Your Room Decor Can Set the Mood for Learning
I just wanted to show a picture of my ceiling because it makes me happy. This is how I decorated my room for the beginning of the school year. The lighting helps bring a warm feeling to the room and brings a mood of excitement. Even when my students don’t come for a day or so, I turn these on to make myself happy :).
What We Aren’t Taught in School
I saw this on Facebook recently and felt that I had to share it. How true and how profound! At least in gifted education, which I currently teach, I do have some freedom to teach kindness which in essence is teaching love.
Even My Principal Remarked How Calming My Room Smelled
Like many of you I have been cleaning my room. Because of the last two years of germ hyper vigilance, I wanted to make sure everything was dust and germ free. With that, I used a Norwex cloth AND my Thieves household cleaner. Both of them knock germs out! The Norwex cloth is rather amazing because it sucks dust up and doesn’t just push it around. I’ve never seen anything like a Norwex cloth, and I keep one at school. Right before the first day of school, my principal came by and remarked how calming my room smelled!
The great thing about Thieves cleaner is that you only need about an ounce to mix with water. I use a Dollar Tree spray bottle and keep it in my classroom for any cleaning needs. The BONUS is that it freshens the air while you clean without any toxic cleaners.
Giveaway Time Again! Yay!
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, TheBeezyTeacher, Lockwood’s Little Learners, Star Kids by Naomi, The Froggy Factory, The Homeschool Style-Katie Ring, Walk with Me a Second, Ms. K, Jackie Crews, 180 Days of Reading, Mrs. Wennings Clasroom, Mickey’s Place, Angelica’s Resources, Simone, Heart 2 Heart Teaching, Teach Me T, The First Grade Lunchbox, and It’s a Teacher Thing.
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. The giveaway ends 8/13/22 and is open worldwide.
a Rafflecopter giveawayAre you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
Giveaway Time!
Are you ready to start thinking about preparing your lessons for next year? Wouldn’t a $100 TPT gift card help? Look no further. Register to win here!
Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, TheBeezyTeacher, Lockwood’s Little Learners, Star Kids by Naomi, Little Learning Corner, The Froggy Factory, Ms. K, Jackie Crews, 180 Days of Reading, Mrs. Wennings Clasroom, Mickey’s Place, Angelica’s Resources, Simone, A Teacher and her Cat, and The Homeschool Style-Katie Ring.
Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, TheBeezyTeacher, Lockwood’s Little Learners, Star Kids by Naomi, Little Learning Corner, The Froggy Factory, Ms. K, Jackie Crews, 180 Days of Reading, Mrs. Wennings Clasroom, Mickey’s Place, Angelica’s Resources, Simone, A Teacher and her Cat, and The Homeschool Style-Katie Ring.
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. The giveaway ends 7/13/22 and is open worldwide.
Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
Entertain Your Children Outside with a Mystery!
I’ve posted before here about The Golden Angle, the mysterious 137.5 degree angle that appears in nature and, and my students’ explorations with finding it outside here and here. Recently, I was showing someone about the Golden Angle and how amazing it was in nature. This prompted me to see if I could find it in other places besides an oak tree leaf and grass. Well guess what?! I did. Taking time for a tiny nature walk collection in my yard yielded some more amazement!
With most leaves, I found that lining one side of my angletron tool up to the stem allowed the other side to hit the first vein in the leaf.
Fig tree leaf immediately below:
Shrub leaves below:
Notice how the branches separate at the 137.5 degree angle below.
Nut grass, as my mom calls it, is below. I’ve notices the regular lawn grass grows this way, too when it goes to seed.
I love intriguing math mysteries, and I hope you enjoy them, too.
Not long after I started plucking leaves out of my yard, I noticed a mathy friend of mine posted something on social media about the number 137. Strangley enough, this number is a really big deal to physicists and called the fine-structure constant! Who knew?!
I Want to Be Kind
I rarely leave kindergarten without a story to tell about the events that happened while I was there. The story I am about to relate is probably my favorite one from the whole year.
I taught my normal lesson, and at some point during the time, I needed children to pull out a glue stick. It rarely fails that at least one child is without a glue stick when I ask them to pull one out. When one child let me know he didn’t have a glue stick another child readily volunteered his. I spoke to the one who lent the glue stick and said, “Thank you Johnny for being kind.” Immediately after this tears erupted from close by. Why the tears, you ask? The tears were accompanied by these words. ” I wanted to be kind…I wanted to be kind.”
I love the rawness of kindergarten–raw emotion. There is no holding back as with adults or grown up children. In fact, I think most adult behaviors could be explained with a trip to kindergarten.
In all honesty, don’t we all want to be recognized for being kind? In many cases, we as adults aren’t kind because it helps someone or because it is the right thing to do. We do it because in our pride we selfishly want accolades for our kindness.
Make Kids Cheer About Trash!
This was probably one of the best projects we did this year. My students made amazing U.S. landmarks from recycled items. Part of the challenge was to include a circuit that lit up. Students accomplished this with Christmas lights. Even if they didn’t bring their project to completion, all students gained more understanding of the landmark they studied and where it was located on a map. In the current educational world where social studies time is lacking, I am grateful for their learning. See some of their work below.
