Something fun and easy

You know all those cute printables you buy on Teachers pay Teachers and you think...who has time to do all of this??? Well Scholastic has a site that you can use for simple labels, word walls words, and word lists with different borders, fonts, and other fun stuff! Best part... it's FREE!!!!

Check it out here!

http://www.scholastic.com/teacher/word-workshop/

And We're Back...part II

Sometimes life gets away from you. And sometimes projects get away from you. Like this blog, which was sorely neglected by me last year. Hopefully I'll be able to communicate better with it in this coming year. You will always be able to find up to date professional development listed on our Upcoming Events page and as always AIMSweb help on our AIMSweb Assistance page.

I hope your school year has started off in an AWESOME fashion. Please GCSEC folks, let us know if you have any curriculum wants, needs, or desires and we shall do our best to provide.

And we're back!

It's official the 2014 -2015 school year is upon us! Your friendly neighborhood curriculum specialists had a busy summer, between travels, summer school, Camp Math & Read, and other events our summer flew by!

Be sure to check out the Upcoming Events page for all our up to date professional development coming up! Register online and we hope to see you soon!

As always drop us a line if you need anything!

Illinois Reading Conference

I know you will all be shocked to discover that I was once again "author stalking" at this years Illinois Reading Conference. I may or may not have even signed up to help in the autograph booth during James Patterson's signing. Needless to say, I have many new books, autographs, and pictures to add to my collection!

The conference is always full of wonderful presentations. From academics, to authors, to teachers who are in the trenches, I always come away with many new ideas to use students!

This year Jean Ann and I had the pleasure of presenting once again.  And as I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone who knows us, we presented on games! Check out our presentation and handouts on our newsletters/handouts link! BEWARE!!! We are already brainstorming for next year!!!!

Goal Writing Review

Annual Review time is right around the corner! If you are looking for a refresher on how to write Meaningful, Measurable, and Manageable goals check out this link!

Also, here is a link to a quick and easy AIMSweb goal cheat sheet! :-)

Feel free to contact us if you need further assistance!

Grading Writing....

True confession. I HATED grading my students writing. It was most definitely not a strong point in my teaching. I have the deepest respect for those English teachers taking home hundreds of essays over the weekend to grade. I can't imagine doing that.

One of my English teacher buddies posted this the other day. She has begun using the program and loves it. It is a way to grade, give feedback, and possibly shorted the amount of time spent on grading.  In watching the demo I honestly felt that it was a streamlined version of what we are able to do in Google Docs. But, with the added Common Core component, it would be something I would be curious to try if I still had a classroom!

Check it out!