I am a complete sucker for a good story.
If you haven't seen this (two minute) basketball video here about a high schooler with special needs, do watch it. I was teary.
Thanks, Rodney, for sharing.
Happy Saturday,
Jen
Public Service Announcement
I interrupt your regularly scheduled programing (or programming? why are both correct? or not?) for this public service announcement....
And tell your ice skating, cheerleading, sledding, skate boarding, cycling, and rugby & field hockey playing friends, I said so.
Yep, I'm taking a stand. My college students have already heard me rant about this.
Jen
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| *Hair bling option. |
And tell your ice skating, cheerleading, sledding, skate boarding, cycling, and rugby & field hockey playing friends, I said so.
Yep, I'm taking a stand. My college students have already heard me rant about this.
Jen
Spinner Activity
My college students, who I spoke about on Tech Tuesday this week, will be creating their own (reading-related) Spinner Activities to use in their content area classrooms. Have you used a Spinner before? Oh, I love these.
....and yes, my red frames do not match in this blog post...it is slightly killing me, but I am going to leave them. Remember perfect passed away in the fall.
You basically make a wheel with different graphics and question prompts. Technically, you don't have to include the graphics, but it is uber-boring without them. Then, you pair-up students. Give them a jumbo paper clip and paper spinner; they use their own pen or pencil to hold the end of the jumbo paper clip in place (see photo above). And voila, they spin away, discussing each prompt they land on with a partner. I always tell students it is OK to discuss the same prompt multiple times. That is the universe telling them they need more practice. Ha!
Here's what a spin looks like. Notice the "flick" of the fingers to make the paper clip spin. The pen or pencil holds the tail end of the paper clip in place - smack dab in the middle of the spinner. Big thank you to my college student models for agreeing to this photo.
I'm trying not to make a video of me (or them) spinning. You'll just have to try it yourself to see it really works and students, of all ages, love it. It really is engaging.
Of course, my class is creating a spinner related to reading. What will your spinner be related to? A get-to-know-you spinner? A math-related spinner? A pre-assessment of a new topic spinner? A geography spinner?
If you want to use my spinner template, click here and modify any part of the document you like.
Best,
Jen
....and yes, my red frames do not match in this blog post...it is slightly killing me, but I am going to leave them. Remember perfect passed away in the fall.
You basically make a wheel with different graphics and question prompts. Technically, you don't have to include the graphics, but it is uber-boring without them. Then, you pair-up students. Give them a jumbo paper clip and paper spinner; they use their own pen or pencil to hold the end of the jumbo paper clip in place (see photo above). And voila, they spin away, discussing each prompt they land on with a partner. I always tell students it is OK to discuss the same prompt multiple times. That is the universe telling them they need more practice. Ha!
Here's what a spin looks like. Notice the "flick" of the fingers to make the paper clip spin. The pen or pencil holds the tail end of the paper clip in place - smack dab in the middle of the spinner. Big thank you to my college student models for agreeing to this photo.
I'm trying not to make a video of me (or them) spinning. You'll just have to try it yourself to see it really works and students, of all ages, love it. It really is engaging.
Of course, my class is creating a spinner related to reading. What will your spinner be related to? A get-to-know-you spinner? A math-related spinner? A pre-assessment of a new topic spinner? A geography spinner?
If you want to use my spinner template, click here and modify any part of the document you like.
Best,
Jen
Easter Subway Art by Lil O
Lil O loves making subway art with me. I realized we must make our fair share of it as she now uses the word "font" with ease. For example, when we were skiing last week, she pointed to the trail sign and said, "Hey look, they used a different font on this sign!" She was correct. For whatever reason, the ski signage on that peak used a different font for their signs.
I asked Lil O how she knew the word "font" and she replied, "You always ask me to choose a font."
Evidently, subway art aids vocabulary development.
Now, I love it more. "It" being subway art because I can't possibly love Lil O more. Famous last words.
Enjoy - and click here to download the artwork made by Lil O (and me as her assistant).
xoxo,
Jen
Scribd {for Tech Tuesday}
I have a new online class starting this week. Our topic is reading across the curriculum, which is a useful topic as most of my students are either current or future middle or high school teachers and have not been fully trained in reading.
To frame the class, I want to use the Relate, Create and Donate philosophy. Our donations & documents will be uploaded to Scribd. Scribd bills itself as an online library of documents. For me, it is my favorite place to freely upload Microsoft Word or PDF documents and make those documents public (and thus, easily downloadable and shared). It is a great tool to upload syllabi, newsletters for parents, classroom handouts, etc.
College students in our reading course, please watch this quick two-minute tutorial about uploading your documents. Be sure to use the "tags" feature and then, copy the link to your documents - as you will need to embed that link in our course's discussion boards.
Happy Scribd!
Jen
PS - Here is an example of how I've used Scribd to make a version of graduation subway art available to the public.
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