Tag: Lesson Plans/Activities/Ideas

In Honor of Dr. Seuss’ Birthday – My Favorite Seuss Story

(Repost from 01/04/2009)

I decided to begin building My Google Library so that I can:

  • Share my favorite books with our own children.
  • Easily access books, images, citations, etc. during class, presentations, workshops, etc.
  • Share and suggest resources with other educators

When it came time to add my favorite Dr. Seuss books to my library I realized that I would have to add most of them, so I decided to try and narrow it down to my very favorite book. It took some reflection and deep soul searching (I’m exaggerating.) but I was able to identify my very favorite (Thanks to a technicality that I’ll share in another post.) Seuss story.

The Sneetches and Other StoriesI remember the first time I read Too Many Daves (from The Sneetches and Other Stories). I was sitting at a table in my elementary school library with two of my friends. I read the book silently and the ridiculousness of one naming all 23 of her children the same thing just sent my imagination spinning. It remains one of my favorite poems all these years later. I’ve included the poem below in case you’re unfamiliar with it. Unfortunately, I can’t also include the artwork because it really sales the story – as is typical of all of Seuss’ work.

Discussion
What is YOUR favorite Dr. Seuss story? Why?

—————

TOO MANY DAVES
From: The Sneetches and Other Stories
By: Dr. Seuss

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons, and she named them all Dave?

Well, she did. And that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one, and calls out “Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!” she doesn’t get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!

This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves’
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn.
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O’Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate…

But she didn’t do it. And now it’s too late.

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Paper Airplane World Record

Former Cal quarterback Joe Ayoob sets world distance record for throwing a paper airplane. I saw this during SportsCenter and I instantly started thinking about all the learning and fun that could be generated with this video clip. The STEM teacher in me just loves this sort of thing.

 

Educational Connections

Use friendly competition as a motivational strategy and challenge teams of learners to design the paper airplane that will travel the greatest distance. We are seeing greater emphasis placed on design and engineering in STEM areas on a number of fronts (Common Core Standards, recent grant RFPs, etc.). This would be a way to provide students with practical experience with design, project management, and more.

Consider cranking the discovery learning up a notch by providing non-traditional materials available, too. Will an airplane made of an entire sheet of newspaper travel a greater distance? Does the addition of paperclips to a plane’s design impact results?

Think way outside the box and challenge teams to work together using only non-verbal communication. This can really spice things up and promote creativity and higher-order thinking. My students always enjoy this and usually astound me with their creative communication strategies.

Let’s not overlook some of the more traditional connections. This can be an organic way to provide students with practice with measurement using both standard and non-standards units. This could be coupled with data collection, data anlaysis and the presentation of results through graphs and tables.

Those are just a few connections. Please share your ideas in the comments.

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Online Geography Gaming Tips and Resources

I ran across an interesting set of slides via @skipz on Plurk. The slides seem to be the ongoing work of Tony Cassidy. I encourage you to browse through the presentation and consider the ideas for integrating technology with geography.

Online Geography Gaming – Tony Cassidy
A compilation of more than 100 online games and simulations for use in the geography classroom.

THE CHALLENGE to All Educators 2011

I admire and appreciate everyone that has participated in The Challenge the past 4 years (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010). I look forward to doing more good together this holiday season, too.

—————

(Repost from 11/08/2009)

I’ve written posts encouraging educators to get students actively involved in service education. I’ve shared the rationale for implementing service activities in the classroom and suggested some resources to help us get started.

Your feedback and encouragement back in 2007 prompted me to take this a step further. Rather than simply encouraging teachers (in general) to do this I’m now challenging you (specifically you) to start a service activity in your classroom. 🙂

The holiday season is upon us, so I think it’s a great time to talk about service and initiate a project with your students.

Here’s THE CHALLENGE.

  1. Kick-off a service activity in your classroom.
  2. Make us aware of your project.
    • I’ve dedicated a new section of the blog to this activity and added a permanent link titled The Challenge to the main menu. This allows us to to share information, photos, videos, and provide links to personal/ class blogs, wikis, websites, etc. where we can learn about each other’s projects and share resources and ideas. You can post your information by:
      • Leaving it in the comments in The Challenge area.
      • Emailing me a link to your project blog, wiki, site, etc. that I’ll add to The Challenge area.
  3. Keep working on your project and enjoy all the wonderful things that will surely come from it.
  4. Share. Share. Share.
    • Let’s use The Challenge area, Twitter, Plurk, Skype, etc. to provide updates by which we (including our students) can all follow each other’s progress.
    • Please tag all related materials and resources with thechallenge

Let’s make the world a better place. I CHALLENGE YOU!!! 🙂

Resources

Here are some great resources to help you get started.

Event Tag: thechallenge

Interviewed by Wes Fryer

I had the privilege of being interviewed by Wes Fryer for his Speed of Creativity Podcast back in October. We discussed the mission of the Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence, experiences and lessons learned from our inaugural conference, rethinking professional development, and my appreciation for educators throughout the Midsouth. Listen to the podcast by clicking on the play button below the photo.

Wes Fryer and Clif Mims

 

Show Notes

  1. The Martin Institute
  2. The Martin Institute Conference Wiki (with links to presentation resources)
  3. Video: About the Martin Institute

The Pout-Pout Fish

Our youngest and I had a lot of fun reading The Pout-Pout Fish this evening. It’s a fun tale about Mr. Fish who always has a pout on his face despite many efforts by his friends to cheer him up. The artwork and surprise ending made us laugh with enjoyment.

Educational Connections

  • Younger readers will enjoy and benefit from the repetition of verses.
  • The author incorporated some clever rhymes and introduces interesting vocabulary to youngsters.
  • Provides great opportunities to play with rhythm, alliteration, and dramatic reading.

Picture It! – Photo Scavenger Hunts in the Classroom

I’ll be facilitating one of the opening workshops today at the Arkansas Association of Instructional Media Conference. I’m excited to be back in Arkansas as I went to college and spent my first two years teaching in this state. The AAIM Conference is in Hot Springs which is one of my favorite Arkansan (Pronounced like “Are Kansan”) towns. I’ll be speaking a couple of more times throughout the 3 day conference. Here are the resources from today’s workshop.

Workshop Description
Photo scavenger hunts get students moving while engaging them with course content. Well-designed photo scavenger hunts integrate 21st century skills and promote higher-order thinking.

Workshop Resources

View more presentations from Clif Mims

Visualization of Honshu Tsunami

“The Honshu tsunami was generated by a Mw 8.9 earthquake (38.322°N, 142.369°E ), at 05:46 UTC, 130 km (80 miles) E of Sendai, Honshu, Japan (according to the USGS). In approximately 25 minutes, the tsunami was first recorded at DART® buoy 21418. Forecast results shown below were created with the NOAA forecast method using MOST model with the tsunami source inferred from DART® data.” (Source)

Much more information about this tsunami is available by the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research.

Vi Hart Challenges What We Know about Pi

Happy Pi Day!

What is Pi Day?
I’m a math educator and I’ve celebrated Pi Day for many, many years. It isn’t the most widely celebrated holiday, so let me explain what it means. Today is March 13, which can also be noted as 3/14. The mathematical notation Pi is rounded to 3.14, so math classrooms around the world celebrate Pi Day today.

Do We Have It All Wrong?
Vi Hart shared this video which challenges what we think we know and understand about Pi.

Educational Technology: Current Trends and Future Directions

Future-TechnologyThis is my slide deck for my keynote presentation at today’s Tennessee Administrator’s Technology Academy. The following serves as an outline of some of the topics that will be highlighted and demonstrated.

  • Standards, 21st Century Learning, and Higher-Order Thinking Skills
  • Classroom Examples
  • Web 2.0 Tools and Services
  • Benefits and Barriers
  • “Telecollaboration”
  • Audio and Video
  • Mash-Ups
  • Mobile Learning
  • Interactivity
  • State of Innovation
  • A Personal Experience
  • Conclusions and Discussion

 

Educational Technology: Current Trends and Future Directions

View more presentations from Clif Mims

 

 

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