In Focus: Back to School
Creating a welcoming classroom, freshening up your literacy centers, tips for special education teachers, creative ideas for back-to-school night, and much more. Our Back to School section for parents and teachers is updated for 2010. Here's a sampling of what you'll find: This lesson from ReadWriteThink gives teachers the resources and guidance to establish four different centers: reading, listening, computer, and poetry. Go to website > From Scholastic, find tips on setting up classroom centers for listening, guided reading, poetry, writing, buddy reading, word study, and more. Read article > Show Off Your Centers, Classroom Libraries, and Word Walls! Space matters. Teachers know that a thoughtfully planned classroom with areas for different kinds of learning can keep kids motivated and on task. We'd love to share your best ideas with our Reading Rockets audience. Describe one change you made to your classroom that improved your students' learning. Please send photos, your name and contact number, and a brief description to: readingrockets@weta.org. We'll publish a selection of your best ideas on the website. Send your photos >
Books & Authors Candace Fleming has always been a storyteller and once Fleming could write, she filled notebooks with her stories, plays, and poems. Her fiction titles — books like The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary and Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! — are known for their lively humor. Fleming's historical fiction picture book Boxes for Katje and non-fiction titles such as Our Eleanor and The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary are praised for making history come alive for young readers. Watch interview > Grab some shade and curl up with stories from our new canine-inspired booklist. From joke-cracking hens to a letter-writing dog, you'll meet some fetching characters, who will be remembered long after the dog days of summer have passed. See booklist > Not-Too-Cool-for-School Books Stories about autumn, life at school, and new friends can help ease kids into the school year.
Ideas for Educators The Learning Port is a new, national online library of research-based professional development resources for teachers. The database includes videos, webcasts, and downloadable materials developed by state, federal, public media, and nonprofit organizations. It's comprehensive and intuitive to use — browse by A-Z topic, resource, or organization. Go to website > Along with your fall Open House, winter concert, and spring book sale, why not create some new traditions that can strengthen home-school connections and make your school feel even more welcoming. Family game night, "first day" celebrations, readers' teas, multicultural cookouts, a poetry coffeehouse, and evening workshops across the content areas are some of the fresh ideas from our friends at Choice Literacy. Go to website > Here's a children's literature blog with a unique focus: teaching elementary math, science and social studies. Discover engaging ways to integrate kids' books across the curriculum. For example, if you're teaching your first graders all about counting on and counting back, this teacher educator recommends Turtle Splash! Countdown at the Pond by Cathryn Falwell or Emily's First 100 Days of School by Rosemary Wells. Related online games are also included. Go to website >
Ideas for Parents Written for both parents and practitioners, these two-page guides describe everyday learning opportunities that help build literacy skills in infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities. Guide topics include talking and listening, rhymes and sound awareness, drawing and writing, and more. Go to website > Our farm-themed literacy bag encourages hands-on fun and learning centered around a paired fiction and nonfiction book: The Oxcart Man by Donald Hall and Farming by Gail Gibbons. Make a field crop collage, get to know where your food comes from (did you know that chocolate comes from trees?), and set up a "dairy farm" at home — udder madness! Go to website > KidRex is a fun and safe search for kids, by kids. KidRex searches emphasize kid-related webpages and are powered by Google Custom Search™ and use Google SafeSearch™ technology. Tips for online safety are also included on the site. Go to website >
Research & News Are we losing our creative edge? New research shows that American kids have been demonstrating a measurable decline in creativity since 1990. The reasons why are hotly debated. Too much time watching television and playing videogames? Too much "teaching to the test?" Failed government education policies? If the decline is real, it could have significant impact on our ability to rebuild our economy and compete globally. This program from NPR's OnPoint examines the trend and possible solutions. Listen to story > See related article in Newsweek: The Creativity Crisis Five school systems across the country, with differences in location, funding, and demographics, have all raised student achievement using five common-sense steps: - Develop a challenging, clear, and specific curriculum.
- Set no more than six long-term strategic district-wide goals, and used them to drive practices in every school.
- Develop strategies to attract and retain effective teachers, support them, and cultivate a collaborative working environment.
- Use data to select, pilot, and monitor programs and eliminate those that weren't working.
- Successfully build relationships with parents, community organizations, area businesses, and others with a stake in student success.
Read article from the Los Angeles Times >
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