I'm not a teacher but I have several friends who are and I know that with funding cuts everyone has had to get creative in the classroom. It's really awful that teachers have to reach into their own pockets to buy their own supplies.
I have some suggestions on resources and maybe this can be a place where other people can share their ideas on how to keep education from going bankrupt.
When I was a truck driver (yes, don't laugh, with the ex-DH.) We traveled all over the US and Canada. I thought that it would be great to share all I've seen with children. Face it, kids love big trucks! My dad drove the big rigs growing up and I was just amazed by them. So I found Trucker Buddy International that matches elementary school classes with truck drivers. We sent a postcard from where we were every week and wrote letters describing where we were. The internet was a great help and we constantly sent pictures of landmarks and interesting things we saw. The class sent us a trucker teddybear that traveled with us and was the class ambassador. They had a map up and would put our post cards up and put strings to all the locations. It was a wonderful opportunity for math, economics, geography and writing...they wrote us wonderful letters with all sorts of questions. We had our dog with us and we played "What state did Bauer poop in today?" in which they had to guess by the names of cities and landmarks. %th graders love poop references!
Twice a year we would visit with the truck and we'd have a party and everyone got to honk the air horn, climb into the sleeper cab and get on the CB like a real trucker. Did I mention how much kids are fascinated by trucks??? And, boy, we were big celebrities at school....we got to eat school lunch, play kickball and do arts and crafts - it was a blast. We We gathered rocks and things from our travels and brought them to the class during these visits. The petrified wood was always a big hit and we left these items for teaching resources.
Another resource I like is:
http://www.heifereducation.org/site...sson_plans_and_free_educational_resources.htm
Lots of good stuff for teachers here.
Does anyone have any favorite teacher resources they'd like to share??
I have some suggestions on resources and maybe this can be a place where other people can share their ideas on how to keep education from going bankrupt.
When I was a truck driver (yes, don't laugh, with the ex-DH.) We traveled all over the US and Canada. I thought that it would be great to share all I've seen with children. Face it, kids love big trucks! My dad drove the big rigs growing up and I was just amazed by them. So I found Trucker Buddy International that matches elementary school classes with truck drivers. We sent a postcard from where we were every week and wrote letters describing where we were. The internet was a great help and we constantly sent pictures of landmarks and interesting things we saw. The class sent us a trucker teddybear that traveled with us and was the class ambassador. They had a map up and would put our post cards up and put strings to all the locations. It was a wonderful opportunity for math, economics, geography and writing...they wrote us wonderful letters with all sorts of questions. We had our dog with us and we played "What state did Bauer poop in today?" in which they had to guess by the names of cities and landmarks. %th graders love poop references!
Another resource I like is:
http://www.heifereducation.org/site...sson_plans_and_free_educational_resources.htm
Lots of good stuff for teachers here.
Does anyone have any favorite teacher resources they'd like to share??
