[Teaching Ideas] Vocabulary Development–Greek Roots

A coworker posed a question to me on Friday and I stewed on it all weekend. How would I teach Greek and Latin roots to middle grade students? This sent my mind to spinning. I’ve never been a strong proponent of weekly spelling or vocabulary lists and quizzes. I found that my strong students memorized…

[Photo A Day] August Break and Symmetry

A colleague of mine began the August Break 2013 on her blog. I like the idea of making a commitment to posting a photo a day and using that opportunity to reinvigorate your blogging. I am already taking part in a photo-a-day activity with the San Diego Area Writing Project on their blog (which I, ahem,…

[SDAWP Photo Voices] “Green” Link Up

Hubris.  That’s how I entered the “green” week with SDAWP Photo Voices–with hubris. Green? What a breeze! It’s summer in San Diego! The place is positively brimming with green! Early into Day 1 I spied this leaf outside the SDAWP offices: I didn’t even the see  awesome bug on the bottom right hand side of…

[SDAWP Photo Voices] A Yellow Walk

The theme for SDAWP Photo Voices this week is “yellow.” Last week was “red” and it was surprisingly easy to find interesting red things. Yellow… so far… not so much. So early this morning,, after being pounced on by the puppy at 5:34 A.M.  precisely (every, single. morning.  5:34 A.M. ) I took my trusty…

[Photography] SDAWP Photo Voices–“Red”

This week for the SDAWP Photo Voices journey the theme was “red.”  I think was my favorite week by far.  I loved having one theme for the week, focusing (no pun intended) on something for more than one day or one moment (usually a moment during my early morning puppy walk), and watching the photos…

[Friday Free-Day] Yo! Snaps

I’m puttering around this post trying to figure out how to describe what became, this Spring, a phenomenon in my classroom. It’s quite near indescribable, but it’s also amazing and worth sharing. Where to begin…? On a Tuesday I “threw a snap” to one of my students. It’s something I used to do with my…