- Create a word wall
- Play word games
- Word of the day
- And more!
- Create Learning Stations
- Have a Fun Friday
- Create Choice Boards
You work hourly, daily, continually, and purposefully toward creating a school experience that is satisfying for your students. But what about you? What are you doing to ensure that your school is a wonderful place to teach as well as learn?
With summer drawing near, it’s the time to stop counting down the days until break and start enjoying your job.
Here are 12 tips to help you make the most of your school days:
Amp Up Your School Social Life
1. Don’t Hunker Down: Escape from your classroom once in awhile.
While sometimes we need to insulate ourselves, take a quiet moment or maximize our classroom downtime, it’s also imperative that we actively, consistently, and intentionally seek time and space with peers. Use this brief change of scenery and moment away from the classroom to come up for air.
2. Let’s Do Lunch: Eat lunch with your peers, not alone at your desk.
The time you have in school is rarely your own. Lunch is one moment in your day when you get to seek others out. Don’t let this daily opportunity escape you.
YouTube has been an educational resource with tremendous potential that teachers have been wanting to tap into for years. School bans and content concerns have gotten in the way… until now.
With YouTube for Schools, school can block the main YouTube while giving teachers and students access to educational videos for free.
The video site has created a new education section called YouTube EDU that allows schools to use educational videos from the world’s largest video sharing platform without opening the door to inappropriate or time-wasting content.
Schools can also add their own videos to their channel, customize their video playlists and keep their student video uploads private. YouTube Teachers lets you search by grade level and subject matter.
Even if your school didn’t block YouTube before, this seems to make using the site to teach easier and less stressful for teachers (at least in theory).
It’s easy to feel as if there aren’t enough hours in the school day to properly address all the curriculum expectations that we must teach our students. The challenging part is addressing curriculum expectations in a meaningful way where students are engaged and motivated throughout the lesson.
One of the most powerful strategies that we have ever learned as teachers is taking a cross-curricular approach in planning lessons and units for the school year, as we are able to incorporate curriculum expectations from various subject areas to create an engaging activity.
By developing cross-curricular activities that are both fun and motivating, teachers can easily integrate science into different subject areas—it only requires a bit of planning and creativity!
We all know that Science and Math are easy to teach together, but did you know that Science can be creatively woven into other subject areas? Science can be integrated into English Language Arts, The Arts, Health & Physical Education and Social Studies to create engaging lessons and activities that your students will just love!
Here are some easy ways to integrate science across the curriculum.
3-5: Contagious Rhythm6-8: Ballroom Brainstorm
There are many different kinds of dances. Brainstorm as many forms of dancing as you can. What do all of those dances have in common?
Creativity’s Downfall
Because in this test-taking, data-driven environment, creativity is like everybody’s favorite eccentric aunt: we all say we love her just the way she is, but nobody wants to actually be responsible for taking care of her. And she’s really inconvenient, immeasurable, erratic,
Do your traditional book report assignments seem old and tired? Here are some alternative assignments that share the same benefits and instructional results but are infused with fun.
These alternatives can be more appealing and that will give the students a chance to express themselves in alternative ways. Students can complete a book report assignment in artistic formats or in formats that foster good communications skills while still deriving the same benefit from the task.
Teachers for Social Justice is a grassroots organization of teachers from Chicago schools – from public to private to independent and alternative. These educators come together to create classrooms that support anti-racist, multicultural, multilingual educational experience that teaches students to question the world around them.
With their annual curriculum fair coming up this fall, member Jonah Bondurant was kind enough to give us some insight into the work of Teachers for Social Justice.
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