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Archive for January, 2017

Helping children weather the storm from the news cloud

Helping children weather the storm from the news cloud

January 23, 2017 | Posted in: Early Learners, Elementary, High School, Middle Years

When I was in elementary school, the Cold War was all the rage. We had Red Dawn, Top Gun and The Day After.  We had Mike and the Mechanics asking if we could hear them running. We had Nina Hagen standing pretty in the dust that was a city. One rainy day our local daily […]

Teaching students how to navigate fake news

Teaching students how to navigate fake news

January 22, 2017 | Posted in: Elementary, High School, Middle Years

A family member posted an article on Facebook at the height of this past election season that made me stop scrolling for a moment. The headline was written in all capital letters, as if it were screaming at me, and the web address was clearly not a mainstream source. As someone who works in public […]

How the school library is beginning a new chapter

How the school library is beginning a new chapter

January 22, 2017 | Posted in: Elementary, High School, Middle Years

When I was in school, many years ago, I spent many hours studying and researching in my school library. The library not only had the greatest variety of informational resources, it gave my friends and me a place to gather and work on projects together. We had to rely upon encyclopedias, newspapers and books as […]

Brain breaks are fun but have a purpose

Brain breaks are fun but have a purpose

January 20, 2017 | Posted in: Elementary, Middle Years

My kids love “brain breaks.” They will dance and follow directions with an attention I rarely see while they sing songs about syllables or follow brief workout routines. What’s a brain break? A brain break is a short mental break, typically limited to five minutes, taken during classroom instruction and work best when they incorporate […]

Video: Like ice cream? There’s a scholarship for that.

Video: Like ice cream? There’s a scholarship for that.

January 18, 2017 | Posted in: High School

Scholarships just for being tall?
Free money for knitting hobbyists?
A grant for liking ice cream?

Yes, yes and how did we not know about this as kids?
Last year, over $3 billion in grant funds went unused. There are scholarship opportunities for all students, you just have to know where to look.