Looking for great teaching/learning materials that are free or inexpensive? Checkout these two: TeachersPayTeachers.com and TeachersNotebook.com to see ideas for parents and teachers. You will find pre-K through high school sections of worksheets, ideas and books recommended by teachers. You will also find my Educating America books and materials as well as my primary freebies… Read More »
Looking to invite volunteers into your classrooms? Look no further! Educating America Workbook, Getting Started: A Teacher’s Planning Guide for Including Adult Assistants is my a new resource and your answer! This a step-by-step approach that will save you hours of planning and organizing. It answers questions you may not have thought to ask yourself!… Read More »
These days, there is little money available for social programs including education. So what’s to be done to help us reach every student in our care? Invite assistants into your classroom. Already doing that and still need help? Invite additional assistangs into your classroom. My focus for education across the last twenty years is promoting volunteers in… Read More »
Finished! My Educating America Workbook (for teachers wanting to consider inviting adult assistants into their classrooms) is now ready. Next up: determining how to share the workbook ideas in a meaningful way. The workbook contents include: Things to consider before you invite adult into your classrooms Tasks to turn over to assistants Organizational meetings Planning and evaluation… Read More »
As you know I’m an advocate for people helping in classrooms. To that end, I decided that maybe educators needed ways to help them get started. My soon-to-be-completed workbook suggests ways to think about taking the step to include outside help in classroom. Now is your chance to suggest ideas/concerns/issues that you’d like addressed. So far I’ve included… Read More »
Volunteers are a treasure to classroom teachers. Especially those who are able to embrace a few basic guidelines. 1. Commit to a specific day of the week and time that you will be available to the classroom. This provides the teacher with the necessary details for planning small groups or 1:1 student lists for you.… Read More »
Assistants are amazing support for students and teachers. Following these 5 tips, they become doubly appreciated. 1. Arrive on time; early enough to look over the day’s task. 2. Gather your materials. Take on that task to relieve the busy teacher of responsibility. 3. Remind and reinforce your expectations as you begin with students. 4. … Read More »
I love to keep track of ‘what happened on this date’ events. When I taught, I added one or two events to my morning calendar activity to give us an event to discuss related to history and the math of how long ago it took place. Since then, I check events monthly as a way… Read More »
Students in groups need ‘clues’ about the expectations while they are in groups. No one likes to surge ahead blindly. So, what do group leaders need to share? Outline your expectations and judge your time constraints. It’s a challenge to make everything fit. Check out this example for a 35 minute group beginning a new… Read More »
Planning lessons is important for your students. In-between times, the transitions, need to be planned as well. That’s the time when you can ‘lose’ some students to dis-behavior. When are the transition times? * arrival, departure from the classroom * beginning and end of small groups * lining up for leaving/returning to the room *… Read More »