I just found what I’ve been wanting for a long time – a program that lets me easily create computer activities using my own material, one with all the bells and whistles.  Unfortunately I also found that it’s designed for the corporate world and priced accordingly.  Take a look at Raptivity and you’ll see what I [...]

It seems like I read something on girls and bullying at least twice a week.  It’s a challenging topic because it’s hard to find the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior.  We can all identify the unacceptable things like name calling, physical abuse, spreading rumors, telling lies, etc.   But what about just leaving someone [...]

If you are lucky enough to have PowerPoint on your classroom computer and you have access to funds for computer apps, you might want to take a look at YawnBuster.  It is designed to enhance business presentations and corporate training by adding interactive activities and game show type competitions to PowerPoint presentations.   The activities [...]

Get ready for National Get Outdoors Day.  Share your ideas with my other readers.

I have read over and over that having your writing critiqued is an essential part of the writing process.  Still, students be not be willing to share what they’ve written with a fellow classmate.  I know good writing teachers work hard to set up a supportive environment, but sometimes the realities of teen social life [...]

The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory is a private, non-profit corporation based in Austin, Texas that aims to improve teaching and learning.  Their primary goals are to improve school performance, strengthen teaching and learning in content areas, integrate technology into teaching and learning, involve family and community in student learning and connect disability research to practice.  [...]

According to a survey done from June to September 2009 by the Pew Research Center at the University of Michigan, 33% of children age 12-17 send more than 100 text messages a day.  Girls text more than twice as much as boys – 80 per day is typical for girls, 30 per day is typical [...]

Elementary school teachers might like these Memorial Day activities.  I like that you get a clear option for full page printing if you choose the printable worksheets.  Apples4theTeacher has a good variety of at-the-desk activities for special days, as well as connections to activities in almost all subjects.

I really don’t have much of a sense of color so I was excited to find simple color wheels that help you decide on good color combinations, depending on whether you want to use warm or cool colors and whether you want your colors to be complementary, analogous, triadic, split-complementary, rectangle or square.  If you [...]

Ever since my stint as teen writer of Time Out for Kids for the Long Prairie Leader, journalism has had a special place in my heart.  Try these journalism lessons with your budding writers.  They are geared to students in grades 2-8.