Articles and ideas for 2015-16 school year

I try to take some time off during the summer, to regenerate and reset my thinking.  Along the way, before I'm really ready to start thinking about school, I usually come across articles or ideas that I want to keep track of, so I can reread them in August when I'm in the school frame of mind.

I'm going to post them here, with short descriptions, for myself and anyone else interested.  I'll keep updating through August.

Note on my methods:  I tend to just come across things through browsing Twitter, blogs, news items, and emails with articles and ideas.  I sometimes browse websites such as School Library Journal and Free Technology for Teachers.  I have some teaching and library related websites in my Feedly feed, which I browse a few times a week.  It is not organized.

Twitter works the best for me right now.  It is timely, I can adjust who I am following by adding or removing accounts to fine-tune until I get a list where I find the most helpful and relevant information.  My Teaching list on Twitter has 153 accounts right now that I am following: authors, illustrators, teacher-librarians, librarians, teachers, organizations, etc.

Articles for 2015-16:

• 7/20/15 - Slowing Down to Learn: Mindful Pauses That Can Help Student Engagement - MindShift 
• Excerpt from the book “Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom,” by Patricia A. Jennings.
• "One way to promote engagement and learning is to consciously create pauses throughout the day. We can create a sense of spaciousness in our classroom by slowing down the pace of our speech and punctuating our lessons with silence."

Book Spine Poetry - Room 18

Book spine poetry from Ms. Cleveland's class:

Book Spine Poetry - Room 23

Book spine poetry by Ms. Lytle's 6th graders:

Reading the dictionary

Just browsing the dictionary, as you do in your spare time if you love words!

Poem in Your Pocket

Every year in April I put up these not-so-lovely pants I bought at a Value Village or Goodwill store.  I sewed a pocket for each grade level onto the pants, and then I print out specific poems for each grade's students to take and share and keep in their pockets.

The 2nd grade poems are mostly about insects, because that's something they study, 3rd grade has rock and mineral poems, 4th grade poems are funny and little gross, and 6th grade has haiku to read and share, because they are just so busy with homework and other activities!

I love watching students get excited to take a poem and read it to their friends.  They get a poetry month bookmark if they tell me they shared it, and I hope some are taking them home and sharing them with family and friends there.