It’s testing week in our neck of the woods and you can see the stress in the eyes of teachers and students. It’s difficult to be happy to come to school on days like these. While going through some of my older posts, I ran across one that I wrote my first year of blogging on … Read more
I was feeling pretty clever. As most of you know, that is never a good sign. My creative, engaging activity for the day turned out to be one of those lessons that makes a teacher ask the dreaded question, “Should I continue this fiasco or give up and find a video?” The concept was simple: I … Read more
Edutopia’s Amy Erin Borovoy (@VideoAmy) recently curated a collection of videos that she titled, “Freedom to Fail Forward.” Always looking for ways to teach my younger students about developing a Growth Mindset, I was pleased to see that her final suggestion was a clip from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang called, “The Roses of Success.” Here is … Read more
No one was more surprised than I was when I won the Honors Geometry medal in high school. For the first 8 years of school I accepted the incontrovertible fact that I was “not a math person.” Reading and writing came easily to me, and I was often praised in those areas – but math homework often … Read more
I don’t usually write posts on the weekend, but I know people tend to read this blog to find resources for their classrooms, so I don’t want anyone to feel cheated by me sticking a reflective piece in the midst of my weekday posts. I’ll be back on Monday with more ideas to engage your students! … Read more
This cute video was recently tweeted by @askteacherzcom. I think it’s a great video to show anyone, but elementary children will definitely benefit from this brief explanation of the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. They will understand the story of the Tortoise and the Hare as an example. And I’m pretty … Read more