Congratulations on finishing a rewarding and challenging year in the classroom! Before you begin your well-deserved break, take a moment to reflect on the past school year. Reflection is a vital component of growth. This month we’ve included a free printable document to help you reflect on your successes and challenges and envision a fantastic year ahead.
April is National Financial Literacy Month! Helping students to learn how to manage their finances sets them up for greater success and economic stability as adults. We are excited to share some excellent interactive digital and printable resources that you can use in your classrooms this month!
EVERFI is a digital learning platform that offers engaging real-world learning for K-12 students at no cost! These amazing courses and simulations are interactive, informative, and best of all free!Explore EVERFI’s Financial Education programs here.
Other Free K-12 Financial Literacy Supplemental Lessons and Activities:
The Council for Economic Education’s FREE Financial Fitness for Lifeprogram helps K-12 students gain a better understanding of economic concepts. The entire booklet can be downloaded by grade level and there is even a parent guide!
The U.S. Mint websiteoffers lots of fun, engaging activities for grades K-6, including games!
The U.S. Treasury has a FREE dynamic four-lesson downloadable curriculum supplement for middle school students called “Money Math: Lessons for Life.”
Junior Achievement’s JA Personal Finance curriculum for high school students focuses on spending money wisely through budgeting, saving and investing, using credit cautiously, and protecting personal finances. Many of their courses are available virtually!
The PBS lesson Needs Vs. Wants asks students in grades 1-2 to consider the relationship between consumer goods and happiness.
March is Women’s History Month! This month’s resources are dedicated to helping you celebrate Women’s History Month in your classroom. Challenge your students at any grade level to read about important women in history!
February is Black History Month! As teachers, we know you are working toward representation and inclusion every day in your classrooms. This month we’ve included some resources to help you celebrate and honor Black History Month. We hope you can use these resources all year long!
2022 Black History Month Student and Educator Contests
First Lady Casey DeSantis announced this year’s Black History Month contests theme is Celebrating African-American Contributions to Florida’s History. Student essay contest winners will receive a 4-Year Florida College Plan scholarship provided by the Florida Prepaid College Foundation. Student contest forms and educator nomination forms must be mailed to Volunteer Florida or submitted online at www.FloridaBlackHistory.com.
Virtual Visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture
In celebration of Black History Month, explore NMAAHC’s Searchable Museum. The Searchable Museum is an opportunity to engage with online exhibitions, virtual symposia and digital programs. The Museum reaches beyond walls to provide a rich digital experience that includes a multimedia presentation of NMAAHC’s historical narratives, collections, and educational resources.
Books, Lesson Plans, and Activities
Books and Vocabulary Recommendations for Black History Month – Click Here
Black History Month Free Activity Sheets – Click Here
Don’t Forget to Nominate for the Step Up for Students Rising Stars Awards!
Please join us in celebrating scholarship students around the state for our annual Rising Stars Awards! This year, Step Up for Students is offering a hybrid experience! In-person events will be held in Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Broward, or you may choose to attend a virtual award ceremony!
Nominate up to three scholarship students total from your school!
We know this semester has been challenging for so many reasons, but we also know that it has been rewarding too! This month we want to help you reflect and recharge. Take a moment to celebrate all the success you experienced this semester and reflect on your opportunities for improvement. Check out our free printable “Semester in Review” document below and explore some resources to inspire and entertain you!
Get inspired– Plan for a new writing project! Teachers of 3-5 Grade, check out the USPS Pen Pal Project. The USPS will connect your class with a partner class to write to and learn from. Sign up soon, the fun begins in January! For more pen pal ideas for all grades click here!
Looking to explore new knowledge-based curriculum options for reading, math, and science for your school? Check out the upcoming Great Minds Knowledge Summit in February 2022! Click here to sign up and learn more!
Looking to explore new knowledge based curriculum options for reading, math, and science for your school? Check out the upcoming Great Minds Knowledge Summit in February 2022! Clear here to sign up and learn more!
October is known to be a month full of scares, but parent teacher conferences shouldn’t cause you any fear! This month we’ve put together resources to help you tackle your upcoming conferences with ease. Check out the tips below for both in-person and virtual conferences!
Do you have students struggling or feeling uncomfortable in class? Explore this article from Edutopia to support a safe and inclusive environment for your students. Learn more about students who may have different needs to feel safe and included in the classroom. One way to learn more is through training from Equality Florida. The more deliberate teachers can be about creating safe and inclusive classrooms the better the classroom environment for everyone.
Students are back in their seats and inevitably they will take assessments. The type of assessment is completely up to you as their teacher. So, what will it be: formative or summative? Such goes the age-old question. When people think assessment, they tend to think scantrons and number 2 pencils, but this is not always the case as this topic has evolved in recent years as well as teachers’ reasons for assessing.
Formative assessments provide both students and teachers with the information they need to improve the learning process right now. This is an ongoing assessment that may or may not be graded. This assessment is seen more as an opportunity to examine the results and use those to inform instruction in the classroom right away. You might give a quiz and realize that more than half of your class has not captured the concept, so instead of trudging forward, you reteach and reassess. Being able to push the pause button on moving forward with a new concept and making sure they truly grasped the first concept is exactly what formative assessments are about.
Examples of formative assessments include:
• Quizzes
• Lesson exit tickets
• Classroom polls
• A written summary of a lesson
Summative assessments aim to evaluate student learning and achievement and is generally administered at the end of a unit or course. Summative assessments occur only a few times over the academic year and always yield a specific point value. Because they are broader in scope and measure learning over a longer period, they tend to have higher stakes. Remember that this assessment provides a snapshot of how students are performing at a particular point in time.
Examples of summative assessments include:
• End of term or midterm exams
• End of unit or chapter tests
• Cumulative work such as a creative portfolio or final project
• State exams
Both formative and summative assessments collect useful, important information. However, in the end, it is what you do with the assessments that make it either or. Getting state exam results and putting them in a data binder makes them just results. It is the actions you take with the information that determine their true use.
Need some tips on how to prevent School Leader burnout? See our highlights below or click here to read the full article.
Have a regular routine of self-care.
Regular time outdoors, a spiritual practice, or a gratitude journal are all research-proven ways to help leaders prevent a downwards slides towards burnout.
Learn to regularly unplug from your devices.
Taking one night off a week is a small price to pay for continued energy and it’s also great modeling and permission for your team so they don’t get burned out as well!
Become more discerning about the work you take on (when possible) and learn to clearly communicate what you can and cannot realistically handle.
Notice if your energy is being diverted to worries or other negative thought patterns and then take action to adopt a more productive mindset.
Become aware of the signs of burnout, especially in terms of its onset and progression.
If a leader learns the signs of burnout and checks in with themselves every month or so, they can catch it much earlier.
Welcome back to a new and exciting school year! We know many of your students have come to you at very different levels of readiness this year. This makes differentiation in the classroom that much more important. This month’s post focuses on pre-assessment strategies that will help you gauge student readiness before you begin a new unit!
What is Pre-Assessment?
Pre-Assessment:
Determines what students may know and understand about the content you are presenting.
Should be used regularly, usually at the beginning of each new unit or topic.
Can be used to determine flexible groups.
Shows students’ readiness level.
Shows growth and is easy to incorporate into your lessons!
Click herefor a free downloadable list of pre-assessment options!
It’s that time of year again! In just a matter of weeks we will be welcoming students back into our classrooms for a new and exciting year. We’ve included some excellent back to school resources that are sure to inspire you and help you plan for a fantastic year!
We know this year will continue to include important safety protocols and procedures. Check outthis post from BoredTeachers to find clever ways to make these procedures easier in your classroom!
April is National Financial Literacy Month! Helping students to learn how to manage their finances sets them up for greater success and economic stability as adults. We are excited to share some excellent interactive digital and printable resources that you can use in your classrooms this month!
Download this FREE Women’s History Month Reading Challenge Activity!
