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As the mom of a now-first-grader, my parenting world is colliding with my professional world. Last year, I eagerly brought my daughter to kindergarten geared not to be one of “those” meddling parents, micromanaging the teachers and hovering over projects. However, I soon realized it was going to be very difficult to keep my professional experiences and opinions to myself when it came to the Common Core. Then again, should I?
Underneath the spaceships, extraterrestrials, and techno bling, these new young adult science fiction novels feature complex characters exploring the question of what it means to be human. Set them on the launch pad of social studies, technology, and literature classes, and blast off into discussions touching on politics, culture, science, the environment—the possibilities are limitless!
Rosen Digital has just announced the launch of two new digital resources for middle school and high school students: Financial Literacy, an online database for economics and personal finance; and Teen CyberSmarts, an interactive ebook program that teaches kids about digital citizenship and cyber safety. Both programs have been specifically designed to support Common Core learning standards. And SLJTeen readers have a chance to evaluate both of these for free through October 5, 2012.
The 50th birthday celebration of Norman Bridwell’s iconic Clifford the Big Red Dog will kick off on September 24th at 10 am with a party at Scholastic’s New York City headquarters. And everybody can join in on the “Biggest Birthday Party Ever!” The live event will be streamed to classes across the country. Teachers can register now so their students can watch the festivities and Bridwell’s 30-minute webcast. There’s also a free kit that includes lesson plans, art project ideas, and coloring pages. In addition, Norman Bridwell’s Clifford Collection, six stories originally published between 1963 and 1977, will be released on the same day.
We always warn kids not to “pile on”—adding an extra shove when another kid is already down. But in this case, I have to add my voice to Melissa Jacobs-Israel’s. Melissa has expressed her frustration with the Common Core’s infamous Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Performance Tasks, and I couldn’t agree more.Sadly, Appendix B isn’t down.
The following materials on Afghanistan focus on a variety of topics: the effect of U.S. military presence, the treatment of women, refugee camps, and daily life for Afghan citizens. The resources are ideal for teachers looking to educate students about Afghanistan while also embracing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
As champions of nonfiction literature, Mary Ann Cappiello, Myra Zarnowski, and Mark Aronson have spent the past year speaking to teachers, librarians, and children’s book publishers, advocating for a new role for children’s, middle grade, and young adult nonfiction in all forms (print, digital, audio) in the classroom and in the individual reading lives of children. They are delighted to have the opportunity to join Curriculum Connections for the 2012-2013 school year and share their message with you.
Encouraging middle grade students to be enthusiastic writers is a challenge that countless teachers grapple with. These three guides make this task a little easier, by instructing students how to write in a variety of genres, including journalism, poetry, humor, and more.
Education software outfit Kno has partnering with publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to offer interactive textbooks for K–12 students. The digital titles, which align with Common Core subjects, are available for $9.99 or less for a one-year rental.
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) ask students to research to build and present knowledge. For years, this knowledge was shared in written form—reports, essays, projects, and concluding paragraphs. Then came technology. The written format was then superseded by interviews, moviemaker clips, wikis, blogs, Animoto flashy packaged images, Vokis, Crazytalk movies, PowerPoints, Museum Boxes, Prezi’s, and more. We have mapped knowledge, created knowledge products, and delivered other educational messages with engaging technology and Web tools.
As teachers and librarians return to school this month, many will be tasked with implementing the Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org) into their lesson plans. The Common Core mission states that: “The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.” They aim to promote critical thinking through student engagement with high quality literary and informational [...]
Want to help teachers find high-quality “complex texts,” a key ingredient of the new educational standards? Christopher Harris shows you how.
Although 46 states and Washington, DC, have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), less than a quarter of the general public knows about the academic standards for K-12 education that are designed to prepare students for college and the workforce, says a recent poll by a nonprofit education reform organization.
What’s the secret to creating riveting nonfiction for young readers? It begins with passion, says kids’ book author Candace Fleming, one of the participants in SLJ’s annual Day of Dialog, on June 4, at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. “If I’m going to spend five years working on a book, it has to be something I’m interested in.”
If you want to have a stake in the Common Core, take a page from Tina Edwards Felder, who responds to her teachers’ concerns about meeting the ambitious new standards with a willing, “I can help you with that.”
This is the worst time to be a school librarian and the best time to be one. Our profession is under daily threat of extinction, yet the implementation of the Common Core Standards affords incredible opportunity to make the strongest case for the importance of librarians and libraries in schools. Together we must commit to gaining a deep understanding of these new standards and determine to be at the fore of the Common Core conversations taking place in our buildings. We are uniquely suited for this because the Common Core Standards dovetail elegantly with inquiry, and we know inquiry.
