It’s National Library Week, and libraries are certainly worth celebrating! In fact, April is also School Library Month, so you can keep your celebration going for quite a while. Some resources for National Library Week: The American Library Association has some social media events and contests. A PDF with ideas… Continue reading
Poetry is an art form, and poets like Shakespeare, Yeats, and Dr. Seuss bring pleasure to millions. Poetry is central to songs, too, from ballads to rock. But there’s another use of poetry which might be more familiar to your students: commercial jingles. Study them as a fun diversion… Continue reading
The Blues are an important American musical form. Here’s a classroom lesson plan that works on poetry as well as listening skills. Listen to some blues: Blues Journey and Texas Blues at Artsedge; you can explore further with related lesson 12 Bar Blues . Even Kids Get The Blues by the… Continue reading
April is National Poetry Month. Most of us teach poetry at some time, for some reason. Whether it’s nursery rhymes for essential pre-reading skills for the littlest students or sonnets for the AP exam, rhymes to help remember math facts or opportunities to express emotion in acceptable forms, most… Continue reading
A KML (Google Earth) file of Civil War Battlefields to download: Battles of the U.S. Civil War. Each map point has a link to a description of the battle that took place there. Clarence Woodcock is the author. https://youtu.be/bsbvTWFdnQY More resources on the Civil War in Google Earth: A Google… Continue reading
We went to Pea Ridge National Military Park to learn more about the Civil War. We have a couple of battlefield parks here where we live, and we find it sobering to stand where so many lost their lives. It’s also very interesting. Pea Ridge has excellent interpretive exhibits examining… Continue reading
Novels are a wonderful way to get a deeper sense of a time period, and there are some excellent novels for kids and young adults set during the Civil War. Here are some of our favorites: Pink and Say, by Patricia Polacco, is a very touching book, and very sad.… Continue reading
April 2018 marks the 157th anniversary of the American Civil War. The American Civil War took place from 1861 to 1865, and was for much of the nation a turning point in history. More than 600,000 American soldiers died, more than in any other war we’ve fought, and the total… Continue reading
Engineers use science and math to create solutions to problems. Here’s a simple lesson plan for exploring this career path: Begin with a KWL chart that captures what students already know about engineers and engineering. Once you’ve listed all the things you know about the subject, ask students for… Continue reading
