Poetry Friday: This is My Rock

This week I selected a poem by David McCord, one of my favorite children’s poets. In a New York Times article in 1964, he wrote this: “‘three things should be remembered: good poems for children are never trivial; they are never written without the characteristic chills and fever of a dedicated man at work; they [...]

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Inquiry station

I’ve been working with primary teachers at Mark Twain Elementary in HISD (Houston) on stations. They are an IB school and teach with PYP themes. Currently, kindergarten is studying about life cycles as part of their PYP studies. So, they’re going to set up an Inquiry Station using materials they already have in their rooms. [...]

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Planning for math stations at Clinton Prairie Elementary

It was a joy working with teachers in grades K-4 on math work stations in Frankfort, IN. We met in grade level teams and looked at their curriculum and state standards. We also checked out the Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org) for math. Then we planned upcoming lessons and math stations to accompany them. We [...]

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Poetry Friday: Spring

Here is a great spring poem to share with kids — there is so much life and rhythm in it, and so many fun words and rhymes. Enjoy! Spring By Karla Kuskin I’m shouting I’m singing I’m swinging through trees I’m winging skyhigh With the buzzing black bees. I’m the sun I’m the moon I’m [...]

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Sorting phonics materials

Often, primary teachers have many phonics materials available in their classrooms. One teacher I worked with had write-on cutouts for students to use for working with word families. These are good materials for literacy work stations. However, don’t put out too much at once. And differentiate the materials so the right kids are working with [...]

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Kokomo Teachers on the Road to Indiana

As I drove up to my training site in Indiana, I saw the most unusual site! A large bus from Kokomo Schools had just pulled into the parking lot, and teachers were getting off the bus carrying camp chairs! I had been told that our venue was in an interesting space, but this was a [...]

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Poetry Friday: Hush, Little Baby

Here’s the last installation in the Lullaby series. It’s the classic nursery rhyme that all students should be exposed to! Great for listening to rhyming words and for dramatizing. You might want to use the book, Hush Little Baby by Sylvia Long, as a repeated read aloud. And here’s a link for retelling pieces for [...]

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My editors visit Houston

Last month my Stenhouse editors Philippa Stratton and Toby Gordon took a welcome break from their Maine winter to visit Houston at the start of our spring season! They visited classrooms at Askew Elementary where I’ve been working all year in preparation for filming a video on math work stations in grades 1 and 2 [...]

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Poetry Friday: Another Lullaby

Here is the third lullaby in my series of these sweet, calming poems: The Wind’s Lullaby by Wayne Leon Learmond A cool wind is blowing across the land tonight The stars are shining brightly in the evening of twilight The trees are whispering – silently the birds, have taken flight And the wind, she hums [...]

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Stations at the gym

On Saturday morning our instructor at the gym said, “Would you like to do stations today?” Everyone enthusiastically said they’d like to try something different! So she set up areas all around the room with equipment and exercises with which we were very familiar. She reviewed how to do each exercise (that we knew from [...]

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