By Amplify Education. A podcast that dives into different elements of the Science of Reading.

Susan Lambert is joined by Dr. Brittney Bills, educator and recent Science of Reading Star Award Winner to discuss MTSS. Dr. Bills began her journey as a school psychologist for six years before transitioning to the role of curriculum coordinator at Grand Island Public Schools. In this episode, Dr. Bills explains what MTSS is and how it centers on prevention rather than intervention. She talks about the intersection of universal screening data and MTSS and provides advice on evidence-based strategies and techniques to make a positive impact in your classroom. Using examples from her own district, Dr. Bills discusses avoiding burnout, learning to use data, and the process of ongoing improvement.

Check out this one-hour-long presentation for an overview of the Science of Reading. This was done for a virtual conference and is a great introduction to this important topic.  Click on the image below to watch the video.  

Really Great Reading offers free webinars to educators to learn about how to teach reading and vocabulary.

In this course you will engage in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. You will ultimately be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life. Enroll for free.
SKILLS YOU WILL GAIN
Gratitude
Happiness
Meditation
Savoring

A recent survey found that 37% of teens say they have poor mental health.

This 6-week course aims to curb this mental health crisis by bringing together the best insights from Dr. Laurie Santos’ popular Yale course Psychology and the Good Life.

In this course, you will explore what the field of psychology teaches us about how to be happier, how to feel less stressed, and how to thrive in high school and beyond. The lessons along with short weekly ‘happiness homework’ assignments will ultimately prepare you to put these scientific findings into practice. The ultimate goal is for you to feel better and build healthier habits.

Parents, teachers, and other professionals supporting teenagers may also find the course beneficial.

Historically speaking, there is no one scientific method. There’s more than one way to make knowledge. In this episode we're going to look at a few of those ways and how they became more of the "norm."

So, what exactly is a scientific revolution? And are they more than just moments in time Historians use to mark the beginning and ending of things through time? In this episode we'll look into some ideas and people named Nick and how they fit into science and the search to understand ourselves and our place in the universe.

These valuable scope and sequence charts outline the reading and spelling skills that students require and the order in which they should be developed.

The charts cover skills for students from grade 1-grade 5/6.

With Scratch students will creates stories, games and animations, It will draw students of all types into coding and lay a foundation for future learning.

ScratchJr is an app that is available through Apple (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id895485086?ign-mpt=uo%3D4) or Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.scratchjr.android).

With ScratchJr, young children (ages 5-7) learn important new skills as they program their own interactive stories and games.

By snapping together graphical programming blocks, children can make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. In the process, children learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer. They also use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy. With ScratchJr, children don’t just learn to code, they code to learn.

I collaborated with the computer/visual arts teacher to design a social and computer/visual arts assignment. Our focus was to encourage creativity and give students an opportunity for collaboration. Creativity occurred in all stages of the process. Students had to be creative in the planning stages. They were given the task to choose a common children’s fairy tale and come up with ideas on how to make it a parody. They then had to write their own scripts together which takes an immense amount of creativity to create something entirely from one’s imagination. Because it was a humour unit, they were also tasked with coming up with elements of humour both non-verbal and verbal whether it be witty, dark, silly etc. Finally, they then filmed their scripts either on a green screen or a shadow screen which takes creativity not only to create the video but by learning how to adapt one’s vision into something more realistic.

Check out this source for instructions on how to create crazy pasta sculptures that look like twisty and bendy pieces of art!

Learn how to make leaf bowls with air drying clay, fired clay, or even salt dough.

In this lesson, students use wooden parts and pieces to create imaginary playgrounds. This is a great activity for grade 2 and 3 students; if "moving parts" are incorporated, this could also be a great "Kinetic Sculpture" activity for grade 4 Arts Education students.

In this activity, kids get creative by cutting cardboard into various shapes, then stacking it. The final step of pouring paint over their creations is definitely the icing on the cake!