Songs To Teach Figurative Language

I’m getting ready to start figurative language lessons with my group of second graders. Last year, I used a song or two to help them identify the different types of figurative language. It worked. I looked really good when a student announced to her classroom teacher, “That’s an idiom!” simply because the teacher said the…

School Fundraisers: What’s The Lesson?

Ah, fall. Tis the season of cooler weather and changing leaves and Halloween costume planning. It’s also the season where every kid and teen enrolled in a public or private school becomes the temporary employee of The Fundraiser. Or in some cases, The Fundraisers. Plural. At the same time. Don’t get me wrong. I work for…

The Best Bad Guys

When I was in sixth grade, my classmates and I learned all about melodramas, those stories where an obvious hero saves an obvious damsel in distress from an obvious cackling, mustache-twisting villain. I remember having to create melodramas, which is funny to ponder now as an adult, knowing twelve-year-olds don’t need help creating drama. Maybe…

Think You Understand Irony? How Ironic.

In my professional life, I’m an Interventionist/Certified Tutor at a local elementary school. Part of my work day includes half an hour providing enrichment instruction to a group of above-average-reading second graders. Their teachers provided me with a list of skills they would like for me to teach to the kids to prepare them for…

Why Teachers Deserve Presents – Part 2

This example is from The Oatmeal. Click on the link for more hilarity, after you finish reading this blog, of course. Welcome to Part 2 of Why Teachers Deserve Presents. Check out Part 1 if you missed it. Not only will you agree that teachers deserve presents for teaching this craziness, but you will be…