Teacher's Curriculum Institute

Dawn Smith and I had a chance to talk about what type of notebooks we like as teachers.  Hear 0ur coffee talk on whether consumables or having students create their own interactive student notebooks (ISN) is the better way to go.  The best part is, there is no one answer.  TCI gives you the tools [...]

I made the following interactive timeline for those attending the webinar on Wednesday, Sept. 7th (3:30 – 4:30 PST) on Getting Started with the ISN.  This interactive timeline was super-easy to make using the website, http://timetoast.com.  The site is free and allows you/students to create interactive timelines that can be viewed as linear or as [...]

One nifty way that teachers can customize their TCI Presentations is by adding images. This short video will show you how. But wait! There’s more! You’ll also get  Great Places to Find Images, our handout that’s chock full of links to super duper image sites that provide free, interesting, and useful images for teachers.

  Constitution Day Lesson September 17th is Constitution Day. Celebrate the day with your upper elementary students by analyzing the preamble through song, a word cloud, and discussion. Students even write a letter to the editor using a newspaper clip tool via the web. This lesson was written by Brian Thomas and uses proven hands-on [...]

Most of us try very hard to make our home appear inviting to guests.  Shouldn’t we strive for the same in our classrooms?  As the school year begins, I want to challenge each of you to think of new and creative ways to make your classroom more inviting to students.  We all know that it [...]

It was surreal; almost like going back in time. When I turned into the parking lot of Hopewell Junior yesterday, it was like stepping back to a hazy August day in 1992 when I began my first teaching job. I’ve been gone from here for almost fourteen years.   What will it be like when I [...]

Dawn Smith and I had an opportunity to sit down and talk about learning styles as it relates to getting the most out of your classroom.  Watch this video and then look at our post on MI Tests and our free lesson on learning styles.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy   Last night NBC news shined a light on an issue that all of us in the social studies world are concerned with–our students ability to understand and retain key historical information. The news report focused on results from the social studies NAEP which [...]

Earth Day is April 22nd! Here’s another in our free lesson series to get ready. This lesson is from TCI’s kindergarten Social Studies Alive! Me and My World program but can be used in all lower elementary grades. Kids work in pairs to explore reducing, reusing and recycling. How Can I Help Take Care of [...]

We’re full of creative ideas for the Interactive Student Notebook this month. There are so many ways you can encourage students to take notes graphically and to process information. One of my favorite processing assignments is to have students write a eulogy. The eulogy could be for a person, like Susan B. Anthony or Abraham [...]