Welcome to Google Earth

Here are a few of the large KMZ/KML files that I have created in Google Earth for you to download and use as foundation files for your own creations. They are: Blank Polygons of all world countries Countries of the World Rivers of the World Deserts of the World Mountain Ranges of the World Latitude […]

The Grid Part IV: Build the World

This is the culminating activity of The Grid. It takes place over two to three days so students have the chance to work with other students than their BFF or the randomly assigned partner their evil teacher (me) stuck them with. As with every activity I run, I have the class agenda written out on a […]

The Grid Part III: Relative and Absolute Location

In my last post I talked about how to introduce students with a team building game that exposes them to the overall shape and function of the grid. Students are exposed to vocabulary listed on index cards with terms such as: latitude, longitude, hemisphere, equator, coordinate, Cardinal Direction, et al. On day two my goals […]

The Grid Part II: The First Activity

When I first wrote up my latitude and longitude activity for this blog, I thought it might be helpful to a few geography teachers and that was about it. I never expected that the post would become an example of modern teaching in practice. Never did I imagine that teachers would be asking me to post […]

The first lesson

For the record, I teach 6th grade geography. I say this to provide perspective before I delve into what my first lesson of the school year looks like. 6th graders are a unique bunch. They crack me up and infuriate me at the same time. On the verge of adolescence, chomping at the bit to get […]

How do you prepare your classroom?

When do you find time to conceptualize the layout of your classroom? In a perfect world, there would be scheduled time for teachers to organize the space in which they create learning. The reality however, is that the first few days before the school year starts is over packed with meetings, more meeting, development meeting, […]

Preparation

You probably felt the dread creep somewhere into your soul this morning. It’s the last week of July and the next school year is still almost a month away (for most of the country, I recognize that many school districts are starting next week in some parts of the country) and yet many of […]

Should teachers reflect on their practice?

Reflecting on reflections I know what you’re going to say. “Well, duh! Of course they should!”, you might snipe sarcastically in my direction. I would agree with you wholeheartedly, too. The one and only #mschat tackled the role, place and need for reflecting in teaching. It’s a subject near and dear to my heart and […]

The Grid

This post might be a bit longer than ones I’ve been writing recently but I’ve been challenged by @cheffernan75 to write a description for a photo that I used in my recent blog post on a flexible learning space. The image in question has all the tables stacked and moved out of the way and […]

“How has social media changed the way you teach in the middle grades?”

After almost a month of frustration and self loathing about my reflection writing, I was re-inspired last night to get back up on that bucking bronco and write about #MSchat! The conversation was a weighty one and for good reason. Any time you gather a bunch of connected educators and administrators together to talk about […]