Yay...!

Today is a great day. Today I am jumping for joy...

I am a lucky girl. I have been invited to become an author for Teaching Blog Addict. I am so proud - what a huge honour. Heartfelt thanks to Tamara and Leslie. I can't wait to get started.. See you all there!

Today is also a great day because it's Friday. I have been off work now since 2 April (apart from my usual French runaround last Monday) and it's beginning to pinch the pocket. So I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove next week. As I get paid on a week-in-hand basis, it'll continue to pinch the pocket until 4 May though.... Is that the case where you are? Mixed feeling about the main summer break - 6 weeks long (yay!) with no prospect of pay (oo er..).

Today is also a great day because I finally finished my Earth Day unit last night. There's so much great stuff out there already that teachers can pick up and use. I wanted to do something a little different, this time for the upper elementary grades. I thought long and hard about the type of thing I'd like to do in my own class and came up with my "Make the Change Challenge". It's a whole block of work designed to get children thinking about how they can make a difference - even a small one. They have to identify an area of their school grounds or local neighbourhood, assess good points and bad points, focus on how they can change the bad points and improve the area. This part of the challenge includes map skills and brain storming. In terms of literacy, the children then have to write a persuasive argument for their changes and present it in a letter to the school Principal or Municipal Offices. Finally, after the change has been implemented, they have to present their project in two ways - a slideshow presentation and a newspaper article. Children have to use thinking skills to plan the project, decide what jobs are needed and who is best placed to do each job, and put the project in action. I'm pretty pleased with the overall result and I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl. It's not just for Earth Day, though - it's a great tool for Earth Studies, Environmental Studies, Geography or Literacy. At the moment I'm giving away two sets in my Teachers Notebook store. Click on the icon on the right or the thumbnail below to be taken to the page. Closing date is Wednesday 25th April.

Today is not such a good day because I've lost most of the buttons from my blog roll on the left bar... But I'll have so much fun blog hopping to find them all again....!