Nutritious and Delicious October

Our last post encouraged you to create a safety unit for your students. We hope this has left you hungry for more ideas – because we just so happen to have another one!

October is the perfect month for a nutrition unit. It’s Vegetarian Awareness Month; Eat Better, Eat Together Month; and even Spinach Lover’s Month. While it might be too difficult a task to turn all of your students into spinach lovers, October is a wonderful opportunity to encourage healthy eating habits to last a lifetime. Here are some ideas on how to introduce a little good nutrition into your classroom.

Plan a unit on healthy foods and eating habits. Start by asking students about their favorite foods. There are likely to be plenty of answers like these: pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, etc. Explain that while these foods are delicious (and, in parts, healthy), they are also unhealthy if eaten too often. Ask students to list healthy foods. Help them understand why these foods are important for growing bodies. Ask students to keep track of what they eat for one week. At the end of the week, have everyone write a short paper assessing how healthy their meals were; they should also include how they could eat healthier from then on. Fill the rest of the week with grade-appropriate nutrition topics. Bring in a delicious, healthy snack for each day to help your students eat better!

Here are some FREE activities you might want to use to reinforce your nutrition unit:

Grades 1-2 Healthy Snacks
Grades 3-4 Jellybean Sugar Count
Grades 5-6 Calories
Grades 6-8 Healthy Hidden Foods
Grades 9-12 Nutrition Sense

Plant your own classroom vegetable garden. This doesn’t have to be anything too fancy. If you live in a suitable climate and have a safe space, try planting outside. Many healthy foods (tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and other greens) can be grown indoors, as well. Students will love getting their hands dirty planting the seeds and watching the plants grow. This activity can easily complement a science unit. If all goes well, you could be eating classroom-grown salads and other snacks in no time!

Encourage other students in your school to eat better by putting together a healthy foods sale. Much like a bake sale (minus the brownies, cookies, and other sugary treats), the sale should offer a variety of healthy snacks. After securing permission for the sale, let students share their ideas for what to sell. You might want to provide some simple recipes or ideas to avoid a table full of carrots and bananas. Sell your healthy snacks during lunch, if possible; or before and after school. Use the proceeds to benefit a local charity – or to fund your classroom vegetable garden.

Have you had success transforming your children into spinach lovers? How do you teach students about nutrition? If you try any of the above ideas, please share your stories with us. It’s easy to make October all about nutrition – and to get your students eating healthy.

For more information on healthy foods and eating right, visit the United States Department of Agriculture web site. Interested in more activities that teach nutrition and healthy living? Check out these great books!

Make October Safety Month!

One of our goals with Bridging the Gaps in Education is to provide teachers and parents with educational ideas. After discussing this goal, we decided to try something new this week. We know you’re incredibly busy – why not let us help you plan some lessons – not for this week, but for next month? This way, you have time to develop the ideas and add your unique touches and improvements to them.

With this idea in mind, let’s get planning! October 4 – 10 is Fire Prevention Week. This is a great time to teach younger children about firefighters and all that they do for the community. It’s also an opportunity to present fire safety units to students of all ages. You might consider planning a field trip to your local fire station; or you could invite a local firefighter to speak to your class. Practice your home or school fire escape plans and encourage everyone to learn fire safety and prevention information. Top the week off with a surprise fire drill to reinforce what you’ve learned. Here is a simple fire safety activity to help you get started.

Why not try making the month of October Safety Month? Being relatively early in the school year, it’s a great time to establish classroom practices and rules – and it never hurts to make your space safer!

The concept of safety is pretty enormous, so here are a few ideas for units or lessons.

Work with your students to improve the safety of your classroom or home. First, ask students to identify potential risks in the environment – these could be sharp edges on desks or chairs, scissor storage, or slippery surfaces, to name a few. If there are valid risks, discuss ways to correct or improve them. Help students craft safety plans and enact them. Develop a classroom- or home-specific list of rules and precautions for the entire year.

Discuss safety outside the classroom. The world can be a dangerous place, and you can teach children to be better prepared. Possible topics include: traffic safety and laws, drug awareness, community threats (strangers, crime, etc.), and much more. Pick topics that apply to your grade level and region.

Teach about weather safety and natural disasters. Students are often fascinated by natural phenomena like thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes; and these topics naturally lead into science vocabulary, experiments, and activities. If you live in a region that is at risk of particular dangers, develop and practice safety procedures. Have students create and decorate safety lists to display in the classroom. A wealth of material is available for the planning and implementation of units/lessons like these. Click here for some products that focus on weather and natural disasters.

These ideas, along with your own expertise and planning, can turn October into Safety Month. These are only starter ideas; put your own spin on safety for a month filled with practical learning that can be applied in and out of the classroom. Have some ideas on teaching safety? Put them in the comments section below and share them with others!

One Week In...How's it Going?

I was shopping at a local school supply store the other morning, checking out all of the cool new products and supplies (there are still great deals to be had), when I realized that the room seemed quieter than normal. There were less people studying the shelves. This trend continued as I drove to work, windows down and radio off.

Has anybody else noticed how quiet things have gotten? With all of our children back in school, the world almost seems like a different place during the day. Playful shouts and full swimming pools have been swapped for ringing bells and packed classrooms.

The first week of school is always an exciting time. There’s so much important work to be done: teacher/student introductions, class rules and expectations, first lessons, and more. It’s a time to set the tone for the school year, an opportunity to establish an environment that will allow your class to grow and learn together. And, of course, it’s an extremely fun time!

We would really like to hear how your first weeks are going. How are you setting the right mood for the coming months? What activities have you used to get things going? Any insanely fun stories to share? Write your stories and ideas in the comments section below!

Back to School

It’s the second half of August, and things are changing. Distinctive yellow buses are on the road. Stores are displaying vast quantities of pencils, notebooks, and folders. And any of your friends that happen to be teachers are vanishing from sight. It doesn’t take a detective to piece the clues together – the back to school season is upon us!

The weeks leading up to a new school year are a bittersweet time for kids and adults alike. Students are excited to see old friends and tackle new challenges, but they mourn the passing of summer days spent playing in the sun. Parents miss having their children around all the time, but appreciate the quiet and freedom. Teachers have no doubt enjoyed their three months of vacation, but are eager to fill the minds of another class with new knowledge.

I remember these days well. The nagging date lurking in the back of my mind, looming larger with each passing hour. How that foreboding became grudging and then all-out excitement as I shopped for new supplies and clothes. The thrill of meeting a new teacher, reuniting with classmates, and flipping through new books (well, maybe not the new books, but you get the point). And before I knew it, it was autumn and the school year was in full swing.

The last weeks of summer vacation are a great way to prepare for the new school year. Try reviewing key concepts from the previous year with worksheets, flash cards, or quick quizzes and games. Get your soon-to-be students excited by taking them shopping for new school supplies and clothes – it’s easy to find great deals and sales right now. Plan a bash to celebrate the last days of summer. Eat summer foods and play summer games outside. Talk about everyone’s favorite summer activities.

A day or two before the first day of school, give your child a piece of paper. Ask them to write a letter to themselves. Explain that they should list some goals for the coming school year – these can be simple, like making a new friend, or more difficult, like getting better grades in math. When they’re finished, take the letter and place it in an envelope and store it. Hand it back to your child a day or two before or after the last day of school. Talk about their goals and how they changed over the course of the year.

How do you, as a parent or teacher, get ready for a new school year? What’s the best thing about back to school time? What’s the worst? When you were a student, how did you prepare yourself? Feel free to share your stories.

More Educational Technology

After blogging about eBooks last week, we thought we’d stay with the thread and discuss other technologies being used by teachers and parents to enhance learning.

The modern classroom can be a very advanced place. There are an incredible number of new technologies being used in schools and homes. Unfortunately, many schools aren’t able to afford these products, but they are slowly spreading. It’s probably safe to assume that in the next several years, many of these innovations will be in widespread use.

These days, it’s hard to find a school or home that doesn’t feature computers. These aren’t new educational tools – they’ve been in use for years. Their possible uses, however, are constantly changing. The Internet hosts an enormous amount of resources for teachers and parents. Worksheets, interactive games, lesson plan ideas – the list goes on. Ideas are shared on public forums (blogs, discussion boards, websites), giving educators access to a growing collection of content. And there’s no end to available software. From encyclopedias to precalculus programs, you can find just about anything you need to boost your classroom resources.

An extremely popular technology is the interactive whiteboard. Taking the place of chalkboards and dry-erase boards, they work with a computer and projector to provide all kinds of fun, educational opportunities. Teachers can develop lessons with programs like Power Point and display them on the whiteboard. There are a number of lesson plans and ideas available online, as well. The boards are completely interactive. Special markers write on the board, allowing a teacher to highlight or expand on a particular note; or a student could work a math problem right on the whiteboard. The boards also respond to touch. It’s amazing how much students love working on these products. Their attention is grabbed easily, and they really enjoy heading up to the board to interact with the lesson. The possibilities of this technology are great, and the library of content continues to grow.

Remote technology is another innovation gathering steam in schools. The idea is that each student has a small remote or device that transmits to another device (like an interactive whiteboard or computer). This has a number of uses and advantages. Students can take multiple choice quizzes and tests, entering their answers via remote. Each remote is mapped to a specific student. Results are instantly tabulated, and can be easily placed in a computerized grade book. Imagine the time a teacher could save without tedious hand-grading! It’s also great for survey questions and class votes, and can be used to introduce charts and graphing activities.

These are only a few of the available technologies. And who knows what’s next? One future educational tool may be the cell phone. Can you imagine using text messaging in the classroom? How do you feel about the growing presence of technology in education? Is it a good or bad thing? What do you think is “the next big thing” for teachers and parents?

The eBook Revolution

I have sometimes wondered what Johannes Gutenberg felt when he held the first book to come off of his printing press. Did he have an inkling that he’d changed the world? Did he glimpse a future in which books were everywhere? Did he realize that he held a piece of history in his hands?

When I consider the revolution of eBooks, I think I might have an idea of how he felt. There’s no question that eBooks are changing things. When we download books and slide through their pages on our e-readers, we are making our own history. eBooks have taken the publishing industry by storm, and they aren’t letting up. Everything and everyone that has anything to do with books is affected – libraries, book stores, and, of course, teachers.

eBooks are revolutionizing the classroom. Novels aren’t the only kind of book out there. Textbooks, workbooks, and children’s books are available, as well. Here are a few reasons to hop on the eBook train.

E is for easy. Okay, it’s actually for electronic, but it may as well stand for easy. Having trouble finding a workbook on a specific topic? All you need is an internet connection and libraries will be at your fingertips. It only takes a few minutes to order an eBook and have it delivered directly to you! No more trips to supply stores and book sellers. And eBooks are usually priced the same as a printed copy, so you don’t have to pay extra for the convenience.

It may seem a minor benefit, but eBooks are a tremendous space-saver. eBooks are stored on your computer, so you don’t need to worry about book shelves or closet space. Your classroom stays neat and organized, and has more free space that can be used to enhance your learning environment. You can also make your classroom a green, environmentally friendly zone by using eBooks.

Technology is changing the modern classroom. eBooks are only a part of that change, but they work together with the others to enhance learning. eBooks are compatible with computers, interactive whiteboards, e-readers, and even cell phones. Pages can be projected on a whiteboard, allowing student and teacher interaction and turning individual exercise into a group activity. Handouts can be printed directly on your home or classroom printer. That means no more waiting in line at the copier! Lessons and assignments can be e-mailed to absent students. Homeschool teachers can provide all the books found in schools with computers and e-readers. The possibilities are seemingly endless, and more are being added all the time!

How do you feel about eBooks? What do you like or dislike about them? How have you used them at home or in the classroom? What do you think technologies like eBooks mean for the future of education?

Summer Learning

It’s difficult to believe, but we are in the final week of July! Summer is in full swing, and that means lots of things for parents: babysitters, vacations, sunscreen, and so much more. It can be hard to squeeze learning in among the many distractions that summer throws at us. How can you keep a spirit of learning in between the picnics and pool trips? How can you prepare your child for the upcoming school year? There are many simple and fun ways to keep your child learning throughout the long days of summer. Here are a few suggestions.

Try working a bit of education into your daily routine. Take thirty minutes or an hour to practice key skills like spelling and math. Use flashcards to keep minds sharp. Provide workbook pages for a quick, independent, cross-curricular opportunity. Challenge children with a daily or weekly quiz (on any subject) to keep the theme of learning going. Offer rewards to keep the experience fun.

Start a book program for your kids – it’s easier than it sounds. Compile a list of educational books and let children decide which books they want to read from your list. Assign a certain number of pages each day or week. As your child progresses through the book, discuss the content. Ask some simple questions to practice reading comprehension and response. You might consider keeping a chart that tracks the number of books read. Hang it in a public place so that children can be proud of their progress! See how many books you can get through - the number might surprise you.

Assign your children weekly or monthly “projects.” Encourage your kids to select topics that interest them. Make research resources (the library, encyclopedias, the Internet) available and let them do some independent research on their chosen topics. Instruct them to plan a short paper or presentation to be given to you, along with family and/or friends. This doesn’t need to be a formal exercise – kids (and adults) should have fun throughout the “projects!”

These are only a few ideas on keeping learning alive during the summer. How about sharing some of your own ideas? How do you fit learning into a busy summer schedule? How would you make a vacation an educational experience? Have you tried any of the ideas we shared? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you!