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Using Micro-Text to Teach Writing "In education, micro-texts refer to small, targeted bits of a book, essay, poem, newspaper, online publication, or other text. A micro-text can be a single phrase, sentence, or paragraph. Its selection for teaching writing depends not only on brevity, but also on its content."

Dancing With the Nursery Rhyme Stars Popular nursery rhyme characters face-off in the final round of a dance contest. It's a battle of fancy footwork as the contestants vie for a pot of gold. At the end of the show, the winners make a surprising announcement.

SSR Helps Develop Independent Readers Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) -- or Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) -- can be one more tool for developing lifelong readers.

A Few Words About Vocabulary In this activity, students find better words to complete sentences.

Reading Tips Add another element to your students' spelling practice.

Total Reader: How Cool is That?

Best Books for Teaching About…
Each week, Education World presents our Editors’ Choices for the best books for teaching about popular classroom themes. Check out our choices and add your own recommendations to the Readers’ Voices section of this week’s themed booklists:
Best Books for Teaching About... Plants
Best Books for Teaching About... Tornadoes

Go Figure How many birds can you hatch from just one egg?

The Slinky Paradigm How one science teacher (eventually) created another.

Math on the Web Economics sites help students learn to be smarter consumers, savers, and investors. The sites include interactive activities, lesson plans, games, curriculum materials, articles, and other resources for teaching and learning about economics.

Explain That Probability is a numerical measure of how likely an event is to happen.

Springtime Math In springtime, you and your students might like to explore math in the great outdoors. Wendy Petti offers a number of creative ideas for teaching math outside the classroom.

Math Mnemonics Learn to Count

From the Math Machine Disguise Combos shows kids how to use tables or lists to find combinations and solve math problems. (Grades 2-5)

Visit our Lesson Planning Channel for more math resources, including lessons, games, and printables.

The Ed World Stress Kit Too much to do? Too little time? Have those apparently endless end-of-year chores got you down? Check out our Stress Relief Kit for ideas and resources for calming the frenzied beast within -- and those without.

Pretzels Pretzels -- an activity from the creators of the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching and learning -- is a primary-grade strategy that focuses on students' kindnesses and results in improved classroom behavior.

"Fabulous Friday" Sparks Creativity and Learning Would her new lesson help teacher Susan Lovelace give up the stage of the sage? Or would it fall flat on its face? The learning and creativity Lovelace saw -- and the confidence boost it gave students -- made "Fabulous Friday" the ultimate literature lesson.

Bulletin Boards That Teach Boggle Your Mind Update this bulletin board once each week for spelling fun.

Samsung’s Hope for Education Essay Contest

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Dr. Ken Shore "Dear Dr. Shore, A student in my classroom has a very noticeable speech impediment. What can I do to help her feel less self-conscious about it?"

Eric Baylin "The proverbial senior slump is a valley too low to penetrate. Their eyes are glazed; their minds set on caps and gowns and the release into summer. Meanwhile, we all suffer -- and sing -- our way through it."

Dr. Fred Jones "PAT with a Hurry-up Bonus is the alternative to nag, threaten, and punish. It is a win-win strategy. You are not forcing students to hustle. You are structuring a situation in which they choose to hustle."

Medicate to Educate "What do I tell those teachers who ask me for my secret to staying motivated in the classroom? I tell them to ‘get medicated.’ But what I’m referring to isn’t a prescription; it’s more of a philosophy. It’s the secret weapon I like to call "the medicine cabinet."

Emma McDonald "Portfolios show the cumulative efforts and learning of a particular student over time. They offer valuable data about student improvement and skill mastery…data that provides valuable information about how each student learns and what is important to him or her in the learning process."

Meet other members of Education World’s Columnist Team.

Getting It Together: Ms. Powell’s Tips for Organizing Your Classroom "A great way to keep reading materials easily accessible is to invest in enough 3-drawer organizers to have one drawer for each story in the reading series."

No Joy; No Work "Incentives answer the question, ‘Why should I?’ The principle that ties incentives and motivation together is, ’No joy, no work.’"

The Perfectionist "Students who are perfectionists set impossibly high standards for themselves and become frustrated when they fail to meet them. According to the perfectionist's code, failure is simply not an option."

Ten Teacher-Tested Classroom Management Tips Hallway conferences, pasta discipline, buddy rooms, bell work: Find those and six other ideas for dealing with classroom disruptions and discipline.

Howl for Service Learning Warren Phillips’ "gifted and talented" students learn while helping others.

Is Teacher-Leader an Oxymoron? Do today’s classroom teachers have a shelf life? Is it possible that teacher "restlessness" is a natural consequence of life-long learning?

Favorite End-of-Year Activities Members of the Education World Teacher Team share the activities, lessons, projects, games, and so on that they save for the end of the year, to use either as a culminating activity or to create a memory of the year for their students.

Backpacktivity Students learn about estimation.

Click here to contribute to our tips library.

Judith Donahoe Smith "Teaching…an opportunity, a challenge, a responsibility."

Click here to learn how you can share your love of teaching with our readers.

What's your best/favorite/most successful classroom- or behavior-management tip? Join the Conversation.

What can you do with SchoolNotes? Check out Mr. Hipkin’s Fourth Grade Class News page.