Education Station Newsletter
Vol. 1 #5 Summer 2002
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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 web site, which is located at:
http://www.educationstation.ca
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In This Issue
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1. Quote of the Month
2. Teacher Tips
3. Great Links
4. Current Specials
5. Celebrate!
Father’s Day
End of the School Year
6. What's New!
7. Article
Eight Winning Ways to Wrap Up the Year
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1. Quote -
Few have more opportunities to be heroes than do teachers.
Greg Henry Quinn
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2. Teacher Tips
Picture This! Father’s Day Craft
Here's a frame Dad will be proud to display. To make a frame, glue eight craft
sticks together in pairs; then set the sticks on waxed paper to dry. Glue the
pairs together to form a frame. When the glue is dry, glue various types of
pasta onto the frame. Again set the frame aside to dry. Brush on tempera paint
or spray-paint the frame. When the paint is dry, spray the frame with acrylic
finish. Attach a strip of self-adhesive magnetic tape to the back of the frame
and it's ready for a pasta-perfect picture. Happy Father's Day!
Add this poem to your final report card or on a certificate as a nice farewell for your students to treasure.
You're a very special person,
And I wanted you to know,
How much I enjoyed being your teacher.
How fast the year did go!
Please come back to visit me
As through the grades you grow,
Try hard to learn all that you can
There is so much to know!
The one thing I tried to teach you
To last your whole life through,
Is to know that you are SPECIAL
There is no one else like you!
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3. Great Links
Education Station is committed to providing French Language Teachers with the
resources they need to create stimulating learning environments for their students.
You can check out our French Resources available for purchase by clicking on
this link
French
Teaching Products!
Here are some links to fabulous French Educational Sites to support your classroom activities.
French Interactive Exercises
Fun exercises to test French vocabulary and grammar - from animals to the seasons.
http://www.klbschool.org.uk/interactive/french/interactive.htm
L'Escale
Created especially for educational purposes, this French-Canadian site is divided
into islands (Island of Leisure, Island of the Past, etc) each of which contains
various activities. Students may need a dictionary to help with vocabulary.
http://www.lescale.net/
Comptines (Nursery Rhymes)
A fun way for children to learn French songs, this very complete and thorough
site offers words and music in MIDI files for most of the classical French nursery
rhymes as well as the French national anthem.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Thierry_Klein/sommaire.htm
French Crosswords
Need a fun filler for your French class? Print out these crosswords for some
vocabulary practice. Subjects include myself, school and free time.
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/fk26/xwords/frind.htm
Val's Basic French
Val, a secondary French teacher, has produced excellent worksheets for the 11-14
age range. From numbers and colours to how to say 'my', they make great lesson
extras for the classroom.
http://www.valsfrench.fsnet.co.uk/
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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/index.php
For those in the Edmonton area, Education Station will celebrate the end of
the school year with a School’s Out Blow Out! Sale. Stop by the store
(12237 Fort Road, Edmonton) during the week of June 17-23, 2002 and enjoy many
specials. Buy one Bulletin Board Set at regular price and receive a 2nd one
at half price. Buy one Border at regular price and receive a 2nd one at half
price. All Charts will be on sale for $2.49. Save $0.50 on every package of
stickers. Many other items will be priced to clear and there will be door prizes
and draws. Hope to see you there!!!
Also, don’t forget about our Annual Trade-In-A-Trimmer Event! Simply bring
a small piece of old, ugly trimmer to Education Station from August 15-31, 2002
and trade it in for a Brand New Package of Trimmer for FREE!
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5. Celebrate!
Celebrate Father’s Day
http://www.holidays.net/father/
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/derek.berger/family/fathersday.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/fathersday/
Celebrate The End of the School Year
http://www.teachingheart.net/endoftheyearpage.html
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson184.shtml
http://www.abcteach.com/MonthtoMonth/June/JuneTOC.htm
http://www.billybear4kids.com/holidays/father/dad.htm
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6. What's New
Check out some of our great new products recently added to the site!
http://www.educationstation.ca/viewnew.php
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7. Article
Instant Ideas for Busy Teachers...
by Barbara Gruber, M.A. & Sue Gruber, M.A.
www.bgrubercourses.com
Eight Winning Ways to Wrap Up the Year
The end of the school year is coming up fast!!! Children and teachers are all
on "the countdown" to the last day of school. During the last week
of school there will be all kinds of jumping up and down, hooting and hollering,
and the humming of happy tunes. And, that is coming from the teachers' room!
During the last few weeks of school, teachers have golden opportunities to get
the jump on the next school year. Take advantage of these opportunities---they
will save you time and work this fall.
Job 1: Does your desk look like a paper drive? Here's how to keep track of important
papers that have to do with next school year. Grab a file folder and label it
NEXT YEAR. Do this right now---even if you don't have anything to put in the
folder. Now you have established a place to stash memos, school calendars, and
any other materials you receive that pertain to next school year.
Job 2: Imagine this---your parent helpers can help you prepare for NEXT school
year! Do you have parent volunteers who help at school or at home? If so, have
these helpers make sets of folders to use when school starts with your new class.
A volunteer can make shape books or assemble writing booklets that you will
need during the first few weeks of school. What a great feeling knowing you
have materials prepared and ready-to-use. We have at-home parent helpers who
do virtually all our folding, stapling, cutting and pasting kinds of jobs! Their
help adds up to an amazing number of minutes of work we do not have to do. If
a volunteer does an hour's worth of work for you each school week that adds
up to thirty-six hours in a school year! That's thirty-six hours of work YOU
don't have to do. Put the materials for making folders/booklets/whatever, along
with completed samples, in shopping bags for volunteers to do at home.
Job 3: Looking for an end-of-the-year activity that bonds the class and can
be used as a reward? We use autograph books made from construction paper. (Needless
to say, they were made by our at-home parent helpers!) Cut construction paper
pages, 6" x 8" to staple into autograph books. Be sure to use light
colored paper so writing will be visible on the pages. You will need an autograph
book for each child, one for yourself, and a few extras…just in case.
Pass out the autograph books and have children decorate the covers and write
their names on their books. Then, collect the books and set them aside until
the last week of school. Why not go ahead and sign all the autograph books before
returning them to children? When you pass the books out, children will be thrilled
to find your autograph in their books!
Our rule is children can only use their autograph books during official "autograph
time" which happens to be lunch and recess times. And, they are not allowed
to take the books home until the last day of school. You can occasionally reward
the class with "in class autograph time" during the last few hectic
days of school. During this time your students can sign the teacher's autograph
book! Our students loved having playground supervisors, the principal, the librarian
and other teachers sign their books.
Job 4: Looking for a quick-and-easy fall bulletin board kids will actually look
at? During the last week of school, collect a sample of work from each child.
Make sure you end up with an assortment of different kinds of papers and projects.
Stash the work samples you collected in a folder or bag labeled back-to-school
bulletin board. In fall, title a bulletin board "Take a look at second
grade work!" and simply put up a collage of the papers and projects you
saved. Your new class will love looking at this bulletin board created by last
year's class. This bulletin board is perfect for Back-to-School Night meetings.
The bulletin board shows parents the kind of work their children will do.
Job 5: Who says you can't take a field trip during the last week of school?
This is the world's easiest field trip---no parent helpers and no permission
slips are required because the field trip occurs right AT school. Take your
class on a field trip to visit the next grade level. If there are several classrooms
at the next grade level, visit a different one each day. Our classes loved these
ten-minute visits to other classrooms. It's fun and it alleviates some of the
worries children may have about entering the next grade. If you teach the highest
grade at your school, arrange a visit back to kindergarten.
Job 6: Put children to work locating classroom library books that need repair.
Have small groups of children spend ten minutes in the classroom library carefully
looking through books and locating ones in need of repair. You'll need a box
and some grocery bags for this activity. Children place damaged books in the
"Fix this book!" box. Children place the other books that do not require
repairs in bags. Make sure every child has a turn to be engaged in this important
end-of-the-year job. Have as many books checked as time permits during the last
week of school. Now, you have a box of books that need repair and bags of books
that do not require repairs. You can wait until fall and have a newly recruited
volunteer repair the books in the "Fix this book!" box. Have student
helpers put some of the books back on the library shelves. Leave the remaining
books in bags.
In the fall, take six or eight classroom library books out of a bag and spread
the books along the chalk ledge. Take a moment to highlight the books by reading
the titles aloud or showing a few illustrations to the class. Then, add the
books you introduced to the class to the library. Every day or two, continue
to display groups of books from the bags on the chalk ledge and introduce them
to the class. Eventually, all the books will be back on the classroom library
shelves. By gradually introducing classroom library books to children, interest
in the classroom library gets a big boost! What a positive difference this makes
in how much children use and enjoy your classroom library!
Job 7: When you prepare your classroom for back-to-school, isn't it a great
feeling when you get all those bulletin boards up? Why not get the jump on things
and cover all your bulletin boards with background paper and edge trimmers before
you leave at the end of the year? Barbara just puts up the background paper
and trimmers---Sue actually FINISHES all her back-to-school bulletin boards!
You'll be amazed how quickly you can zap up your bulletin boards when you are
anxious to depart the shores of the school campus. If you can't stand the thought
of doing them all---just do one! You'll love it when you come back to school
knowing some of your work is already done!
Job 8: Do things mysteriously disappear in your file cabinet? It happens to
us! We've filed important papers and a day later they are nowhere to be found?
We've been amazed to find long-lost papers mixed in with other papers in our
files. There's never enough time at school to file things, let alone go through
files and organize them. Why not take a section of your file cabinet home to
go through over the summer. When we did this, we found:
· lots of papers we could discard
· long-lost papers
· things that were misfiled
· multiple copies when we needed only one
· would you believe…stuff from student teaching days
· and some things we couldn't even identify!
Yep---we qualify as card-carrying packrats! Our "housecleaned" files
were reduced by almost half. We continued this housekeeping chore by taking
sections of the files home till we made it all the way through two of the three
drawers. Next summer we'll tackle the bottom drawer. This task is like painting
the Golden Gate Bridge…by the time you finish, it's time to start over.
But, it's worth doing, for sure!
Teaching is a more difficult, challenging job than most teachers ever dreamed
it could be! Do whatever you can to make your busy job as a teacher go smoothly
for you. You are a VIP in your classroom---do everything you can to treat yourself
well.
If you like the kinds of ideas we've shared in this article, you'll love the
online courses we offer for K-6 teachers. Every single idea is practical and
easy-to-implement. Summer break is coming up---it's a perfect time for teachers
to earn units. You can get realistic teacher-friendly ideas for your classroom
and move up on the salary ladder. We can help---you can earn one, two or three
semester units of University credit through University of the Pacific which
is accredited by the WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges).
We've never met a teacher who was looking for more work to do! That's why we
help teachers find ways to save time and work and improve instruction. As a
matter of fact, our motto is "There's a life beyond teaching." When
teachers have a life beyond teaching, they are energized and enthusiastic. We
hope you found some ideas in this article that will help you wrap up the year
the win-win way. Good luck with your end-of-the-year wrap up!
Best regards,
Barbara Gruber & Sue Gruber
Teachers, Authors of Teacher Resource Books,
Course Developers and Instructors for
Barbara Gruber Online Courses for K-6 Teachers
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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! **
