Wise words from Abraham Lincoln!
This quote reminds me of a man who used to be a sign holder along a busy road nearby. He was one of those guys who was hired to hold an advertisement sign in an attempt to get people to come to a particular store. He used to make me smile because of the way he took his job so seriously. He would dance and wave that sign like his life depended on it and I'm sure people did stop just because of him. He did his sign holding job with such passion and enthusiasm and people just loved him for it. He got so much attention that a local newspaper ran an article on him. He no longer holds that sign and I'm guessing some other employer grabbed him up and he's working for someone else now. I'm sure he is good at that too.
How about you? Are you still passionate about teaching? Here is what David Burgess says about passion in his book, Teach Like a Pirate:
Light yourself on fire with passion and don't worry if it is not a controlled burn.
David Burgess
Hah...I love this quote and happy to hear him say it. I've been called "emotionally intense" before and at times I do allow my feelings to take over.
Check out his book if you are looking to regain your passion for teaching. I know that it has helped me.
Now onto classroom stuff!
We recently studied Lincoln's life as we worked on a biography and famous American unit.
As always, we were faced with too much to teach in too little of a time period. I planned cross curricular just to get it all in.
I will be back later this week to share how I worked a reading unit on biographies and character traits into my social studies time.
For now I wanted to let you know that I FINALLY got the Famous American paperbag book file put together. I know many of you were requesting it and I've now added to my TPT store. Thanks for your patience!
I included all the famous Americans that Virginia teachers need to cover from K-3. I'm guessing it may work with my common core friends as well.
If you use the search bar at the top of this page you can see an older post that goes over how I use these books. Type: Famous Americans into the search box.
Here are some pics of the finished product:
Students and I fill out missing words after reading a short biography, listening to a read aloud or watching a video clip on the famous American. They glue the note page down into their book.
Students are given a Famous American picture card that they glue onto an index card. They draw symbols and label that American's most important points on the back.
Cards get matched with pages in the book and they insert the card inside that bag.
Students take this home and use it as a study guide.
Interested in having your students create one of these?
Click the link below to find it in my TPT store.
youngdor8@gmail.com
