Postcard templates

I designed this template for a unit I am working on for United States Geography.  I plan to have students use this template during a study on a selected state.  They will draw a picture of one important location from the state and write a letter to the class as if they were visiting the location.  I also am going to send mystery postcards from mystery locations and have the students research where the postcard came from.

This template could be used for many activities, though.  Such as: students could write a postcard from the prospective of a character from a book and draw a setting; foreign language students could choose a location from the country they are studying, print a picture and write the postcard in the language they are studying, in math students could draw a tessellation...  The opportunities are endless.

Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss was a pretty amazing guy tackled HUGE themes in a way students could relate to and understand.  (You may have seen this on Facebook).

New Challenge

As I have said before, I think it is critical as an elementary educator to know and love children's literature.  After all, there is a correlation between student success and number of books experienced (see article by ALA).  Thus, I have set out on a new endeavor:  Finish reading one children's or education related book per day.  See my reading journal to check up on my success :)

Reading Quotes

"We read to know we are not alone." -C.S. Lewis

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."- Oh! The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss

New love: Buying books for dirt cheap!

My new favorite site on the web: Goodwillbooks.com.  Search by author or title and find books for your classroom for sometimes only pennies!  Even better deal than Amazon.com's used prices, though these are pretty amazing, too.  Amazon is great if you can get more than one book from the same seller or get free super saver shipping to reduce shipping costs.

Writing Workshop Website

I found THE BEST teacher website for the writing workshop and other ideas:

The Learning Pad

Please check it out, the teacher has a year of fully developed writing workshop units, lessons, classroom pictures, the website is a must-see!

Literature Poem

Their tales are full of sorcerers and ogres
Because their lives are: the capricious infinite
That, like parents, no one has yet escaped
Except by luck or magic . . .
[W]olves, mice, bears, children, gods, and men
In slow perambulation up and down the shelves
Of the universe are seeking . . . who knows except themselves?
What some escape to, some escape: if we find Swann’s Way better than our own, and
trudge on at the back Of the north wind to – to –
somewhere east Of the sun, west of the moon, it
is because we live
By trading another’s sorrow for our own; another’s
Impossibilities, still unbelieved in, for our own . . .

 Randall Jarrell, The Complete Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1981).

Wonderful new website!

Check out Planet Esme, a website by the author Esme Raji Codell, that includes: priceless booklists of various genres, tips for new teachers, a book-a-day blog, etc.