Additional Resources Added

Summer always seems to bring not only a time of reflection but a time of "spring cleaning" and preparing for the new school year. For me personally, it is also a time of packing and moving this particular summer...As I have been sorting and resorting, I decided it was time to add some resources to our blog in order to round out our "collections" for teachers.

That being said, I am distracted from our postings on the Common Core, but will be back commenting in future posts.

So...some recent additions to the blog include www.wordsift.com  under Picture File Cards. Cut and paste a passage and it will lift vocabulary and find sources for images. Great for making chants and poems more comprehensible.

Tag Galaxy www.taggalaxy.de/ finds images for you when you type in key words, and don't forget both National Geographic www.nationalgeographic.com and National Geographic for Kids Photo Gallery kids.nationalgeographic/kids/photos/gallery/.

Two other recent picture file card additions include Kitzu - collections from Orange County Dept of Ed. and Calisphere - collections compiled by the University of California.

Other additions are GLAD units found on school sites like Forest Grove and North Clackamas. Find their links on the right-hand side of our blog...

And there is MORE!

I also added the GLAD resource book from Los Angeles Unified School district. Thank you Main Street teachers! It is a handy little booklet of GLAD strategies and pictures of those strategies from different grade levels. Many teachers have commented about how useful this little booklet is.

And last, but not least...Marcia Brechtel's book -- Bringing It All Together...a handbook on GLAD strategies written by the creator of the model.

Enjoy!

More Reflections - Common Core and English Language Learners

One of the reasons my partner and I started this blog several years ago was to provide resources for teachers that we were training in EL strategies, especially since nothing was "out there" for our particular audience at the time. Since then, we developed our website (which is a continuing work in progress) which also lists resources for teachers. Teachers find our sites incredibly helpful, especially when we are doing follow up and/or coaching.

I was recently reminded of the importance of mentioning authors of resources and links by Larry Ferlazzo, an ESL teacher based in the Sacramento, CA area who posts constantly about what is working or not working in his ESL classroom. He has some of the best sites for ELs listed on his blog site and tweets resources 30-40 times a day, believe it or not! Well, I have yet to get there. :)

Here is the title of one of his "bests" lists - The Best Resources For Learning About Common Core Standards and English Language Learners. The link is: larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/08/03/the-best-resources-for-learning-about-common-core-standards-english-language-learners/

I have yet to peruse all of the articles listed on Larry's best list, but will pick out a couple of my favorites for my next posting. Since Common Core is on everyone in the teaching world's minds right now, I think it is an appropriate place to start when thinking about the new year that is fast approaching. Can't believe we are mid-way through the summer already!

I think another appropriate theme when thinking about the new teaching year and about Common Core is year-long planning--how to develop one and how to then develop units with strong common threads and connections.

So, thank you Larry Ferlazzo for your lists and fabulous resources and for inspiring me to keep on posting for the teachers and colleagues that I work with! Next post -- continuing with the Common Core and then on to year-long planning....