable Moment: The Gulf of Mexico oil spill

Submitted by Peggy on Sat, 2010-05-22 09:36


I read a tweet the other day that really got me thinking about what we do as teachers and how we make learning relevant to students’ lives. It was short and to the point. “Gulf Oil Spill…a teachable moment.” It can be a teachable moment, so how are we going to make the most of it? There are important things like this happening in our world every day that shape and mold our students. With a little creativity, we can use these events to make learning more relevant and authentic. There is just something special when we can anchor our teaching to things happening around us right now.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Submitted by Peggy on Sat, 2010-05-15 08:30


Teacher: We are going to start our unit on statistics today. It's going to be really fun! (Cue collective class groan.) We are going to use an online game called Quest Atlantis to help us out. (Hmmm...the students may be coming around...) I'll pass out this comic book to start. It will tell us the background of Atlantis before we get started with our Quest. (Our Quest? Has our teacher gone crazy?) It's quiet as the students start reading the comic books. A student from the back whispers, "Wow, this might actually be kinda cool."

You Are What You Eat

Submitted by Peggy on Sat, 2010-05-08 08:30


You can hardly turn on the TV any more without seeing some kind of a message about healthy eating. Jamie Oliver is trying to change school cafeterias in his “Food Revolution” series while “The Biggest Loser” shows contestants learning to eat right and exercise to lose weight. In between shows on the Disney Channel, my kids love watching “Captain Carlos” and “Tasty Time With ZeFronk,” both shorts that target healthy eating for the preschool set. We might enjoy watching this type of programming, but are our kids truly taking the healthy eating message to heart? Despite all of the publicity, the figures Joann cited in her Battle of the Bulge post are astounding. Our kids don’t seem to be getting any thinner.

Moodling Through History

Submitted by Peggy on Sat, 2010-05-01 09:15


According to Winston Churchill, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” It’s exciting to learn about civilizations before us, but it can be even better to learn about those cultures in a hands-on, rich environment. The PBS resources from Egypt’s Golden Empire use multimedia tools and a variety of different activities to introduce the topic. Students work individually, in small groups, and as a whole class. They are challenged to think about the culture as they create projects on the topic. Looking at these resources got me wondering about how a teacher can best organize and implement all of the great activities they discover and develop throughout each school year.