I teach 5th and 6th grade STEM in the lovely Pacific Northwest in a small, rural town called Chimacum. My goal is to help students discover that all learning is life-long and that 21st century tools can be used for work as well as fun.
May 04
Our middle school’s second year participating in a WA STEM PD grant project is coming to an end. One thing I can see clearly is the time it takes to do PLC work right. Our plan has been to engage in professional development together in our teacher teams. PLC teams in schools are the best …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/05/04/plc-work-takes-time/
May 03
I’ve heard this argument before. Teachers shouldn’t complain about having to work extra hours to get their work done. Other professionals get paid to get their job done whether they work a 60 hour week or a 100 hour week. Some of them work endless hours when getting a project done. So why do teachers …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/05/03/salary-versus-hourly-wages/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/04/29/6th-graders-bullying-video/
Apr 12
In my last post I shared learnings and takeaways from some Common Core ELA trainings I’ve attended, specifically implications around the first shift of the common core that states that our students need to be reading complex texts. In this post I’m going share my learning about CCSS-ELA Shift 2. Common Core Shift 2 states …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/04/12/text-is-boss/
Apr 11
Food Miles? What is food miles, you ask? Check out this 6th grader’s summary of an awesome activity we did in class to raise student awareness of food traveling to get to your plates!
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/04/11/food-miles-6th-grade-blog-post/
Mar 28
Back in 1998 my school put the first model of iMac in my classroom, the Bondi iMac pictured on the left. I rotated groups of students through the Bondi iMac as they created websites using HTML as part of the projects they were working on at the time. We’ve come a long way since the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/03/28/older-imacs/
Mar 17
Here’s the latest 6th grade post in our class’s World Solutions Blog: Does Having a Growth Mindset Over a Fixed Mindset Really Matter? Click on the link above and read her post, it’s really good and has a fantastic Animoto video! Leave her a comment and share her post, please!
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/03/17/a-6th-graders-view-on-mindsets/
Mar 14
One of our 6th graders recorded this short video to share what it’s like stuttering! It’s short and well worth watching! Click here to visit our World Solutions Blog to watch his video, feel free to leave Isaac a comment!
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/03/14/6th-grader-shares-about-his-stuttering/
Mar 08
Spanish, Cuban, was my first language, I grew up speaking Spanish. Before I started going to school I watched Sesame Street on TV and learned enough English that by the time I went to school I could communicate in English! English came much easier to me than Spanish and even though I spoke Spanish everyday …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/03/08/our-world-solutions-blog-translated-into-spanish/
Mar 07
Our middle school is on Year 2 of our work with a WA STEM PD project. Here’s a video I put together to share the major highlights of our work with WA STEM: In the video I share some resources that we’ve been using for our PLC work. The WA STEM PD project was inspired …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/03/07/wa-stem-pd-work/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
Apr 29
6th Grader’s Bullying Video
April 29, 2016
I have a 6th grader who wanted to post something different to our World Solutions blog. She wanted to tell a short story of bullying. She focused on kids who are bullied just for being who they are and how wrong that is. Head on over to our World Solutions Blog and watch her short …
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