Eve Bunting’s book The Valentine Bears is a fun readaloud for young students, with lots of good teaching points. In the story, Mr. and Mrs. Bear have never celebrated Valentines Day before, since they are always hibernating at this time of year. This year, though, Mrs. Bear has planned… Continue reading
Groundhog Day is February 2. An old name for February 2nd is “Candlemas.” An Old Scots saying holds that, “If Candlemas is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.” Europeans had various animals (bears, badgers, hedgehogs…) looking out of their dens or burrows on Candlemas to see… Continue reading
Snow is a terrific classroom theme, but you can step it up and study with snowmen, too. Enjoy some snowman books: The Biggest Snowman Ever by Steven Kroll The Snowman by Raymond Briggs; the wordless DVD has wonderful music and animation. A Snowman Named Just Bob isn’t great poetry,… Continue reading
As the weather turns colder, we need a chilly theme for the classroom. Mittens are a great one! It’s nice to have a fun theme that doesn’t involve holidays, and this one may even help your students remember to wear their mittens. There are lots of mitten designs in… Continue reading
Who’s That Knocking on Christmas Eve? is a beautiful book by Jan Brett, one of our favorite children’s book authors. In this story, naughty trolls threaten a Norwegian Christmas dinner till a passerby with a pet polar bear scares them off. Resources: Jan Brett’s resource pages tell about the research… Continue reading
How the Grinch Stole Christmas was written in 1957 by Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel), and the Grinch has joined Ebeneezer Scrooge in the pantheon of seasonal bad guys — transformed, of couse, by the power of Christmas. The Grinch hates Christmas — the noise, the singing, the presents. He finds it… Continue reading
The Little Red Hen is a familiar story, and one that all kids ought to know. In the story, the Little Red Hen plants wheat, harvests it, and bakes bread to feed her family. At every stage, she asks for help, saying “Who will help me plant the wheat?” and so on.… Continue reading
Google Earth is a terrific resource for your science classroom, even when you’re studying space rather than Earth. Start by downloading Google Earth. It’s fast and free. Once it’s installed on your computer (fairly automatic — you might have to give permission, but otherwise it’ll install itself), just open… Continue reading
Two kids may seem to be very much alike, and yet be very different when it comes to learning style. One of the issues in differentiated instruction is teaching for different modalities, or sensory learning styles. Some people learn better through visual input, some through what they hear, and others… Continue reading
