Teaching Terrific Five's and Other Children


Book Description

Filled with more practical classroom and home-based learning activities, stories, rhymes, songs, and games. With an easy-to-follow format and plenty of reproducibles, this book is designed to help teachers foster a five-year-old’s growth in five essential developmental areas: Social/Emotional, Language, Cognitive, Motor Skills, and Hygiene/Self-Help. Children will love Teaching Terrific 5's because it's chock full of fun, let's-do-it-again activities, memorable characters, and catchy verses. Teachers will find the activities fresh and imaginative, and they'll feel confident knowing the book is part of a tried-and-true series of activity books uniquely tailored to the individual needs of each preschool age group. And, because it's based on the trusted National Child Assessment checklist of age-appropriate skills, behaviors, it's guaranteed to take a teacher's understanding of preschool enrichment to the next level. A must-have for teachers of five-year-olds at all levels of learning!




Teaching Terrific Twos and Other Toddlers


Book Description

When two-year olds begin in nursery schools and day care centers, they need activities specially designed to expand their capabilities and interests. The activities, which both teachers and children will enjoy, develop self-image, listening, language, social growth, movement, science, math, and music. These activities will keep a young toddler's mind as active as a toddler's body. It includes introductory sections covering basic and individual goals, classroom arrangement, scheduling, discipline, materials, parent involvement, and assessment. Shape Walks, Mitten Week, Bunny May I, and many other activities make this book an incredible resource.




Story Stretchers


Book Description

Activities for 90 different children's books, covering time, art, cooking and snack time, creative dramatics, housekeeping and dress-up, music, movement, block building, science fun, nature study, library, mathematics (math fun).




There Are No Shortcuts


Book Description

Year after year, Rafe Esquith’s fifth-grade students excel. They read passionately, far above their grade level; tackle algebra; and stage Shakespeare so professionally that they often wow the great Shakespearen actor himself, Sir Ian McKellen. Yet Esquith teaches at an L.A. innercity school known as the Jungle, where few of his students speak English at home, and many are from poor or troubled families. What’s his winning recipe? A diet of intensive learning mixed with a lot of kindness and fun. His kids attend class from 6:30 A.M. until well after 4:00 P.M., right through most of their vacations. They take field trips to Europe and Yosemite. They play rock and roll. Mediocrity has no place in their classroom. And the results follow them for life, as they go on to colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Possessed by a fierce idealism, Esquith works even harder than his students. As an outspoken maverick of public education (his heroes include Huck Finn and Atticus Finch), he admits to significant mistakes and heated fights with administrators and colleagues. We all—teachers, parents, citizens—have much to learn from his candor and uncompromising vision.




It's OK Not to Share and Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids


Book Description

Parenting can be such an overwhelming job that it’s easy to lose track of where you stand on some of the more controversial subjects at the playground (What if my kid likes to rough house—isn’t this ok as long as no one gets hurt? And what if my kid just doesn’t feel like sharing?). In this inspiring and enlightening book, Heather Shumaker describes her quest to nail down “the rules” to raising smart, sensitive, and self-sufficient kids. Drawing on her own experiences as the mother of two small children, as well as on the work of child psychologists, pediatricians, educators and so on, in this book Shumaker gets to the heart of the matter on a host of important questions. Hint: many of the rules aren’t what you think they are! The “rules” in this book focus on the toddler and preschool years—an important time for laying the foundation for competent and compassionate older kids and then adults. Here are a few of the rules: • It’s OK if it’s not hurting people or property • Bombs, guns and bad guys allowed. • Boys can wear tutus. • Pictures don’t have to be pretty. • Paint off the paper! • Sex ed starts in preschool • Kids don’t have to say “Sorry.” • Love your kid’s lies. IT’S OK NOT TO SHARE is an essential resource for any parent hoping to avoid PLAYDATEGATE (i.e. your child’s behavior in a social interaction with another child clearly doesn’t meet with another parent’s approval)!




Teach Terrific Grammar, Grades 4-5


Book Description

Help your students develop their grammar skills. Includes hundreds of creative, hands-on activities! If you are looking for supplemental material for your grammar program or are in search of practical exercises that will boost your pupils' language confidence, this invaluable resource has it all! Teach Terrific Grammar, Grades 4-5 features more than 160 self-correcting grammar lessons in a fun puzzle format--complete with answer key--versatile enough to be adapted to any existing program or approach. It also has forty reproducible “Tip Sheets” that review the parts of speech and other important grammar rules. Your students will become masters at using language correctly when they learn how to: Recognize types of sentences Understand sentence structure Identify parts of speech Avoid fragments and run-ons Use punctuation and capitalization together Find grammar mistakes and much more




Teaching Children to Care


Book Description

"Ruth Charney gives teachers help on things that really matter. She wants children to learn how to care for themselves, their fellow students, their environment, and their work. Her book is loaded with practical wisdom. Using Charney's positive approach to classroom management will make the whole school day go better." - Nel Noddings, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, and author of Caring This definitive work about classroom management will show teachers how to turn their vision of respectful, friendly, academically rigorous classrooms into reality. The new edition includes: More information on teaching middle-school students Additional strategies for helping children with challenging behavior Updated stories and examples from real classrooms. "Teaching Children to Care offers educators a practical guide to one of the most effective social and emotional learning programs I know of. The Responsive Classroom approach creates an ideal environment for learning—a pioneering program every teacher should know about." - Daniel Goleman, Author of Emotional Intelligence "I spent one whole summer reading Teaching Children to Care. It was like a rebirth for me. This book helped direct my professional development. After reading it, I had a path to follow. I now look forward to rereading this book each August to refresh and reinforce my ability to effectively manage a social curriculum in my classroom." - Gail Zimmerman, second-grade teacher, Jackson Mann Elementary School, Boston, MA




Terrific Table Manners


Book Description

The sequel to Terrible Times Tables—a mischievous modern manners primer for kids Inspired by the classic Tiffany’s primer on manners for teens and featuring a familiar cast of characters, Terrific Table Manners is a modern take on table etiquette that follows the course of a proper dinner-party meal. Young readers will learn essential amenities such as sending the invite and RSVP, the use for all of those different forks, how to politely sip soup and engage in delightful (not dreadful) conversation, and writing thank-you notes. Sharing a meal has never been this exciting and funny.




Growing Mathematical Minds


Book Description

Growing Mathematical Minds is the documentation of an innovative, bi-directional process of connecting research and practice in early childhood mathematics. The book translates research on early mathematics from developmental psychology into terms that are meaningful to teachers and readily applicable in early childhood classrooms. It documents teacher responses, and conveys their thoughts and questions back to representative researchers, who reply in turn. In so doing, this highly useful book creates a conversation, in which researchers and teachers each bring their expertise to bear; their communication about these topics—informed by the thinking, commitment, and experience of both groups—helps us better understand how developmental psychology can improve math teaching, and how math teaching can, in turn, inform developmental science. The book bridges the gap between research and practice, helping teachers to adopt evidence-based practices and apply cutting-edge research findings, and prompting developmental researchers to consider their work within the framework of practice. Growing Mathematical Minds identifies and elucidates research with profound implications for teaching children from three to eight years so they develop foundational math knowledge and skills, positive attitudes toward math, and basic abilities to think mathematically.




A Journalist's Education in the Classroom


Book Description

After an impressive career in journalism, David S. Awbrey became a middle-school social studies teacher in Springfield, Missouri, a typical American community that he uses as a compelling case study to explore many of the social and academic problems facing education nationwide.