Florida Teacher Starts Each Day Complimenting Students One by One
If you enjoy this teacher and his ideas, you can go and like “Special Books by Special Kids” and support the project.
In a video posted to Facebook that’s been shared more than 8,000 times since it was posted on Sunday, Ulmer takes the time to pay several compliments to each and every one of the eight students in his #special education classroom at Mainspring Academy in Jacksonville, Florida.
“I love having you in my class. I think you’re very funny. You’re a great soccer player. Everyone in here loves you,” Ulmer says to the kids as they each take their turn standing in front of the class, facing Ulmer.
Ulmer said he’s been posting videos — with the kids’ parents’ permission — almost every day, but this one, which he “spent about 10 minutes editing,” has really resonated with the public. “I actually didn’t think a whole lot about this one before posting it. It’s just something we do.”
Ulmer’s Facebook page, Special Books by Special Kids, was created because he has been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a book published about the kids. “I have 50 rejection letters on my fridge to keep me motivated,” he said. The book focuses on the story of each of the kids in his classroom and is collaboratively told by the child, his or her parents, and from Ulmer’s perspective as their teacher.
In classrooms across the country, the school day almost always starts off with some kind of routine. Announcements, a run-through of the day’s calendar or maybe the Pledge of Allegiance.
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: education, positive news, special education, special kids, TEACHERS, teaching ideas
Food Trucks Make Healthy School Lunches a Little More Appealing
“Food trucks are a great addition to school food service—both from a way to engage the older kids and a way to engage the community,” says Ann Cooper, the director of food services at Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District. “It’s part of a great overall marketing strategy.”
Last year, Boulder Valley became one of the first districts in the U.S. to start serving school lunches at a food truck during the academic year. The vehicle, which has been attractively styled as a cross between a rustic farmhouse and a milk truck, was funded by a $75,000 grant from Whole Foods Market.
Cooper says that though the truck mostly serves the same food as the cafeteria and the prices are identical, the students find the truck food more appealing.
“Cafeteria participation has been up and so is the number of kids eating at the food truck,” she says. “So we’re getting a demographic that never [ate at] the cafeteria before … Kids who walked off campus are now eating at the food truck.”
Getting high-school students to embrace #healthy eating is an age-old battle. And when it comes to lunch, many eschew their school cafeteria in favor of eating off-campus, where healthy choices don’t always abound.
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: healthy eating, high school, school lunch
Where Are The Cool Rap Songs About Math? Within Students
Math teachers assign all kinds of activities to apply academic skills to the real world. At Willard Middle School in Berkeley, California, Robert MacCarthy (Mr. Mac) has made creating rap songs part of the algebra curriculum to tap into the interests of the students. In the SoulPancake video here, he describes what’s important to middle school students and the benefits of applying those interests to academic skills. Most importantly, the kids seem to enjoy this side of their math course.
“He makes everything fun like a game,” says one student. “That really helps us understand how everything works.”
Curated from Where Are The Cool Rap Songs About Math? Within Students | MindShift | KQED News
