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December 2018 Book Reviews
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones An American Marriage is a novel about a young couple whose marriage is torn apart when the husband is tried and convicted of attacking a woman. As the reader, we know that he has been wrongfully accused as the narrator shows us that he was not there when it happened. And his wife and family know that he is innocent, but they struggle to prove it. When he finally is let out of prison after his lawyer proves he was wrongfully convicted (although it really doesn’t go into how this happened) his wife has moved on without him and we go through the journey…
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9 Best Books That I Read in 2018
Night Road by Kristin Hannah This book did not disappoint! This is the story of two families and how a bad decision can affect so many people. Jude is a bit of a helicopter mom with teenaged twins. Lexi is a teenager whose mother was not around for her. She was taken out of foster care by a great aunt who wanted to take her in. Lexi was looking to fit in at a new school when she met her new best friend Mia and her twin brother Zach. Those relationships will change all of their lives forever. This was an incredible book. Honestly, it may be one of my…
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6 Books for Adolescents Who Don’t Like Reading
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are a great combination of graphic novels and typical novels. There are a lot of doodles and other illustrations that help students follow the plot in the novel. This allows students to read a book that has a lot of pictures without feeling as though the story is juvenile. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are also very popular with older kids and younger adolescents. They are a little young for my population but I keep a few of them handy for my lower readers. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan This is the…
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How to Make a Living Blogging
It seems like everyone is a blogger these days. How to do you take your blog and turn it into a full-time job? Well, Alex and Lauren from Create and Go are here to help. They have created this amazing course that teaches you all the tricks that they used to make themselves Six-Figure Bloggers. What This Course Will Teach You This course covers the strategies that a six-figure blogger should follow to have a successful blog. Affiliate Marketing, you will learn what it is and how to best use it to have a successful blog. Creating Digital Products – they will teach you that this is the most effective…
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My November 2018 Book Reviews
This month was a slow reading month for me. To be completely honest, this school year is kicking my butt. We, as a team, are dealing with some of the most extreme, and widespread behavior issues that we have ever seen. It is my fifth year teaching, so I’m still somewhat new and for me, this is the most challenging year yet. Alright, vent over, I just felt like I should explain why I’m not reading as much. I am a huge fan of Diane Chamberlain, but I am not a huge fan of this novel. The novel is the story of a little girl with severe health problems who…
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4 Classroom Management Tips for Middle School
Teaching middle school is tough, heck being in middle school is tough! Everything about middle school makes people groan when I tell them what I do for a living. But, even though I never pictured myself as a middle school teacher (I was convinced I would be Ms. Honey from Matilda), I LOVE my job. I love the age and the kids and even the girl drama makes me chuckle from time to time. But it is a tough age for classroom management. The students are no longer at the age where they want to please you, and all they care about is what their peers think. Here are 4…
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3 Reasons Your Blog Isn’t Getting Traffic
Starting a blog can be a slow and tedious process. You spend hours and hours creating and the visitors don’t just instantly come. It really can be a trial in patience and perseverance. But, if you’ve been blogging for a while and you’re still not seeing a boost in traffic, here are three things you could be doing wrong. You’re Not Utilizing Social Media Social media can be exhausting. But, if you are not putting your brand out there and getting followers, people will never see your articles. In order to be getting a constant flow of traffic to your blog, one of the things you need to make sure that…
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Writing Great IEP Goals!
As a special education teacher, it can be exhausting writing and rewriting IEP goals for all of the students on your caseload. But, this is an important part of our job. Read on for tips on how to write great IEP goals. Use Current Performance When you are writing an IEP goal it is really easy to just take one that you have written in the past and reuse it for the new student. While all special education teachers refer to what they’ve done in the past to help them, make sure that what you’re doing also makes sense for this student. Often I get students with IEP goals that…
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My October 2018 Book Reviews
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan I loved this book! It was my book club’s choice for October and I really had not had any interest in reading it. I thought that it was just going to be like watching that crazy sweet 16 show that used to be on MTV. But this really had an endearing story about a young couple where the girlfriend was not prepared for what she was getting herself into when she went overseas to meet her boyfriend’s family. There was some shock and suspense, some mystery. There were times that I wanted to scream at people through the book, and there was a heartwarming…
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Benefits of the Inclusion Model
A lot of school districts, for a variety of reasons, are beginning to adopt an inclusion model for special education. For more about inclusion, check out A Beginners Guide to Inclusion. Inclusion can present a variety of difficulties for the staff members involved. Having to constantly adjust curriculum to the wide varieties of needs and abilities in your classroom is a challenge. But, when done right, inclusion is definitely worth the work. Rigorous Curriculum When you include students with disabilities in the general education classroom, they are still being exposed to all of the grade level curriculum that their peers are. The students are exposed to positive peer role models who…
