Debbie Diller

Moving into Math Stations

debbiediller — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:19:29 +0000

Look what was posted on the Stenhouse website last week! It’s not quite yet available, but click over to the website to order your copy!

There’s still time to register for my Richmond Institute!

debbiediller — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 19:06:03 +0000

There’s still time to register for this year’s institute in Richmond, VA! The first day of the institute, Thursday, Feb. 28, will focus on literacy work stations, and the second day will focus on math work stations.
You will learn how to manage independent learning through work stations, how to use your current core curriculum to plan for and implement meaningful partner practice, how to work smarter as you meet new demands and challenges, and much, much more!
Plus this is your chance to meet and brainstorm with fellow teachers and ask me questions!

Check out my post from a previous institute in Richmond! If you’d like to register, visit my website.

Storing manipulatives

debbiediller — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:22:20 +0000

Here is another quick preview from my new DVD, Moving into Math Stations, K-2. It’s a tour of a math teacher’s closet where he stores manipulatives. How do you get your math stuff organized?

One more sneak peek!

debbiediller — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:14:05 +0000

I am very excited to be able to share a new clip with you from my new math DVD, Moving into Math Work Stations.

In this clip I conduct a whole-group lesson on measuring distance:

I hope you enjoy this preview! If you would like to be notified when the DVD becomes available, visit the Stenhouse website and sign up!

Helping out a brand-new teacher

debbiediller — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:03:11 +0000

Here are some pictures of the “after” photos of the classroom I set up after school yesterday. As part of the training on small group reading instruction, we looked at how to set up a classroom a la my book, Spaces and Places. One of the teachers there talked to me at the break and explained that she was graduating from college on Friday (this week!) and starting in her first teaching job next Monday. She wondered which space she should focus on setting up first. I always recommend planning classroom spaces on paper before moving any furniture. So, I told her I’d help her for a little bit after class.

We drove several miles to her new school, and the teacher whose class she’s taking over was gracious enough to let us plan and move the furniture. Less than 2 hours later, the new look was taking shape.

The “new” whole group area (with tech in the corner)

The “new” small group area (by the built-in shelves which are perfect for storing small group materials)

The “new” classroom library with books graciously donated by the teacher who is leaving to teach P.E. We moved and reconfigured the bins and shelves from a different part of the room.

Poetry Friday: The Peace of Wild Things

debbiediller — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:34:27 +0000

I’ve been thinking about and searching for peace after the turbulence of the past few months and came across this poem. I hope it brings you peace, too.

The Peace of Wild Things

By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

No Words

debbiediller — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:08:11 +0000

Our family: Jessica, me, Tom, and Jon

My husband, Tom, passed away peacefully in the early hours of Sun. Sept. 23, the first full day of fall. We will all miss him terribly. When confronted with the choice of two weeks (with no treatment) or two months (with more chemo and hospital procedures), he bravely chose two weeks. “What can you do in two months that you can’t do in two weeks?” were his words of wisdom that will echo in my heart forever. Tom was generous, thoughtful, intelligent, witty, and inquisitive through his very last day on this earth.

Our newlywed son, Jon, and his wife Brittany, and our daughter, Jessica, did so much to care for him in the past three years since his diagnosis with multiple myeloma. We are both proud of them and thank them for their love and strength. Please pray for comfort and healing for them during this very difficult time.

Tom’s memorial service will be held Sat. Sept. 29 at 11 AM in the chapel at Grace Presbyterian Church (at Beltway 8 and Westheimer in Houston) with a reception following at Royal Oaks Country Club from 12-3.

We thank Vitas Hospice for the angels who helped us care for Tom during his final two weeks at home. There were no more hospitals, no more treatments, no more labs… just time at home with his family and close friends… which is where he wanted to be. Tom asked that donations be made in his honor to the SPCA. He loved his Great Dane, Atlas, who was also by his bed until the end.

Poetry Friday: Mixed-Up School

debbiediller — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:13:27 +0000

I hope your classroom is not feeling this mixed up yet!

Mixed-Up School
By X J Kennedy

We have a crazy mixed-up school.

Our teacher Mrs. Cheetah

Makes us talk backwards. Nicer cat

You wouldn’t want to meet a.

To start the day we eat our lunch,

Then do some heavy dome-work.

The boys’ and girls’ rooms go to us,

The hamster marks our homework.

At recess time we race inside

To don our diving goggles,

Play pin-the-donkey-on-the-tail,

Ball-foot or ap-for-bobbles.

Old Cheetah with a chunk of chalk

Writes right across two blackbirds,

And when she says, “Go home!” we walk

The whole way barefoot backwards.

Poetry Friday: What We Have in Common

debbiediller — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 19:00:02 +0000

Just like Kate Messner, I don’t like to get political either. But I just had to post her lovely poem. Let us all remember the things that bring us together:

What We Have in Common
By Kate Messner

For just a minute, let’s look at the leaves together.

Do you see how this one blushes pink around the edges?

How that one is all red, its neighbor halfway gold?

I like the way it is leaning toward autumn

But isn’t quite ready to leap.

Read the full poem on Kate’s blog.

Poetry Friday: For a Student Sleeping in a Poetry Workshop

debbiediller — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 08:02:34 +0000

Do you ever catch a student snoozing in class? Here is a lovely poem for today’s Poetry Friday.

For a Student Sleeping in a Poetry Workshop

By David Wagoner

I’ve watched his eyelids sag, spring open

Vaguely and gradually go sliding

Shut again, fly up

With a kind of drunken surprise, then wobble

Peacefully together to send him

Home from one school early. Soon his lashes

Flutter in REM sleep. I suppose he’s dreaming

What all of us kings and poets and peasants

Have dreamed: of not making the grade,

Of draining the inexhaustible horn cup

Of the cerebral cortex where ganglions

Are ganging up on us with more connections

Than atoms in heaven, but coming up once more

Empty. I see a clear stillness

Settle over his face, a calming of the surface

Of water when the wind dies. Somewhere

Down there, he’s taking another course

Whose resonance (let’s hope) resembles

The muttered thunder, the gutter bowling, the lightning

Of minor minions of Thor, the groans and gurgling

Of feral lovers and preliterate Mowglis, the songs

Of shamans whistled through bird bones. A worried neighbor

Gives him the elbow, and he shudders

Awake, recollects himself, brings back

His hands from aboriginal outposts,

Takes in new light, reorganizes his shoes,

Stands up in them at the buzzer, barely recalls

His books and notebooks, meets my eyes

And wonders what to say and whether to say it,

Then keeps it to himself as today’s lesson.