National Board Entry 4 Reflection

I have found several websites that offer good advice regarding Entry 4. I have posted them below:
- A presentation from FL
- Moore Schools
- Wisconsin Education Council Workshop Notes

New Year

It’s almost a new year. I have done quite a bit of reflecting and I hope my blog readers (if there is any) are doing the same thing. We have had colds going around the house and I wish for good health in the new year! Also I hope that my mom finds a house here in stokes county. We looked at one today that was fabulous. I posted the pictures here – http://janishenderson.com/musings/?page_id=46&show=gallery

Why teachers use twitter

From my friend at freetechnologyforteachers.com
http://vimeo.com/7475583

Ceramic Castles – Taking it a step further

My students and I have created Ceramic Castles for 6 years now. It is a very successful unit. I have discussed castle terminology and we have imagined what life was like in a castle, but I have always felt like there was something lacking. Well, I think I have found it. There is an ARTSEDGE unit called Castles and Cornerstones – “This lesson will explore the historic importance and function of castles in King Arthur’s time, and introduce students to a general history of castles and architectural terms.” Must read more!

World Music for the Visual Art Classroom – Past & Present

Yes, I know the title is a bit lofty, but so is the task assigned to me – Play music in my classroom to coorespond to the warm-up transparencies I have in my classroom. Every day, I show a warm-up transparency that cooresponds to the lesson I am teaching. Part of my “Personal Growth Plan” is to teach to the diverse range of learners we have at my school. And being the good teacher that I am am, I am trying to appeal also to the auditory learners in my classroom. So where do I begin seeing that I am on a short budget. The internet of course. I stop by my favorite princeton online website Incredible @rt Department. Here are some of the links I found:

1. Smithsonian Folkways – Tools for Teaching provides ideas and resources for educators to inspire their use of Folkways music from around the world. Information about these sounds and the cultures that create them are a valuable resource to courses in history, geography, language arts, social studies, visual arts-and of course music and dance. Curricular experience, activities, streaming videos, liner notes, music samples, and other features are available for free. Find Smithsonian Folkways Tools for Teaching at iTunes U. Download and sync our free lesson plans, activities, videos, and other features with your computer or iPod.
2. World Music Network
3. ArtsEdge Podcasts - They have a podcast of the cultural of Ancient Greece, past and present and music of the Arab World.

Smithsonian Folkways has great music from Japan and Egypt. Now if I could only find the Renaissance,  Mexican Music from the 30’s (around the time of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo) and some French music from around the time of Vincent Van Gogh.

I found a cool National Geographic site – Novica featuring gifts from around the world. Yes, it’s not music but it is geographically diverse cultural objects!

Dynamic Drive – Ultimate Fade-In Slideshow

A good website person I am, a coder I am not. That is why I love it when folks make good scripts with good descriptions!!! There is nothing worse than a good code that you don’t know how to customize cause you can’t translate/understand all the / “’s and [ ]’s. Like … Oh, did I forget a trailing comma?
So Dynamic Drive’s site ROCKS! They have a cool free slideshow script that I love! I am currently using it on the stokes arts council website…

Wild about Truffles

So my latest assignment is to work on a logo for Truffles NC thanks to my friend Jane Morgan-Smith. I have found some cool websites that explain more about truffles. Cause you cant’ design a logo if you don’t understand the how and why of truffles now can you?!?

• >Wild about Mushrooms
• >Wikipedia’s Truffle (fungi) entry
• North American Truffling Society – Great pictures!

Password Generator for Students

Password Bird  is a great website to use. I will definately use this with my students. They use such insecure passwords as their nicknames.

Staff Training – Reflection

I had a counselor tell me ther other day that you told us alot in staff training common sense stuff, but let out some of the more important things like how to do certain stuff. A light bulb went off in my head and I realized what he was saying was that we didn’t teach procedures. How to take kids to the bathroom, how to clean the kitchen for KP, etc.

Summer Camp Songs

A great summer camp songbook website is at the home of YMCA Camp Pepin.