Sunday, February 26, 2012

Owl Pellets

This was such a find! While dissecting owl pellets this year we watched this great Youtube video on the Smartboard.
On the same day in the computer lab we did a virtual owl pellet dissection using http://www.kidwings.com/index.htm I love this site!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

What are teachers worth?

By Author Unknown (if you know who wrote it, PLEASE let me know)
Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit!
We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan– that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day.
However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET’S SEE….
That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!) WHAT A DEAL!!!!
Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Reading Rainbow:


I've been having soooo much fun using Youtube in my classroom. My latest adventure involves Reading Rainbow. I remember this series from when I was a kid. The books are read aloud while you view pictures from the story. Many of the books presented are award winners. I've been able to connect many of them to my curriculum. Here are a few of my favorites:

Reading Rainbow: Kate Shelley & the Midnight Express


Reading Rainbow: The Wall