EdCeptional #043.5 - Apps for Summer Fun

EdCeptional Minute #043.5 is live and all about apps you can use this summer.  Check out some of fund ideas in this quick episode!

EdCeptional Minute #043.5 - Apps for Summer Fun

Patrick

Share this

Do you know somebody else who would find this post interesting or useful? Please forward it to them. Did somebody forward this post to you? Visit Teaching All Students and subscribe to receive posts for free. If you need a RSS Reader please visit this post Google Reader Replacements.

EdCeptional #034 - Wait, wasn't tonight #36??

It seems like it's been forever since the EdCeptional crew has gotten together.  We finally all met up last night and discussed summer!  Check it out at EdReach.us

EdCeptional #034 - Wait, wasn't tonight #36

Patrick

Share this

Do you know somebody else who would find this post interesting or useful? Please forward it to them. Did somebody forward this post to you? Visit Teaching All Students and subscribe to receive posts for free. If you need a tutorial please visit this post: RSS Readers.

Summer Learning with Night Light Stories

Miss Mel and Mr. Chris over at Night Light Stories have started a great new fun summer learning resources.  Throughout the summer they'll be posting fun summer learning activities on the Night Light Stories Facebook Page.  Make sure you "like" them and follow the fun!  Feel free to add your own activities to the page too!

Patrick

Share this
Do you know somebody else who would find this post interesting or useful? Please forward it to them. Did somebody forward this post to you? Visit Teaching All Students and subscribe to receive posts for free. If you need a tutorial please visit this post: RSS Readers

Unique Summer Curriculum Review

I took the opportunity this summer to try out the Unique Curriculum from the folks at News-2-You. I was impressed by the program, and felt it did a lot of things very well. There are a few parts that they could improve.

The summer theme was "Summer". We talked about going to the pool, taking walks, going camping, etc... It was a good topic for a summer session, and even included an "indoor camping" lesson to end things. I was not able to complete all the lessons (we had a short ESY session this year), but do have some thoughts on it.

Good Points:

• The theme was something that all the students could relate too. It was easy to find activities that they understood.
  
• The curriculum covers all the areas. There were lessons for reading, math, science & social science.
• Differentiation! All lessons included several different levels to help teachers plan for different level students.
  
• Available for Primary, Intermediate, Jr. High & High School levels.
• Multiple materials available. Books came in 3 levels, worksheets came with pictures or without, even tracing or non tracing sheets for handwriting.
  

Things to work on:

• The materials are all in black & white. This did not engage my students as well as other materials I've used.
  
• The lessons were in an odd order. Now this may be a misunderstanding by me, but all the reading lessons were first, then science, etc... I expected the different subjects to be scattered throughout the entire unit. Admittedly reading was prevalent in the majority of the lessons, but other subjects were more limited.
• I don't feel that there was enough core content to justify using it as a full curriculum. I can see using it for science/social science (since it has great themes), but using it as my full reading curriculum does not feel right to me.
  

These are just my thoughts on the free Summer Curriculum from Unique Learning Systems. Did you use the curriculum this summer? or do you use Unique Learning System during the year? I'd love to hear your thoughts

Patrick

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Xose Castro

Share this

Do you know somebody else who would find this post interesting or useful? Please forward it to them. Did somebody forward this post to you? Visit Teaching All Students and subscribe to receive posts for free. If you need a tutorial please visit this post: RSS Readers

Experience...

So I've been lazy lately. I've fallen behind on blog posts, I've not planned for next year, I've done only a little for preparing my presentation for ATIA Chicago, and I have no excuse. But that got me thinking about other summer's I've had.

As I've stated before this will be my 10th year of teaching coming up. I've taught many different students, from Kindergarten all the way up to 8th grade, as well as many different disabilities, and every summer I spent a lot of time preparing for the next year! I've created materials, I've colored folders, I've made tons and tons of pictures on Boardmaker, and I've done it all summer. Every summer, except this one... I remember back to my first classroom, and I think of coming home every night getting materials ready for the next day. Struggling to have lesson plans done each week, and and setting up my classroom. I must have changed the room around about 10 times that year (and I was teaching kids with autism so I'm not sure that was the best idea), and literally spent every spare moment getting ready for the next lesson.

So what's different? I'm not exactly sure, I just feel comfortable and ready for next year without having to spend too much time getting ready. That's not to say I'm not learning a ton this summer and getting ready to try all sorts of new stuff next year, but I'm not stressed and feeling overwhelmed. Maybe it has to do with mastering behavior management skills, or not having to learn a new curriculum, but it's a different feeling this summer. And it took me almost 10 years to get here!

So, that got me thinking, are we doing new teachers a disservice by dropping them into a classroom with such little training? What about students, are we holding them back? What are your thoughts?

Patrick

Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons: Vikingg



Share this

Do you know somebody else who would find this post interesting or useful? Please forward it to them. Did somebody forward this post to you? Visit Teaching All Students and subscribe to receive posts for free. If you need a tutorial please visit this post: RSS Readers

FREE Unique Learning Summer Curriculum

Readers of this blog might remember that I've talked about News-2-You before. They also have a curriculum called the Unique Learning System. The Unique Learning System is a thematic curriculum with reading, math, science & social science standards built into it. They have included multiple bands, i.e. grade levels, to facilitate teaching multiple groups of students. And they are giving away their summer curriculum for free! You can download the free curriculum from here:

Summer Curriculum

Patrick

Share this

Do you know somebody else who would find this post interesting or useful? Please forward it to them. Did somebody forward this post to you? Visit Teaching All Students and subscribe to receive posts for free. If you need a tutorial please visit this post: RSS Readers