Imagination Sparkles

If you haven't seen the video about a preschool in an assisted living home in Washington, I highly recommend you watch it.  As I was watching the video I began to think about how we could structure preschools like this, about the effect it could make on our community and culture of learners in the school.  Have you ever been to a school like this?  What do you learn from watching it?

New career goal...I must become this cool before I retire as a teacher!

I recently have read several articles and blogs on the idea of whether you call kids smart and how a label or that label can effect them.  So I have to ask, in your classroom do you use that word?  Before I read this question I hadn't thought about it specifically, but I realized upon reflection it is not a comment I use with my students.  I'd like to sound all advanced and say it was because I had already thought through the problem of what happens to kids and what does a kid think when they make a mistake or are wrong.  Perhaps my lack of calling kids smart came from being labeled that at a very young age and starting in gifted classes before they were available to the rest of the school.  Perhaps that's why I understand some of the challenges explained in this article.  Perhaps also the teachers or parents calling kids smart aren't doing anything wrong, what if they are using these words and also creating a culture that values learning, mistakes, and challenges.  Pe

Just this year the district I teach in became a Google district, with simple changes such as we are now all using gmail, also came some new applications for our practice.  Google has, what can feel like at times, as endless sites to use in your teaching, planning, and with students directly...but many times as resource is needed.  Something so you can quickly look up an answer, which is why I was so happy to recently find a list of tutorials  . So my teaching friends, or parents who are trying to learn more about what their students may be using or anyone interested, check it out, use it and spend this summer learning a little more or save the link for the future!  What kind of ideas can this stir up in your planning imagination?

 <---- Take this Make this---> How?  Why let me show you... You'll need the following: scissors tape 2 pieces of 12'' by 12'' scrapbook paper  a magazine holder,  I got mine from Ikea black cat (optional) :)  1. This works best with thinner scrapbook paper (that is the tan in the pics and the blue is super thick and was hard to work with), begin by meeting two pieces in the middle of one of the sides.  I have moved them to different sides of the box depending on the pattern and how I want it to look.   2. Now cut down the shape of the magazine holder and you'll get some extra paper, cut this so you have as big of chunk as possible, if you cut it just right you can wrap that piece around so that all of the pieces meet.  Then tape on the bottom and tops of the paper so the tape is wrapped around the holder.  If you want the holders to have a circle (it is already in the cardboard) for grabbing the racks then I just recommend cutt

My goal is for this to be a lifestyle blog with musings about travel, life, crafting, teaching, and so much more! Why Imagination Sparkles?  Because it is the sparkles, the very spark of our imagination that have created the most brilliant, exciting, and innovative ideas from science to art to technology to literature and more.  As an educator this spark is what we work for, it is what we strive for everyday in the classroom.  In our life it is filled with hundreds, thousands, millions of sparkles that turn into glimmering pieces of imagination sparkles.  Ideas from decorating to fashion to teaching to travel to great books and to fun movies.  So what are the sparkles your imagination creates?  How are you going to use them today?!