All Kinds of Learning Adventures
My answer to the question "What are we doing today?"
At the beginning of any school year, teachers are always looking for ways to inspire students to learn. So, when I stumbled across this great Ted Talk (from TEDxCSU) called "How to Learn Anything" by Josh Kaufman, I decided to turn it into an infographic for my classroom. This Ted Talk also pairs well with… Continue reading How to Learn Anything
Writing is full of visuals: authors use imagery and figurative language, stories sweep us away to new places, characters seem to come alive. And yet, when it comes to providing feedback on writing, it's usually anything but visual. At best, feedback is meaningful and works to improve student writing--whether through comments or a rubric. However, often the… Continue reading Visual Feedback: How Three Highlighters Can Improve Student Writing
This post contains affiliate links, but all opinions are my own! If you're a Language Arts or Reading teacher, then chances are that you have a classroom library. Be honest with yourself: how much do your students really use it? For my first few years of teaching, I pretty much just figured that just having a… Continue reading Your Classroom Library: Is It Healthy?
Since January 2015, I've received over $3,400 worth of materials for my classroom free through Donors Choose, including four laptops, dozens of books for my classroom library, and many professional development resources. Donors Choose is one of the easiest way to get the materials and supplies that are actually needed--and are literally hand-picked by you! However, many teachers I've… Continue reading Donors Choose: How to Get Started
This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting All Kinds of Learning Adventures! Over the past two years, our school hosted multiple Kagan workshops. If you're not familiar with Kagan, visit their website to learn more about these great student-centered structures. Their emphasis on collaboration is awesome! In addition to genius… Continue reading My Three Favorite Kagan Products
You know how you always keep a couple of tricks up your sleeve and a few strategies in your back pocket? Well, Quizizz is another one to add to your collection. I checked it out briefly last weekend; I liked how easy it was to sign up and especially how intuitive the interface is. Within… Continue reading Quizizz Review
This reflection is in response to the article "Some Rules We Need to Break in Our Reading Classrooms" by Pernille Ripp, reposted by Cult of Pedagogy When I introduced the Million Word Challenge to my students, I told them that all I wanted was their word count- no projects, no summaries, not a traditional reading log,… Continue reading Breaking the “Reading Rules”
Today, I got to hang out with author Doug Wilhelm at the FRA convention! Wilhelm is one of my favorite young adult writers. (I have taught his book The Revealers twice to 6th graders.) His talk at the FRA convention was all about how middle school students struggle to find their voice, asking "who am… Continue reading Doug Wilhelm: Young Adult Author
Today's teaching picture: Even though I haven't taught some of these novels in years, I still like to keep them around--like they're old friends. I've learned that you don't really know a book until you've taught it. When you spend that much time with a book, you find that it develops a personality and evolves… Continue reading You don’t really know a book until you’ve taught it.
To all those who teach writing-- Encourage creativity, but teach the rules of the game. Be steadfast in corrections of commonly confused words: If they're going to be taken seriously out there, choosing their words carefully matters. Teach them that form speaks, too. Make them notice that a complex sentence tells about a relationship between… Continue reading To all those who teach writing–
All Kinds of Learning Adventures 