TEACHING.LEARNING.GROWING.
1 pound ground beef
1 packet onion soup mix
1 3/4 cup mixed frozen veggies
5 cups water
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup uncooked macaroni
1. In large pot, brown ground beef. Drain fat.
2. Add water, onion soup mix, and diced tomatoes (undrained).
3. Simmer 1 hour on med. low
4. Add macaroni and frozen veggies. Cook 15 min. longer on med heat.
5. Serve with crackers or croutons. Add a splash of hot sauce to up the heat if you like.
1 24 oz bag frozen cheese ravioli
2 cups shredded mozzarella
1 24 oz jar marinara or pasta sauce
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.
1. In a baking dish, pour thin layer of marinara sauce (about 1/3 of the jar).
2. Lay out a half of the bag of frozen ravioli.
3. Pour another 1/3 of the sauce.
4. Sprinkle 1/2 of the mozzarella.
5. Lay another layer of ravioli.
6. Pour rest of sauce.
7. Sprinkle remainder of mozzarella. Add parmesan cheese to top.
8. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake 30 minutes.
9. Remove foil and bake an additionl 15 minutes or until cheese starts to brown.
Serve with veggies and breadstick.
16 oz. frozen meatballs
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 package dry Ranch dressing mix
1/2 soup can water
1. Mix together soup, water, and dressing mix.
2. Dump frozen meatballs into crockpot.
3. Pour soup mixture over.
4. Cook on low 4-5 hours.
Serve over rice, mashed potatoes, or pasta of choice.
3-4 chicken breasts
1 jar salsa
1 can black beans
1 can corn
1. Place chicken into crockpot
2. Pour salsa, beans, and corn over chicken.
3. Cook on low 4-5 hours.
4. Shred with fork.
Serve over rice, as a filling for burritos, as filling for tacos, mixed with tortilla chips and lettuce for a taco salad.
3-4 chicken breasts
1 cup chicken broth
1 packet Ranch dressing mix
1 packet taco seasoning
1. Mix chicken broth, dressing mix, and taco seasoning in bowl.
2. Place chicken breasts into crockpot.
3. Pour broth mixture over chicken.
4. Cook 4-5 hours in crockpot.
5. Shred with fork when done.
Serve on tacos with your fav toppings!!
3-4 chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 packet Ranch dressing mix
1 packet Italian dressing mix
4 oz cream cheese (softened)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar
2-3 pieces of bacon (cooked and crumbled)
chopped green onion (optional)
1. Mix together soup with both dressing packets in bowl.
2. Place chicken in crockpot.
3. Pour soup mixture over chicken.
4. Cook on low 4-5 hours.
5. Shred chicken with fork.
6. Add cream cheese and stir until thickened and creamy.
7. Sprinkle with green onion, bacon, and cheddar.
Serve over rice or egg noodles along with some steamed veggies.
3-4 Chicken breasts
1 cup barbecue sauce
1 cup orange marmalade
1-2 tsp soy sauce
Sesame seeds (optional_
Sliced green onions (optional)
1. Cut chicken into cubes and put into crockpot.
2. Mix all other ingredients together in bowl and pour over chicken.
3. Cook on low 4-5 hours.
4. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and green onions.
Serve with fried
rice and steamed broccoli or other veggies.
I had been teaching about five years or so, I guess, when this happened.
I stayed up late one night reading. No. Really. I knew I was going to have a hard time getting up the next day for school, but the book was just sooooo good. (Okay, I know you ELA teachers can relate. lol!)
I don't know if I forgot to set my alarm or if I just turned it off and rolled over, but the next thing I knew, my phone was ringing. I looked at the clock. 10:00. I grabbed the phone and said, "I'm on my way." The school secretary just laughed. I threw on my clothes and rushed to work. By the time I got there it was third block. THIRD BLOCK.
Now you may be asking yourself, Why did no one miss me before third block? Was I off the first two blocks? Why, no. No I was not. However...
The first two blocks were very small classes for struggling readers. I also had students who acted as my teacher's aides in each class. They always checked roll and put the list of absent students on the clip in the hallway. (Before the days of computers, folks. lol!)
The classes were so quiet that no one noticed I wasn't there. Nobody went to the office to ask where his/her teacher was. They just hung out. 😅
Who knows when they would have noticed? But another teacher stopped by to ask me a question, and when she asked where I was, the class confessed that they hadn't seen me at all.
Every time I think about this, I crack up. I didn't even get into too much trouble because my principal was too busy laughing.
But after that, they did implement a sign-in procedure. 😇
Black History Month is a great time to remind students of the contributions black men and women have made to the literary field. This is a great product to use in your ELA classroom.
The following brief articles are designed to be used during Black History Month. There are four short articles about four black authors. Accompanying each article is a short literary piece by each author, either a poem, short story, or excerpt from a longer piece. The articles are in the forms of guided notes with blanks to be filled in as students watch the accompanying PowerPoint Presentation. A key is provided for each article if you do not wish to use the PowerPoint Presentation. Questions follow each literary selection. A key is also provided for the questions.
The four authors featured in this packet are as follows:
1. Matthew Henson-Henson accompanied Commander Robert Peary on his Arctic expeditions. He wrote a memoir about his experiences titled A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. An excerpt from this memoir is included.
2. Alice Dunbar-Nelson- An American poet, author, journalist, and political activist, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was among the first generation of African-Americans born free in the South after the Civil War. In 1895, her first collection of short stories and poems, Violets and Other Tales, was published. A story from this collection is included.
3. Langston Hughes-Hughes is a renowned black American poet, novelist, and social activist. He was one of the major leaders of the Harlem Renaissance movement. His works are often included in student anthologies. One of his poems is included.
4. Alexandre Dumas-Dumas is the only non-American in this packet. His father was the son of a French nobleman and a slave of Afro-Caribbean descent. He is one of the most widely read French authors. His works include The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask. An excerpt from The Count of Monte Cristo is included.
You can find this product here in my TPT store.
3-4 chicken breasts
16 oz bottle barbeque sauce
1/2 cup Zesty Italian Dressing
1/4 cup brown sugar
Mix all ingredients in bowl. Put chicken in crock pot. Pour mixture on top. Cook on low 4-5 hours.
Then you have some options:
1. Shred with fork and put on hamburger buns for delicious chicken sandwiches.
2. Leave whole and serve with mashed potatoes and vegetable of choice.
So because I am an English teacher and can therefore teach anything with language 😜, I was assigned to teach our school's debate class. Now, I had never seen a debate, been in a debate, nor was I even remotely interested in debate. I begged my principal to give the class to someone else. He just patted my shoulder and said, "You can do it." So of course I immediately went to the library and got a book on debate. It was like reading Greek. 😟
I did find a 9-week debate course workbook that I purchased. Unfortunately the class was 18 weeks. Oh well. At least I had the first nine weeks covered. (I'll think about that tomorrow-Scarlett O'Hara).
The first day of class, I was so nervous and worried, figuring the students would know more than I knew. I was B*ll S*itting like nobody's business, pretending I knew what the h*ll I was doing. I was talking about possible topics and said, "For example, you might have to argue the pros and/or cons of a topic like Capital Punishment."
A student raised his hand and said, "Well, I personally think a parent should be able to spank his child whenever he wants to."
Okay. I think I got this. 😂😁😂
This is a fun and functional activity for students to practice writing theme statements. There is a definition of theme and guidelines for distinguishing between subjects and theme statements as well as a strategy for writing a theme statement from a subject. Students are then asked to write a theme statement for a text they are reading. They must be able to defend their theme statements with textual evidence.
After that, students take their theme statements and turn them into tweets of 140 characters or less.
Students can work individually or in small groups for this activity. You can find this product on my TPT store here.
Jim wrote this book to help teachers like himself whose often large and always diverse classrooms contain a wide range of reading abilities and needs. All of the strategies have been tested and tested again with his students, and each one has achieved significant gains in student performance, confidence, and engagement. Together, the reminders will challenge your best students and support struggling ones. This book will help you:
I love this book. Heck, I love anything Jim Burke publishes. It's like having a great mentor teacher who is always available.
This book is chock full of helpful ideas and techniques for teaching English Language Arts. Jim Burke is a legend in ELA circles, and if you haven't read any of his books, you're missing out on some amazing ideas.
Some of my students, even at the high school level, were seriously struggling readers. This book has lots of practical strategies for helping struggling readers and really all of your students with comprehending difficult texts. We're living in a day and time when there is a real focus on adopting reading goals for the high school classroom. Most ELA teachers are not equipped to teach reading. This book is just what you need if this is your goal. This book also has an appendix chock full of reading strategies, graphic organizers, student surveys, etc., that you will find helpful. Do yourself a favor, add this book to your personal library. You won't regret it.
2 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cans water
2 packets chicken gravy
2 packs chicken breasts
garlic powder
salt
pepper
mashed potatoes (I use instant because...why not?)
1. Place cream of chicken soup, water, and chicken gravy packets in bowl. Stir until well mixed. Pour into crockpot.
2. Season chicken breasts with garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste.
3. Chicken in crockpot.
4. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours.
5. Take out chicken and pull apart. Add back into crockpot.
6. Prepare mashed potatoes.
7. Serve chicken on top of potatoes.
Goes great with rolls or cornbread. Add a healthy side salad. Yummy!
This happened to me after I'd been teaching about 10 or 11 years, so I really should have known better.
At the beginning of school each year, one of the things I always asked my students is what name they preferred to be called. Now, I refused any ridiculous nicknames like "Bowtie" and "Spaghetti-o," but there were often kids who went by shortened versions of their names (Bill instead of William) or their middle names, or even initials.
I was going around the room in my advanced 9th grade English class asking what name they wanted me to call them, and this one boy tells me to call him "Dan." Well, his name was Peter James, so I thought...that's weird. Just to check, I looked around the room. No one was smirking or grinning or laughing. I asked them, just to make sure. They nodded. "Yes, that's what we call him," one girl told me. "It's a family name." Okay. Not impossible. My brother's nickname is Jordy but his given name is Jonathan Reginald S. III.
All year, I called him Dan. He always answered. No one laughed. For the next three years, whenever I saw him in the hall, I called him Dan. He always responded politely. I did hear other teachers call him Peter occasionally, but that always happens when students go by nicknames or middle names. Some teachers just refuse to call them anything but their first name. Or they don't bother to ask. (I think you can see where this is going.)
A couple of years after he had graduated, I saw him in a local grocery store and walked up to him to speak. I greeted him as Dan. He grimaced, shook his head, and told me, "You know, that was just a joke for the first day of school. No one else ever calls me Dan."
No shit.
Looking for a great way to ease your students back into the swing of things after Christmas break? Here is a quick and fun activity to help them start thinking about the new year and to set up some attainable goals (some educational, some not) so they can finish off strong. You can find it here as a freebie in my TPT store.
When my advanced ninth grade students came to me, their knowledge of Greek mythology was sketchy. Some knew a lot. Some knew a little. Some knew nothing. I didn't have time to teach the entire pantheon, but I needed them to have background in Greek mythology for several reasons. So I decided to assign a mythology refresher book as part of their summer reading.
1. We were going to read The Odyssey later in the year.
2. We were going to read Shakespeare, which, as everyone knows, is full of mythological allusions.
3. We were going to read poetry (same as #2).
4. I knew that in future years students would need some familiarity with mythology in order to identify additional allusions. I mean, these are advanced students, for Pete's sake.
I searched around and discarded several possible books on Greek mythology: Hamilton's Mythology (too dense and hard to read for summer reading), Bulfinch's Mythology (same), etc. I finally stumbled across this little gem and knew it was just what I needed.
It covers most of the important myths (except for Hercules). It's very readable. It's very short.
Now, you might think this book is too basic for advanced ninth graders, but I would heartily disagree. I don't want my students to have to slog through some impossible book during the summer. I want them to read something that won't take all their time and turn them off of reading altogether.
This book was a great success. It refreshed the memories of my students who were somewhat familiar with mythology and gave a great intro to students who were complete mythology virgins. lol!
This book is accessible for everyone from 6-12 grade. Even your struggling readers can get through it.
1 ½ lbs chicken
breasts
1 cup teriyaki
sauce
1 cup water
2/3 cup brown sugar
3 cloves minced
garlic
Sprinkle of
ginger.
DIRECTIONS FOR PREPARING:
Thaw the night before.
Add everything to crockpot.
Cover and cook 4-6 hours.
Serve over rice. Add some steamed broccoli as a side. Yummy!
DID YOU SAY COLOR?
One of the things I always hated in my classroom were the white cinderblock walls. They were just so...blah! A lot of teachers did nothing to break up that "blah-ness." Oh, a few might slap up a post or two, but many many just could not be bothered. Honestly, I don't know how they could stand it. We teachers are the ones who have to put up with it all day long. At least the students are only stuck in there for a class period. Now some of you may be able to paint the walls in your classroom, and I say, "Hooray!" But if you're like me and cannot paint the walls, you do have some options.
As an ELA teacher, I had a lot of different types of information I could put on my walls. And believe me, I took advantage.
1. Posters With Quotes: Pretty easy to find, actually. Most are inspirational. Some are actually from famous authors. You can even find quotes about reading, writing, literature, etc. They come in all kinds of sizes.
2. Posters From Movies: There are a lot of movies based on literature, and sometimes you can coax your local movie theater to give you one for free!! Or you can find them on line in places like ebay. I had a poster of Troy (yummy Brad Pitt), King Arthur (equally yummy Clive Owen), and Thor (yes--Chris Hemsworth). lol!
3. Posters With Song Lyrics/Musicians: Some song lyrics are quite poetic and some songwriters are poets. I had a poster of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Bob Marley. Again, these can generally be found in music stores (if you can find one) or ebay. Or possibly in your teenager's bedroom. lol! I would print song lyrics that I especially loved and post them on bulletin boards, doors, etc. Things like "Sound of Silence," or "Stairway to Heaven," or even "The River" by Springsteen.
4. Posters of Famous Authors: Most educational catalogs have a lot of posters with famous authors.
5. Maps: If you're like me, I always liked to have maps of parts of the world up, especially Great Britain, ancient Greece, and the U.S., because I would show students where the authors we were reading came from.
6. Student Art Work: I generally put art-type projects on the wall outside my classroom for display. But if there were some that were really great, I would move them into my classroom when it was time to put up something new. My students did things like coats of arms, book posters, body biographies, hero's journey posters, timelines, etc.
7. Grammar Rules Posters: Again, you can usually find lots of these in educational catalogs. Or you can make your own.
8. Writing Style Posters: Same as #7.
9. Posters of Literature Being Studied: Educational catalogs usually have some pictures to accompany various literary works, such as Shakespeare plays, short stories, novels, etc.
10. Anchor Charts: A lot of schools require you to put up anchor charts. Usually I've seen this in elementary and middle schools, but I think it's a great idea for high school as well. I would put up lists of dead verbs, great adverbs, word substitutions (like a mini thesaurus), tone words, etc. Just whatever my students worked on in the classroom and needed to reference.
There are many ways to mount posters on your walls. I had the most success with hot glue, mounting putty, clear packing tape (doubled over), and mounting tape (although your school may not allow this because it is a b*#%h to get off the walls). It really depends on the surface of your walls.
A FINAL NOTE:
With all of these ideas, if you have a really good materials center, you might be able to create your own posters and have the peeps at the materials center blow them up to whatever size you like. They can usually laminate them, too. Our materials center could take something we created in PowerPoint and blow it up to a full poster. If you laminate them, they will last you for YEARS. And you are only limited by your imagination and whatever images you can find online.
Just say no to boring, plain, white walls in the classroom. lol!
Below you will find links to some free mini-posters I offer in my TPT store.
