October Read & Write Student Winner 2022
Lexie Macumber, Junior at Hays High, is the Read and Write Technology Student of the month for October. Read and write is an app or extension that provides text-to-speech, speech-to-text, vocabulary support builders, highlighting of important information, screen masking and many more tools that provide students with options to enhance their learning opportunities...continue here.
~Andrea Wichers, SLP
Bringing Music to All Classrooms
“All teachers can use music to help students express emotions and to add joy to the classroom,” says Patricia Shehan Campbell (University of Washington) in this article in American Educator. She suggests ways that, in all parts of a school, teachers can be “music ambassadors”:
- To start the school day on a positive note, perhaps singing Lean on Me, Here Comes the Sun, or Celebration together;
- To close the day, wrapping up the day’s work (So Long, Farewell; Happy Trails);
- To get students’ attention, alert them to an announcement, or as a break between activities;
- A listening center to which students can retreat from intense academic work;
- A mood regulator, “enlivening children who appear lethargic, distracted, or crabby;”
- To create a soothing atmosphere during silent reading (Air on the G String, The Midnight Blues);
- As stress-reliever in moments of tension, a way to “lift and soothe the spirit,” says Campbell;
- For the joy of it, making a classroom experience more vibrant and sparking creativity;
- To enliven ELA, math, science, or history lessons with well-chosen compositions;
- To teach about mathematics – songs that get students counting in different languages, and using songs to teach about technical properties: pitch, vibration as frequency, timbre as wave complexity, dynamics as decibels and intensity levels.
“Music brings smiles and tears, energy and stillness, agitation and peace, joy and wonder,” says Campbell. “It need not be compartmentalized in schools, nor should it be perceived as inaccessible and unattainable, relegated only to the artist-musician.”
“Bonding Through Music” by Patricia Shehan Campbell in American Educator, Fall 2022
SeeSaw - New Messenger Feature
Link to Seesaw’s info about the new messaging feature (including short videos).
The "one app" piece still requires you to sign out as a "teacher" and sign in as a "student" to see things in the class Marie and Allison made (on cell phone or iPad). But the rest of that part about the updated app is still correct.
- How to Strengthen Tier 1 Phonics?
- LETRS FAQ
- K-3 and 4th & 5th Morphology Scope and Sequence Drafts - Scope and Sequence drafts
Opportunity to Help!
