Guest Speaker-Water Pollution

Our students had a guest speak from out own Storm Lake today.  They learned about how our lake gets polluted and how that affects the fish in the lake.  They finished the presentation with a craft activity.

Survey Says...

How teachers feel about standardized tests.

Standardized Tests Survey Artricle

Show and Tell

At the beginning of the year, during a class meeting, our students decided and voted on having a show and tell portion of our week.  The decision was made to let the Super Achiever from the previous week, bring any special item of their choice to share with their classmates. 

Teaching Math...Is it Time for a Change?

I recently read a good article that was posted on my Twitter account.  The article addresses the growing issue of how to better teach math in schools.  Read it and see what you think!


*article*
Teaching math for the future

Elementary Concert "Songs of Friendship and Love"

On February 14th, Storm Lake Elementary put on a concert featuring songs that fit the theme of Valentine's Day.
The students worked hard and performed well.

"Valentine" song video

Making Learning Fun

At any level of education, one of the biggest road blocks for teachers, and students, is to keep oneself motivated to learn.  Learning requires a majority of your daily energy, keeping your brain tuned in to new information is tough.  Thinking of my previous post about singing a book rather than reading it, is just one novel example of how to change things up and make learning a routine skill a little less routine.
Some other ideas come to mind when thinking about how to keep learning fun and motivating are:

-make it a competition or make a game out of it
-change your routine (instead of reading after dinner, read before bed with flashlights in the dark)
-make it creative

Other ideas can be found at:
motivation and learning

Singing a book?

Last Friday, our students had the pleasure to be able to learn from PBS's own Dan Wardel how to make reading fun.  He sang and had the second graders sing along with him to a book.  The students (and yes I believe the teachers did, too) had a blast.  Even this shy male teacher had a small solo.