I’m leaving. Well, not for good. I’m moving is a much better term.
You can find me at the link below. Come and visit.
I’ve got to say this quietly, “I’ll be at blogger now“
WordPress has been good to me, but as Google continues to play me like a puppet and pull my strings it only makes sense to make this switch. Luckily the transition has been painless and almost all posts went with me.
Thanks,
Matt
I’m continuing my trend of Clip Artsmanship. This next set is over 50 different framing options that vary in size, shape, color, and more. I don’t really have uniformity down because I just don’t have the patience to do one set with the same color over and over. So I really tend to change styles and shapes on the fly. Is that the best way? Not sure, but that is my current plan of action.
For the most part I stuck with simple edging with colored outlining (except for the two above). Obviously, I’m still in the infant stage of my learning curve and I’m becoming well-versed in switching between online tutorials and Illustrator.
Is it simple? Yes. Does it look nice? My kids tell it’s the best. Will I use it? Of course.
All files were created as 300 dpi png files.
If you have any interest in these please follow the links below. They can be used commercially. Enjoy.
Know your audience. I teach boys that like enjoy would marry if possible love sports.
I firmly believe that if you get a kid interested in learning they will succeed (shocking, I know). Engage, engage, and reap the rewards from an interested student. It all depends on their levels of interest though, which is why I’ve been using Sports of Speech with some of my students(not just the boys). The name is a simple play on words parts of speech and focuses primarily on identifying nouns, verbs, and adjectives then being able to use them in correct context (speaking, writing). Except these words are all based on around the world of sports.
There are at least four different “games” that can be played and all vary in difficulty level. I have some students that might take longer on a specific game (like the word sort) or others that must get three unlike words (one of each category) and create/write a sentence. The games are titled Cross Over, Triple Play, and Trick Shot.
Today I had a couple of student take 40 minutes to two play to games as partners. I sat with them and we discussed all the terms as they appeared. THE BEST part was when they began to realize that different words had different meaning depending on how they were used. One pulled the card “guard”. He immediately said that’s an action, so it’s a verb.” Before he could place it his partner jumped in and said “what about a point guard? that’s a noun.” I grinned ear-to-ear because they were engaged and getting it.
After they sorted words together the students then individually played Cross Over.
Sports aren’t for everyone, but the terms they use are. This lesson great for debate too because the vocabulary used can fit into different categories based on how they are being said and used.
SPORTS OF SPEECH can be found on the website Teachers Pay Teacher.
Please feel free to check out everything else here.
If you’re a fan of photography and of Bill Watterson’s popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, you’ll probably love what Oregon-based freelance photographer Michael S. Den Beste has been working on recently. He’s using his Photoshoppin’ skills to blend Calvin and Hobbes characters into photographs of real world locations that match the settings seen in the comics. The results are magical, beautiful, and oh-so-very-fun.
This is my desk on a good day. I don’t really ever sit at there, it is more of a dumping ground for all of my things when I walk in my room. I house my stereo along with paperwork, coffee, workbooks, Dead Sea Scrolls, and it doubles as a charging station. And I like my desk. It gets things done and always keep everything where I need it.
Today I decided to change all of that. I had a group cancel on me which freed up twenty minutes of my time and I took the opportunity to clean and purge my soul. So I began to organize. I threw away papers that were over 3 years old. See that fan, it has been broken for the past year…gone. Then I found three gift cards.
I’m pretty happy with the end result. I’d say 65% of everything on my desk needed to be thrown away and I was happy to oblige. Then I looked at my tables with the computers. This is what it normally looks like (below) which sit right next to my desk.
The real issue was with the brown table (on the right) with the short depth that cuts off my hand when I try to type. Plus the phones has fallen off the back at least four times this year. Finally, (after 5 years) I made a quick switch, which only took about 10 minutes and reversed the tables. Don’t worry though, I left the Christmas Sweater.
Within minutes I began kicking myself for not making this switch years ago. Moving the headphones and printer to a table all by themselves and creating a common area for the computers has already made a difference.
One of the issues in my room is that I have limited space because I don’t have a large classroom, it’s more of an extended office. I have limited space and it needs to be accessible for all students and teachers. Over the years I’ve been exporting large file cabinets and unwanted school collectibles. I recently found curriculum from 1998 (tech curriculum), so I know it can’t be too up-to-date. This is just another step for me and if I can keep that desk and table clean for two weeks I will be impressed.
My next endeavor is here. Over the weeked I’ve tried to immerse myself with Adobe Illustrator. As part of this I’ve created 33 variations of stars using the program. It is still a work in progress, but I thought that everyone likes FREE things. Just look at the grown men that tackle little kids at MLB games to get a free baseball.
We love free. So enjoy
Be on the lookout for more. Or check out my other items.
One of the key focuses with Common Core is that it is slowly putting NCLB to sleep forever is vocabulary. With that said I’ve created set of vocabulary cards that each have between 50-70 words for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade (each has their own set of vocabulary terms).
Simple, clean, and visible without cognitive overload. Made simplistically to not take away from the purpose of them (which would be to understand and apply their meanings). There are four cards per standard sheet of paper (8x11in.).
These can be placed on bulletin boards, word walls, and more. I recently sat in a meeting where the presenters gave some examples of games that students could play with these such as grouping the vocabulary based on common themes among them. Yes, I do realize this can be tough for early kindergarten kids. Or even a game of Who Am I? where students place the cards on their foreheads and other students must describe the term.
Possibilities are endless just like their learning potential.
