While following TheThirdTeacher+ and in reading their book I have realized that in some ways school is not meeting their learning needs so I am doing everything in my power to change that in the little part of the school that I call my classroom.  In 1954, the American psychologist Abraham Maslow published his book  Motivation and Personality in which he addressed student needs and pointed out that if the basic physiological needs (at the bottom) weren't met then nothing at a higher level could be achieved.      Although I can't meet every one of their needs I can try my best to make sure that at least they aren't hungry. I don't know about your students but mine are ALWAYS hungry. Not just hungry but some of them are downright hangry.      So the idea is, in theory, that if they are not hungry then they at least have a fighting chance at getting to a higher level of learning and compr...

     Lately I have been inspired by a company called TheThirdTeacher+ and have been reading about "hacking" my classroom to meet the learning needs of my students.  Many classrooms are very noisy even when the students are quiet. They spend so much of their time in school sitting, the last thing I want to do is say "stop moving" but the screeching of the chairs and desks on the floor is unbearable especially when there is a lot of humidity in the air. So I think I found a solution online.  I am really excited about this!  We tend to move our chairs and desks quite a lot in my classroom to create different learning groups and centers. Now multiply that by 24 chairs and 24 desks. It is really loud in my classroom and nobody is to blame. The more moisture there is in the air the louder the screeching sound is.  Some of my fellow teachers have used tennis balls on the feet of the chairs like this: I have wanted to use them but I couldn't get...

     My newest niece was born August 28th and I wanted to give her a unique present (we don't have too many little girls in our family and I have only boys) so it gave me an excuse to use some pink. Boy, do I need some pink in my life.  I started knitting this sweater a couple years ago but everybody kept having boys. Once I found out that the next baby was going to be a girl I got to work finishing it.      Emma's mom loves Toms shoes (as do I) so I realized that I needed to add her own version of Toms shoes called "Emmas." I followed the directions and used the pattern on this site: HomemadeToast the "Emmas" I made The sweater pattern I used is a Debbie Bliss pattern and can be found here: Baby Shrug originally posted on ballinwithballing.blogspot.com