My Grandparents
I smiled when I marked the spelling sheet today… the things kids write.
My nan is a crazy driver and my nan likes sleeping and chocolate and my pop is a slow driver. My nan goes to the pub all the time.
Working Together
This year I am working with an extra staff member on my grade, a result of two teachers sharing a part-time load.
It was very nice, but not necessary 
, of this teacher when she gave us a little personalised notepad. Funnily enough, all the women I’ve shown it to have laughed out loud.
The notepad came also with a note, of which I quite liked the quote that was written:
Paul,
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.
Looking forward to 2010
Jemma
Very nice.
Honest Lesson Evaluations
I came across this honest lesson evaluation via Twitter.
The great teacher
The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires
William Arthur Ward
A Big Button Calculator
Came across this calculator, which would be handy for whole class demonstration. It has big buttons and a simple layout – just the essentials. Nice and big too.
Happy Limerick Day
Today is Limerick Day. It celebrates the birthday of Edward Lear (1812 – 1888). Lear made limericks popular in his 1846 publication “A Book of Nonsense”
What is a limerick?
A limerick is a five-line poem written with one couplet and one triplet.
A couplet is a two-line rhymed poem and a triplet is a three-line.
What are the typical characteristics of Limericks?
- Limericks are a funny and nonsense poem.
- They have five lines.
- They have a rhyme scheme of A, A, B, B, A (lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme; lines 3 and 4 rhyme).
- The syllabification is 8, 8, 5, 5, 8.
Did you know? Limerick is also a large city in Ireland.
What a limerick is in a crunch
Is a bit like a loony’s light lunch
Though it briefly delights
It’s just four nutty bites
Swallowed down with a ludicrous punchBy Graham Lester
Other Links:
- Teaching Ideas
- How to write a Limerick by Bruce Lansky
- Edward Lear’s Nonsense Work
- Write an instant limerick (online form)
- A collection of limericks for kids
- Teacher Planet Limerick Day Theme Page
Do you have a favourite Limerick? Share it with us in the comments below.
What’s another word for Synonym?
Can you think of one?? I haven’t been able to. Even a search at Synonym.com brought back the result:
Sorry, I could not find synonyms for ’synonym’
I found some websites that deal with Synonyms though:
- Teacher’s Clubhouse – Grammar Skills
- A lesson on synonyms for Kindergarten
- EdHelper worksheets on Synonyms
I did also find the humourous t-shirts too, if you’re that way inclined. They’re available over at Zazzle.com
You’ve Been Teaching Too Long When You…
a bit like “You Might Be in Education if…” but here goes.
You’ve Been Teaching Too Long When You…
- Think that canteen chocolate bars are “real food”
- Know more than five uses for milk cartons.
- Sing the school song while ironing!
- Think that going to the supermarket is a special trip out.
- Start setting homework for yourself.
- Call your Principal, ‘darling’.
- Records your school’s address on competition forms.
- Think that staff meetings are the best fun you’ve had all week.
- Cry with joy when your back-to-back photocopying comes out the right way up.
Some Day
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
“Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, ‘There’s Jennifer; she’s a lawyer,’ or ‘That’s Michael; he’s a doctor.’”
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, “And there’s the teacher; she’s dead.”
Jimmy’s Not Stupid
Mrs. White asked her 4th grade class if they thought they were stupid and, if so, to please stand.
Little Jimmy stood up, alone.
Mrs. White said, “Jimmy, do you really think you’re stupid?”
“No,” Jimmy said. “But I didn’t want you standing up there alone.”