Fun Things For Back To School

Here are 3 fun projects to try!

1. Scratch art paper
Have your students make their own scratch art paper. It's fun to do and your student's will feel so proud of their work. See the link here.

2. Paper Puppets
This one is perfect for bringing a story to life. These super easy to make puppets will have your students imagination's running wild. See how to make them here.

3. Parachute Guy
Recycle all those plastic bags buy making parachute guys or girls with your students. The site even provides a template. See the fun project here.

We hope you enjoy these projects. Let us know if you try them out with your class!

The importance of colors.

We ran across this interesting article about the importance of colors in surrounding environments. It gives the best colors to use in the classroom, and it even gives the best colors for teachers to use when sending home letters:

"Stationery
Send notes to parents about student progress or behavior (friendly rose or peach).
Send reminders  (orange or yellow).
Send requests for donations or assistance in the classroom  (friendly green or blue)."

See the whole article here.

We hope you find this article as interesting as we did. As always, let us know what you think!

The Grand Canyon Diploma

Some schools in Arizona are trying out the Move On When Ready initiative. This program, which offers more-intense curriculum, allows students to take exams after only two years enabling them to graduate high school as sophomores with a Grand Canyon Diploma.  This gives students the opportunity to enter community college, or the students can choose to take more advanced classes and then apply to a 4 year university. Check out the full article here. Do you think other states should implement this? Let us know what you think!

Cell Phone Use in School

How do you feel about cell phone use in school? We found this article that has a completely different view of cell phone use in schools.  A High School in Burlington, Massachusetts has many innovative ways of using cell phones in the classroom. They text Google for new information, and they even take polls with their cell phones! You can check out the full article right here.

States are starting to require classes in financial literacy

Missouri, Utah, Tennessee, and now Virginia require students to take a one credit course on financial literacy. Check out the article here. Are you happy about this change in your state, or do you want to have this class taught in your state? Let us know how!

Facebook in the classroom

We ran across this article that has 50 benefits of using facebook in the classroom. See the article here. Do you use facebook in your classroom?

Back to School

Many of you are counting down the days until the school year starts, and for some school is back in session. We found some fun things to do during the last few days of summer vacation. This list is even better because the things are free!  A Seattle kindergarten and first-grade teacher, Todd Bohannon, came up with a very good list. To see the article check out the link here. How are you spending your last days of summer vacation?