Waffle Bytes

(Part of our Stay-At-Home series focused on practical ways you can use a resource to foster creativity, connections, and collaboration.) Parents - There is a growing body of research that shows being outside in nature can have positive benefits for our mental well-being.  With what we are dealing with currently, I think we all can use activities that are good for our mental health. Go for a walk There are many activities that you can do while walking.  Here are some suggestions to make it an learning adventure: Make Observations Have kids share or journal what they experienced with their senses during the walk.  For instance, today I saw  our mating crane pair was back from the south, I felt  my face warm on one side from the sun and cool on the other from the wind, I heard  the frogs that have returned to the creek.  You could even showcase a sense a day! Observe the clouds, the weather, wildlife, insects, amount/types of traffic Look for...

(Part of our Stay-At-Home series focused on practical ways you can use a resource to foster creativity, connections, and collaboration.) Maybe during our stay-to-home time is the best time to travel to other states or even other countries, just to visit Museums that we may never get the chance to see in person!  Museums both have had, and have been adding, lots of resources for parents, students and teachers the last several years.  Some of these include: Virtual Tours Apparently there are now 2,500 museums that offer virtual tours from home.  It would take a long time to visit all of them! You can find many of them through Google Arts & Culture .  Take, for example, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.  You can view many of the paintings viewable there - without the crowd - and even learn a bit about them from information added on the page.  Or go to Rome and see the Sistine Chapel. Here are some ways to you might engage students throu...

(Part of our Stay-At-Home series focused on practical ways you can use a resource to foster creativity, connections, and collaboration.) Continuing to write can be very important for students (and adults) right now, not just for learning but also for our social/emotional health.  Writing can help all of us work through emotions, and deal with the uncertainty of the situation many of us find ourselves in currently.  Yet, as many teachers can attest, it can be HARD getting students to start writing. Here are some ideas/resources that can help encourage your child to write: Multi-day writing Journaling example-  COVID-19 Pandemic : "chronicle the changes you observe as your community, the country, and the world respond to Covid19" This document includes a variety of modification for elementary, students with special needs, and even one with added social-emotional reflection questions.  It can be helpful for students to process through their experiences and...

The American Prospect  magazine, in partnership with Omidyar Network, announces the first annual American Prospect Essay Contest.  Many Americans are considering how to create a more inclusive economy. This competition will give high school students the opportunity to read and reflect on one of four renowned books exploring how the economy works in terms of poverty, race, markets, and democracy. The students’ essays will explore where the economy falls short and what we might do about it. Prizes total $30,000: First place for juniors and seniors is $10,000; second place $5,000; third place $2,500. First place for freshmen and sophomores is $5,000; second place $2,500; third place $1,000. Forty honorable mentions will be awarded at $100 each. The  Prospect  will publish the winning essays at  Prospect.org  and feature a selection in the print edition.  The deadline for submissions is  March 31, 2020 . F or further information, go to...

It's time for the Write Michigan Short Story Contest! ELA Teachers - encourage your students to submit their short stories -  From the Write Michigan website : One short story per author Maximum story length: 3,000 words Entry fee: $10 for ages 18 and older ( free for ages 17 and younger ) Contest open to Michigan residents only Complete contest guidelines available in English and en Español Deadline is November 30!

Teachers - I would highly recommend checking out Toontastic if you are looking for an app for students to tell their stories.  It is a free Google product, and works on most mobile devices.  From the site: "Toontastic 3D is a playful storytelling app that scaffolds the creative writing process and empowers kids to create their own animated cartoons. While Toontastic was not specifically designed for schools, we have heard from a lot of educators over the years that they love how the app sparks their students’ imaginations and uses the Story Arc to help frame their writing. Their students use the app for creating everything from book reports to news broadcasts and foreign language skills."  Best of all are the following features of it: Kids do NOT need accounts Stories are stored locally There are NO ads or in-app purchases - you get the full app for free It works offline, so your younger kiddos can use it without being connected to the Internet

LSSU High School Short Story Prize  The theme for the 2018 LSSU High School Short Story Prize is historical fiction! Who: High School students in the US and Canada What : original pieces of 5,000 words or less that take place in a past time period When : Deadline is March 31, 2018 How : the event's  online submissions manager The guidelines are posted on the event  website .  The past contest winners entries are also located on the website. From the event website : The LSSU High School Short Story Prize is a North American literary competition run by the Lake Superior State University Department of English & Creative Writing for high school writers with a cash award, scholarship, and publication. The competition is open to all high school students residing in the United States and Canada. Entries are accepted December 1 through March 31 each year. Our mission is to create excitement about writing and reading in high school students, as well as to ...

What: Writing Contest Theme: "How did an author's work change your view of the world or yourself?" Who: Students Grades 4-12 Deadline: December 2, 2016 - Grades 9-12                 January 9, 2017 - Grades 7 &8, Grades 4-6 Websites:   Letters About Literature site , Guidelines  (pdf), Teaching Guidelines (pdf) from Cathy Lancaster, Youth Services Librarian, LM As Nathaniel Hawthorne so elegantly wrote in  The Scarlet Letter , "She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom." I read it in the ninth grade and while many in my class moaned and groaned, and quite frankly hated it, I was absorbed into the world of Salem, Massachusetts in 1642. Absorbed into the plight of Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl. It was an awakening to examine how the world has, or has not, changed in our treatment of women in the centuries since. Now the details of the plot and much of the book itself have faded from my memory, b...

Found this in MACUL's Big Deal Media enews - sounds like a great way to involve students in an argumentative writing at a higher level!  Because it is ongoing, it should be easy to add to an existing curriculum at the right time. "The Virtual Debate project began as a way to infuse technology into an authentic argumentative writing experience by giving students an audience. To get started with the Virtual Debate, students in two classes agree to engage with one another and select a topic based on their interests and passions. Past topics have included police presence in schools, competitive sports, and digital detox, to name a few. Once a topic is selected, the two sides face off in a coin toss through Google Hangouts to decide the pro and con sides. Students then conduct research and even have the opportunity to contact experts to formulate arguments. Teachers who wish to participate in the virtual debate will find minilessons, anchor charts, and other resource...

Often I get asked how to make links within a long Google Document.  While this is a useful skill to have, upon further questioning most people really want a Table of Contents page that links to the major headings and sub-headings of the document - similar to what I have here in a Google Document I used for a recent meeting: Really, a table of contents area can be a powerful and quick tool to use in longer documents.  And learning how to create them may actually make you more efficient if you are a person that likes to take time to format your headings within the document. Here are the steps on how to setup and insert your Table of Contents - to start, here is a picture of my document prior to my setting it up: Note that in addition to the table of contents not being there, my headings look like normal text at this point. 1. First you need to "mark" what you want to appear in the table of contents.  To do this: Put your cursor somewhere in your heading...

I just received this via email about an event tonight - looks like a great opportunity if you can register and attend at 7 pm ET! "Good afternoon, I just received late-breaking information that Discovery Education’s Karen Beerer is hosting a special webinar presentation this evening at  7pm ET  “Redefining Literacy for Today's Learners.”  This is open to all users of Discovery Education, and anyone else who may benefit.  Please share the registration link below.  Registration is free.  More details can be found here . Here’s the registration link with more info https://discoveryed.webex.com/ discoveryed/onstage/g.php?t=a& d=639481917 Description of Webinar : Visual literacy, digital literacy, 21st century literacy, media literacy, whatever you call it, we know that for students to be literate in today’s world, they need a variety of skills that equate to much more than reading and writing.   In fact, even reading a...

MyScript Memo   Basics: Today's app review is a handwriting to text converter! You can now take handwritten notes on your iOS device, and either send the picture of them OR have it convert the writing to text and send the text Drawbacks :  The screen size on a phone is somewhat a hindrance, but on the iPad it works great. Current Costs:  currently FREE! Link to iTunes Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myscript-memo/id446368116?mt=8#

Drawp by Moondrop Entertainment LLC Basics : Make drawings, add audio and share them easily   Educational Uses : The app is made to use with young children, but could also be easily used with students that have special needs.  A difference with this app - the parent (teacher) sets up how the drawings are shared, and the kid simply swipes the drawing onto a picture to share it.   Current Cost : currently free!   Link to iTunes Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drawp-drawing-families-closer/id571816406?mt=8