EASY MEALS: Crockpot White Chicken Chili

 

Here's a delicious hot meal that's quick and easy.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces

2 15-oz cans white beans (undrained)

1 15-oz can white corn (undrained)

1 cup chopped onion (I like the frozen chopped onion you can buy. So easy!)

1 clove minced garlic (I like the bottled chopped garlic. Again, easy peasy!)

1 pkg chili seasoning

1 7-oz can green chilis

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can chicken broth

--------------------------------------------------------------

tortilla chips

shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients above the dotted line in a crockpot. Mix well. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours. Remove lid and shred chicken pieces. Use potato masher to mash up mixture. Consistency should become thick and creamy. Serve over tortilla chips and top cheddar cheese and other favorite toppings, like sour cream, bacon bits, etc.

Yum! Delish!

Making Contact With Parents

 

I always dread calling parents about their children. I've had some real doozies in my years of teaching. But the truth of the matter is, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you just do it. A few pieces of advice about a phone call home:

1. Do NOT use your personal phone. This gives parents your personal contact information which they can and will use outside of school hours. Don't make yourself a slave to these parents. Call from a school phone during business hours. If they do not answer, leave a message.

2. Keep a record of all contacts with the date, time, what was discussed, what the results were. Be especially sure to keep any negative feedback/conversation. If you leave a message, document that as well. You don't have to write a dissertation, just basic notes. Make sure you keep this somewhere you will not lose it. 

3. Be pleasant but firm. Keep your comments to specifics. Examples: Katie has not turned in a single homework assignment and her average is now a 55. Joe continually interrupted my class today by talking to a neighbor. He will be in detention tomorrow after school. Nick's grades have been going steadily down hill, and he made a 34 on his last test for me. 

4. Make positive phone calls as well. When students do the right thing, let their parents know. I would try to make at least one positive call home for every five negatives. Obviously you don't want to spend all your time on the phone, but an occasional positive call is much appreciated by parents.

Although, honestly, it doesn't have to be a phone call. 

My school district wanted us to contact every parent each nine weeks. I came with some alternatives to phoning home just to keep my sanity!

1. Letters: Yes, the mail still runs and you can mail letters to parents. Your school will probably pay the postage as well. Ask for a parent signature and return acknowledgement of receipt. Document, even if you don't get a reply.

2. Email: Most school districts nowadays ask parents for email addys when they register their kiddos. I know not everyone has an email, but I guarantee you MOST PARENTS DO. Ask for a parent response and document, even if they don't send you one.

3. Newsletters: At the beginning of the year, create a group with all the parents in a particular class/grade. It can be a bit time consuming at the beginning to get everything set up, but after that, it is a breeze. Each grading period I would send out a group newsletter about what was going on in class. It would include upcoming test dates, projects, units of study, grading scales, class routines, etc. Again, ask for parents to respond. Asking a question like, "What's something I can do to insure (your student) is successful in my class?" increases the odds of getting a return reply. Be sure to document, even if you get no reply. (You can also do this one via snail mail though it is a bit more time intensive.) This is also something you can have on hand for Open House nights. 

4. Class Website: Some schools provide pages for teachers to develop a class webpage. I made my own using Blogger, which is totally free and gives you the option for multiple pages. I would post upcoming test dates, project due dates, holidays. I would include the units we were studying, vocabulary word lists, contact info, etc. At the beginning of the year, I would send home a letter with the web address. Students were constantly reminded about the website, and I would include the web address on all information I sent home to parents. Make sure you go in and update pertinent information frequently.

Well, there you go. Hope I've given you some ideas about contacting parents. Believe me, you won't be sorry you did it.

Quotes About Learning

 

Here are some quotes about learning that you can use in

 your classroom for decor or as journal prompts.

"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you." BB King

"I am still learning." Michaelangelo aged 87

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today." Malcolm X

"Education is what people do to you. Learning is what you do for yourself."Joichi Ito

"If you're not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you're determined to learn, no one can stop you."

"The purpose of an education is to replace an empty mind with an open one." Malcolm S. Forbes

"Education isn't the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." W.B. Yeats

"Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know." Daniel J. Borstin

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela

One child, one pen, one teacher, and one book can change the world." Malala Yousafzai  

"Do not be embarrassed by your failures. Learn from them and start again." Richard Branson

"The truth is, you don't learn from success. You learn from failure." George Clooney

"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience." Archibald MacLeish

                                                                                                       

"The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning." Walt Disney

Books That Help Make You A Better Teacher: The SSR Handbook by Janice L. Pilgreen

 

BLURB:

It comes as no surprise that the students who read often are the students who read well. How, then, can we get the rest of our students reading? Is it enough to set aside in-class time for sustained silent reading? Or should we set up a more structured program-one that ensures all of our students are engaged in their reading and that they do so on a regular basis for the pleasure of it?

Janice Pilgreen knows from hard-won experience that it takes a lot of time, effort, and know-how to put an effective sustained silent reading program into practice. In The SSR Handbook, she's done most of the work for you, not only providing an overview of the underlying research, but also reviewing eight essential factors that ensure a program's success. Pilgreen explicitly identifies these factors, then explains in detail how to incorporate them into your own program. The book also features lots of resources to help you implement your program, including support organizations, book clubs, classroom magazine subscription titles/addresses, favorite young adult series books within various genres, comic book titles, lower-level reading books for adolescents, and publishing company names, addresses, and phone numbers. Best of all, there are reproducible student and parent inventories, reading records, and other forms to assist you with the process.

Readers will come away from this book with an understanding of what SSR is, why it's important, and how to implement it in their own schools and classrooms. Just as important, they will be motivated and energized enough to want to develop new programs or modify existing programs right away.

Turning students onto reading is one of the most important jobs we do as English teachers. I really believe this. Being a good reader is valuable for so many reasons, and I address those reasons here. This book by Janice Pilgreen helped me really think through my Sustained Silent Reading program and how I wanted to implement it into my classroom. It gives the eight factors for success in an SSR program: access to books, appeal, conducive environment, reading encouragement, staff training, non-accountability, follow-up activities, and daily reading time. I honestly don't know what I would have done without it. There were other teachers in my building trying something similiar but who didn't have the success I did because they weren't following the guidance I got from this book. If you've been thinking about implementing SSR in your own classroom, or if you're already doing it but feel like it isn't working like you want it to, I'd highly recommend The SSR Handbook. 

When you know better, do better.

Below you will find a link to a BuzzFeed article. In it, teachers talk about lessons they learned while teaching that made them change some of the rules/policies in their classrooms. I found them so important that I decided to share with you. 

 Teacher Experiences With Students That Compelled Them To Change Their Teaching Policies 

‘I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.’ –Albert Einstein.