Education Station Newsletter
Vol. 2 #2 May 2003
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Welcome to the Education Station monthly newsletter! Here we take a look at great teacher tips, useful teaching links to great sites and helpful ideas and activities for celebrating holidays, seasons and special days in your classroom. Our great specials section will help you save money and we have also included articles that look at the latest practices in education. We hope our newsletter will help inspire you to be the best teacher you can be! This newsletter is produced by the Education Station website, which is located:
http://www.educationstation.ca
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In This Issue
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1. Quotes of the Month
2. Teacher Tips
Mother’s Day/Father’s Day Calendar
Student Slates
3. Great Links
Custom Themed Writing Paper
Teacher Fonts
4. Current Specials
5. Celebrate!
Volunteers
Mother’s Day
6. What's New!
Butterflies
7. Article
Overworked and Under-appreciated - A Tribute to Teachers
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1. Quotes
One hundred years from now, It will not matter what kind of car I drove,
What kind of house I lived in,
Or how much money I had in the bank,
But the world may be a better place because I made a difference in a child's
life.
Author unknown
The future of the world is in my classroom today.
Dr. Ivan Fitzwater
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2. Teacher Tips
Mother’s Day/Father’s Day Calendar
>From Gaye Pesout, a third grade teacher from Utah:
"My students save one favourite art project each month. These are glued onto a computer-generated calendar. I duplicate the months on white art paper, add a cover for the kid's to decorate and bind the pages together with the school's bookbinding machine. The calendar runs from May to the following April, so that it can be used immediately. As they flip the pages up, there is a place to glue the next piece of artwork on the back of the previous month. I trim down the paper the students use as the background for each project so that there is a naturally framed edge around it. This calendar provides a nice gift for parents and also showcases their art work throughout the entire year."
Student Slates
>From Debi Beckman, a second grade teacher from North Carolina:
"Our maintenance department is replacing all our old chalkboards with
4'x8' tile board from the local builder's supply store. This gave me an idea!
I had them cut one of these boards into 12" squares, which gave me thirty-two
new white board slates. Now each child has their own slate to use when we practice
math facts, do math visualizations on the overhead, practice handwriting, etc.
Whenever we're doing whole class instruction, I'm able to assess my students'
skills. To ensure that we always have enough white board markers, I occasionally
send a note home to parents explaining that we're running low. To solve the
problem of passing out an eraser for each child, I collected old clean socks.
My students keep their markers in the socks and when we need to use the slates,
everything is in their desks, ready to go. My kids love them!"
Another idea along the same line is to use ice cream pail lids. Have students
respond to letter, number, math, language… questions by write their answers
to your questions on their own lid. When you think everyone has had a chance
to complete, shout, “Flip Your Lid!” At a glance, you will see who
is on track and who is not.
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3. Great Links
Custom Themed Writing Paper
Use this site to create your own customized, printable writing paper
http://www.dltk-cards.com/writingpaper/
Teacher Fonts
At the Teacher’s Parking Lot Fonts for Teachers you will find an
endless supply of great fonts to use in your classroom
http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/dos/1232/fontindex.html
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4. Current Specials
The following products are currently on sale at Education. Check back often as the sale products change every week. http://www.educationstation.ca
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5. Celebrate!
Celebrate Your School Volunteers
The volunteers in our schools make a difference in the lives of our students
and the school climate everyday. They support student learning, help with prep
work, decorate school hallways, help with art projects, organize hot lunches…
and the list goes on. Say thank you to school volunteers with appreciation gifts
from Education Station.
http://www.educationstation.ca/volunteer.php
and here are some recognition ideas
http://www.volunteer.ca/index-eng.php
http://www.energizeinc.com/ideas/volwk.html
Celebrate Mother’s Day
Hundreds of great ideas to help you celebrate Mother’s Day with A to Z
Teacher Stuff Links
http://atozteacherstuff.com/themes/mothersday.shtml
Not enough? Here are some more…
http://www.mrsmcgowan.com/favorites/may_highlights.htm#Mo
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6. What's New
Teachers from the Edmonton and surrounding area can now order Butterfly Raising Kits through the store. Watch them grow, then let them go! See one of Nature's greatest miracles right before your eyes with our NEW butterfly raising kit. Kits range from $22.50 to $75.00. Please call for further details and to order. 780-475-4680 or 1-877-TEACH’EM
Doing a Butterfly Unit? Here are some great links to assist you with planning
an awesome unit.
http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/themes/butterflies_caterpillars.shtml
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7. Article
Overworked and Under-appreciated - A Tribute to Teachers
by Don Quimby
Not being able to do any outside "stuff" this morning, and not wanting to waste the morning viewing mindless television, I found my way to my basement office. In checking through my email messages, I found a thought provoking message from one of my graduate students. He shared the quote that follows as a way of indicating his appreciation for the "stuff" I had shared with the class this semester.
Only A Teacher
I am a teacher! What I do and say is being absorbed by young minds who will
echo these images across the ages. My lessons will be immortal, affecting people
yet unborn, people I will never see or know. The future of the world is in my
classroom today and this future has potential for both good or bad. The pliable
minds of tomorrow's leaders will be molded either artistically or grotesquely
by what I do. Several future presidents are learning from me today; so are the
great writers of the next decades and so are all the so-called ordinary people
who will make the decisions in a democracy. I must never forget these same young
people could the thieves and murderers of the future. Just a teacher? Thank
God I have a calling to the greatest profession of all! I must be vigilant every
day lest I lose one fragile opportunity to improve tomorrow.
Dr. Ivan Fitzwater
What a powerful and insightful comment about the "job" facing today's classroom teachers. It immediately reminded me of what Hiam Ginott once said: "I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily moods that make the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crises will escalated or de-escalated, and child humanized or de-humanized."
Inspirational and motivating thoughts by both Fitzwater and Ginott. It's such thoughts that have caused most of us to become---and remain---teachers. It's such thoughts that drive our daily actions, inspires us to "keep on keeping on" in an environment that provides us with ever changing and demanding challenges, changes and challenges that carry the potential of having an negative impact even upon those most fully committed to the ideals of teaching.
Except from Don Quimby article at teachers.net.
Full
Article http://teachers.net/gazette/MAY03/quimby.html
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** If you find the Education Station newsletter to be a useful tool for your
classroom experiences, please forward it to a friend or two. Thanks! **
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