Search form

Back to Blog

Student Blogs to Effect School Change

saladTired of being forced to eat what she felt were nutritionally sub-par meals at school, a 9-year-old student took to her blog in an effort to draw attention to the issue. It didn’t take long for that attention to go viral as Martha Payne's blog, Never Seconds, was eyed by several media outlets in her native Scotland. The attention grew to the point of a nationally-televised interview with the BBC. She explained how she would take pictures of the meals presented to her with a digital camera and write up a summary of the food including a Food-o-meter rating of how much she likes it, a mouthful count, a health rating and a number for how many pieces of hair were in the food.

She started in April and by May 15, school and town officials were seen leading journalists on tours of the school’s dining area. It was then that Payne blogged that there was a new system for ordering food, and that "cherry tomatoes, radishes, carrot and cucumber shreddings," began appearing in the meals.

More

What Can Teachers Do to Get Ready For...

Every summer, I tried to prioritize what I was going to do to get ready for the next school year. I wanted my classroom to be...

Geography Awareness Week (NOVEMBER 15-...

Geographic Activities to Foster Geographic Awareness.
 
1. A fun way to show our  Globally Interdependent World: Assign a partner and have the students check the labels on their tops to see where they are made.  Do the same for their shoes. Have the students do a safari search with their partner looking for where things in the room were made(ex: crayons, textbook, colored pencils, ruler, etc...

Turkey Factoids to Use with Students

November is Thanksgiving time and most of us will be celebrating with a turkey dinner....

Gifted Students And Stress During the...

During my time as an elementary teacher, I’ve seen gifted kids stress out.

I remember the time a student began crying and screaming, saying his “parents were going to kill him” because he didn’t get all As on his report card. One child would crawl under the desk and shake whenever he got less than a 90 percent on a test. Others would just break down, telling me they were tired of everyone expecting too much from them, or complain how the students outside of the gifted program would...

How To Prepare for the First Fantastic...

Every summer, I tried to prioritize what I was going to do to get ready for the next school year. I wanted my classroom to be engaging, fun, inviting, and a place that I wanted to be each day. This will give you ideas on things you can do this summer to refresh for the fall and prepare for a fantastic first week of school.

Pick a Theme: Each year, I liked to have a new classroom theme....

Sign Language and Its Importance As you...

When I started teaching, I knew I wanted more for my students than even I could imagine. I wanted to expose them to all types of learning, activities, centers, and curriculum. When I was getting my degree, I decided to take sign language because I had taken Spanish in high school. I am so glad I did because I used sign language daily with my students for the five years I taught in public schools. Sign language...

Giving Students The Best Start

As proven in research, we know that the first five years of life are crucial times for a child’s learning and development. All children deserve a quality education, but before education comes, there are certain things they need from the family and community that surround them. Here are five ideas that are crucial from birth until the age of 5:

  1. Prenatal care (doctor's appointments,...

What Children Need and Want

As an early childhood professional, I think we all ask ourselves: what do children really need at school? What do children want at school? Some would argue with need and want, saying they can’t be the same thing, but they are the same. As I was teaching and saw different teaching styles and the way classrooms were run, I learned a lot about what I wanted and needed to do because of what my students needed and...

Types of Play and How they Help...

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article about the extinction of play in terms of what everyone considers play and how play has changed over time. As early childhood professionals, we know and understand that play is a child’s vehicle to learning and exploring. It is imperative to understand how the role of play contributes to a child’s development. 

Child-initiated play is becoming less valued and even...

Pages