Inside Bell's Brain

Reading is a crucial part of a child's education. Children's ideas about language and communication , as well as ideas about character-building and coping with life's obstacles , are strengthened through reading. The National PTA is encouraging reading with their Family Reading Experience initiative this summer, and I wanted to link up with their site to share what I'm doing to encourage my students' families to read. Infographic from PTA Reading Challenge on family reading experiences Over my spring break, I read one of my (now) all-time favorite books , The One and Only Ivan .  Its story was captivating , and the author brought a true story to a new level of life by personifying the gorilla Ivan .  The chapters were short, but the ideas were strong .  I knew it was a book that I could incorporate into my language instruction with my English learners.   The book was such an emotional read that I'd have to read several pages...and then take a ...

I'm really excited to accept the TpT Seller Challenge hosted by the fabulous ladies at Third in Hollywood , Teach Create Motivate , Peppy Zesty Teacherista , and Sparkling in Second .  Sometimes being a seller can be difficult to balance with our other life roles, so we're taking on one task at a time ...together.  The "pre-task" was collecting our social media stats .  This week was so busy that I noted mine on Tuesday morning, but I got distracted and didn't post them to Instagram until today!  So here's where I'm beginning ... This week is the official first week of the challenge , and this week's task was a Makeover Madness challenge.  We were supposed to take an existing product in our stores and give it a little "face lift."  We were free to design and re-design however we wanted, as long as we shared/blogged about our "before and after" and shared it with the other challengers. I took on my product " How to...

Good.  It's such a simple word...one that we probably use 100 times in a single day.  "Be a good girl."  "You're a good boy."  "Do a good job."  "Did you have a good day?"  "This food is good."  When there are seemingly an infinite number of adjectives we could choose, we stick with the word "good."  It's a word I've been trying to eliminate from my vocabulary for quite some time, but probably not for the reason that you think.   I see so many signs, products, and instructional tools that talk about "good" readers and writers.  I think so many of them are wonderful products and great resources for our classes, so I don't want my message to be misconstrued.  But if we tell students that there are "good" readers and writers, what is the implication?  That there are also BAD readers and writers.  That's what concerns me the most.   Some students, and some teachers alike, struggle w...