CATCH MY WORDS to find help with teaching strategies, resources, or to enjoy a laugh or music. Blog connected to Catch My Products, the gifted department store with resources for K - 12.
Catch My Products
Click on the image to visit Catch My Products.
My humorous thoughts about life.
"My Humorous and Helpful Thoughts About Teaching / Educational Resources for Your
Classroom / Music and Random Fun"
Back in July of 2018, I attended the Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) conference in Nashville. While there, my friend Kathy Simpson of Sunshine and Lollipops gave me a "wish bracelet."
Although I must admit, when I got it, the star was not tarnished and worn.
I made a wish that I would hit a monthly sales goal for my Teachers Pay Teachers store. With an overabundance of confidence, I figured I'd be meeting that goal come September or October, 2018. Little did I know, I'd be wearing a tacky piece of string with a tarnished star for 15 months straight! The goal was a bit unrealistic in the short run, but I am happy to say I made goal, today!
The bracelet is supposed to fall off and then the wish comes true. Not exactly how it went. First, I reached my goal, and then I cut it off.
Notice the "Daily Goals" book? That is from another friend named Cindy Martin who has a wonderful store called Teacher's Brain. She's given me the motivation to keep working on my store to achieve my goals with her Confidence Tool Box.
The bottom line:
Now, this bracelet is gone!
To celebrate, my entire store is 20% off for, today only. Be sure to check your wishlists to see if there is anything you want at a reduced price.
Woo hoo! I feel like I've waited forever for this day, so please stop by Catch My Products to help me celebrate.
I love Halloween. Unfortunately, not everyone shares my love, so my advice for this time of year is to proceed with caution. Early in my teaching career, I got into trouble. My first grade class and I made a witch's brew. It contained a lot of spicy good ingredients like cranberry juice and cinnamon sticks, but I went too far with my class.
For example, I said, "Here is cranberry juice . . . or is it blood?"
The kids all giggled.
Then I said, "Here are cinnamon sticks . . . or are they bones?"
Once again, the room echoed with the giggles of small children.
However, when the kids got home, their parents weren't laughing, and I was called under the carpet! This was over thirty years ago, at a time when few thought to question the fun of Halloween. Today, making a Witch's Brew would only be worse. So before celebrating witches and goblins in your classroom, you must make sure the principal and school supports this. Many Halloween parties have been replaced with Harvest parties, which could also spell a good time.
Halloween has certainly changed in other ways, too. Years ago, our doorbell used to ring nonstop with trick-or-treaters from the wee little ones to the teenagers. We'd make sure to buy lots of candy so that we wouldn't run out. In fact, once my brother ran out of candy, so he gave each trick or treater a can of Coke. This was a big hit because the same kids kept coming back.
Last year, we only had one trick-or-treater, so I didn't buy as much candy, this year. I hope we don't run out. I bought a six pack of small Cokes in case we do.
If you're looking for classroom fun, I have Halloween resources and Fall Resources. Here are a few possible buys for your kid's. They will love these!
You will also receive a FREE No Prep Problem Solving Pack!
Now, since it's time for Musical Monday Moves Me, here are some fun Halloween tunes.
Here's a fun song from a fun movie! GhostBusters
I love the spooky music that goes with this video. HA! HA! I recently watched Halloween, with a young Jamie Lee Curtis, for the first time. This is a hoot.
For this last song, I figured I needed to post the entire sketch in order for you to appreciate the song. Plus, this was my son's, daughter-in-law's, and grand dog's Halloween costumes. Any questions?
And finally, here is my very own Halloween commercial, designed by my son. You'll be sure to get a chuckle.
Red Ribbon Week falls during the last full week of October and has been a tradition since 1988 to teach students about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. This annual tradition is marked by school assemblies, 5K races, bracelets, and other trinkets to remind students about the dangers of using drugs. Most importantly is a pledge which students sign to agree to be drug free!
I was once a sponsor of the Pride Team at our K-8 school. Upper grade Pride students were typically the middle school leaders. They were the kind of kids who could step into an elevator, face the back wall, and have all the other kids follow their stance. They would sing and put on skits to remind all to be drug free. Also, several of these kids attended national Pride meetings.
I used to commemorate Red Ribbon Week with a door design. I would post pictures of witches and ghosts at the top and drugs on the bottom, "Witches and ghosts give me a chill, but DRUGS are really scary!" I would also have my kids sign pledges promising to remain drug free and hang these on the wall. Did this work? With some, maybe even most, but not all, for sadly, I do have a few former students who have died from drug overdose.
To help you teach drug awareness, here is a free product from my store that I hope you will download and leave feedback!
When a new month arrived, I'd find a lot of tidbits about the month through research. Why not have your kids research people born in October? They may choose a celebrity or famous person and write a report about him or her.
In searching October birthdays, I found the following people:
Buster Keaton
John Lennon
Eleanor Roosevelt
Molly Pitcher
Bela Lugosi
Pablo Picasso
Mahalia Jackson
Teddy Roosevelt
Sylvia Plath
Emily Post
Perhaps your kids don't want to research these "old" people, even though it might be a great challenge for them. If that's the case how about researching the current celebrities listed below? If you're over 30, you've most likely never heard of most of these kids, but your students probably know them. Most are Gen Z stars through youtube or young pop culture.
Brie Larson
Alex Guzman
PewDiePie
Cardi B
SSSniperWolf
Queen Naija
Famous people born in October are not the only research possibilities. How about looking into famous historical events? Your kids could research the following:
1636 - Harvard was founded
1793 - Queen Marie Antoinette was beheaded
1871 - The Great Fire of Chicago started
1881 - shoot-out at the O.K. Corral
1884 - Greenwich began universal standard time zones
1908 - Henry Ford's Model T first went on sale
1927 - First full length "talkie" film, The Jazz Singer, opened
1929 - stock market crashed starting the Great Depression
1946 - Twelve Nazi leaders sentenced to death in Nuremberg, Germany
1957 - Russians launched Sputnik, first Satellite in space
1967 - Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first African American on the Supreme Court
1973 - Yom Kippur War against Israel started when Egypt & Syria attacked
Fire Prevention Week is here and definitely a good thing to teach in the classroom. I'll never forget when my son came home from a fire assembly worried about being on the second floor of our house. We bought him a flexible ladder to keep by his window, and that helped him to sleep well. That ladder has never been used in over twenty years, but it still sits below his upstairs window. I'm just thankful he never used it to escape out of the house during his teenage years. At least we think he didn't . . .
My best year in teaching fire prevention was when we entered our city's video contest. My kids had a blast making a movie about fire prevention. It won a prize and was shown to the school, so it may be worthwhile for you to search the local fire department to see if any contests are in place. If they aren't, there is nothing wrong with putting on a skit for another class. The kids will love it and learn about staying safe, too.
We've all seen our students write stories that begin with the same subject in each sentence.
He went to the store. He bought a candy bar. He ate it on the way home.
BORING.
Today's focus is varying sentence structure in writing, which can also be called using syntactic variety.
First off, if the subject is the same, students can combine the sentence into one sentence with series commas.
He went to the store, bought a candy bar, and ate it on the way home.
That fixes the feel of being in a car where the driver constantly slams on the breaks. Of course, this sentence has other problems, but if you've been following my writing articles, you know what to do!
Syntactic variety not only means joining sentences for smoother prose but also sprinkling short sentences along with the long ones to make for a better sounding passage.
In Love with Chocolate!
When Malcolm entered the Sweetie Pie candy shop, he spotted his favorite chocolate bar. The dark chocolate Millie bar, complete with marshmallows, almonds, and honey waited for the taking. Yum! Unfortunately, the Millie is the most expensive candy bar in the shop. $3.45 for one delightful taste. It was worth it! He carefully dug a five dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to the waiting clerk. Before he could step out of the store, Malcolm had already ripped the wrapper. The sweet chocolate sloshed around in his mouth providing ecstasy!
Notice the shorter sentences sandwiched between the longer ones. Also, the sentences do not all start with "he" or use the same structure. That is syntactic variety. To teach this skill, have your students play with simple sentences or ideas. Tell them to include an interjection (Wow! Yay! Yikes!) somewhere between their long sentences. This technique will make their passages shine.
If you are interested in teaching students to vary their sentence structure, below is a link to a PowerPoint lesson that does just that.
