I recently received an email from a parent who is desperately frustrated over the struggles her middle-school son is facing. He has been diagnosed with ADHD and bi-polar disorder. School and everyday life, she says, is a real struggle; he looses everything and forgets everything. Like every other student I have met with these same characteristics, he also happens to be brilliant.
How To Develop Creative Thinking
In my opinion, creativity is the real genius. Intelligent children learn fast, and apply their knowledge in everyday life situations. But – inventing something new, creating something original, that is real genius. I always admire originality, whether it is original artwork, an original story, or an invention that can make life easier for many people.
How can we teach our children creative thinking? How can we teach them the habit of thinking “outside the box”?
Here are…
Cool Teachers Rule With Cool Teachers Rules
An out of control teacher: This is either scary or a highly entertaining venue for students. Lets consider the latter. How many students can deny that they get a quick and amusing thrill out of comments like this?
Diabetes Management│ Managing A Childs Diabetes At School
As the school year winds down, parents of children with diabetes may want to take a few minutes to evaluate their childs relationship with the school. Was the school staff able to handle any problems that arose this year? There needs to be really good communication between the parent and the school, says Virginia Zamudio, R.N., M.S.N., C.D.E. and past president of the American Association of Diabetes Educators.
Modeling Student Behavior
Whether you as a teacher realize it or not, you are the best model of behavior in your classroom. A large part of your proactive behavior plans should include your own behavior you demonstrate to the students every day.
Positive Parent Conferences
It’s parent-teacher conference time! Some are positive experiences where teachers are able to make great connections with parents. And yet other meetings are foretold by apprehension and met with strife. Over the years, you will encounter the gamut of positive and negative experiences, and everything in between. However, there are strategies you can use to make the best of any situation.
Randomizing Class Choices: Breaking Up the Monotony
Much has been said and written lately about providing students with choices. I’m all about any methods which will improve student involvement in class, giving them ownership in their learning. There are many ways to give students choices, options, or just to provide random results and change up the monotony. This article will discuss how to use random results in typical class situations.
The Push to Learn Chinese in Our Schools
Here is an example. The traditional Chinese character for the word ‘love’ contains a picture of a heart in it. This makes sense because love is closely associated to the heart. Not so in simplified Chinese. There is no heart in the word ‘love’ in simplified Chinese. One may ponder how you can love without a heart.
Creating an In-class Cable TV Network
Ever wonder if you and your students could create your own TV news show? Would you like to have announcements and school/class information available to students all class long? Would you like to avoid those students who were absent constantly asking you, “What did we do in class yesterday?” It isn’t only possible to do, but with a few pieces of equipment, it’s easy to set up and run.
Daily Points in Class
Starting your class on the right foot each day is very important to both you and the students. There are certain expectations you will have, be they required materials (texts, folders, gym clothes), basic supplies (pencils/paper), or behaviors (on time, in seats, working on opening activities). You are going to want these expectations met every day.
Emergency Lesson Plans, Real Lifesaving Tools for Teachers
Everyone gets those situations in life where an emergency has come up, and you don’t have the time (or sometimes the ability) to get a good lesson plan in to school for your students. Maybe you have a family emergency or a disrupted travel plan and you just cannot get into school to leave detailed lessons. That is why it is essential for you to have an emergency lesson plan available and handy.
Tips For Successful Homeschooling
There are many reasons why parents choose to homeschool their kids. For many it is because they want to add religious content to their childrens learning experience.
Making the decision to home school is usually a very difficult not and it is not one to be taken lightly. It is a personal decision that no one can make for you, but maybe I can help in the thought process by providing you with a comprehensive guide to making the choice to homeschool your kids a successful on…