Backyard Learning is a wonderful blog that is written by a licensed middle school science teacher who shares teaching ideas through her own experiences. I am a very visual person and am drawn to this page because of the beautiful photographs. The author uses all of her own pictures rather that downloading stock photos from the internet. She features Nature Photo Friday and shares some breathtaking shots to illustrate outdoor adventures they have encountered each week.
Along with the beautiful illustrations, she includes lesson plans to use these lessons with your class and even shares a few printable resources. I love the fact that the focus is hands-on experience rather than a high-tech virtual experience. I think this is a fantastic integration of educational technology and hands-on science. It is nice to step back from the screen and the keyboard and get hands dirty sometimes. I can’t wait to see where future adventures will lead.
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A Year of Reading is a blog collaboratively written by a fifth grade and a third grade teacher. Both of these ladies are published authors and one is also a poet. They are members of the Kidlitosphere Central: The Society of Bloggers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. To read more about Kidlitopshere click here.
they review and recommend the latest children’s books. The great thing about this blog is that they share book lists and teaching resources. Another great feature is that it provides links to many popular authors’ and illustrators’ blogs like Mo Willems, Seymour Simon, and Grace Lin. There are also links provided to teacher and librarian blogs,
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Two Reflective Teachers is another collaborative blog that is written by a district writing and social studies coordinator and a fifth grade teacher. This site provides some great examples of bulletin boards and anchor charts which is a huge help for creatively challenged people like myself. Another great section of this blog is the professional reading recommendations. These ladies share a lot of professional development and workshop experiences and provide a wealth of strategies that teachers can implement in their daily instruction. I love their section called Its Monday and Here’s what I’m Reading. I am always looking for great read aloud selections and this has a new one each week.
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In my quest to find some teacher blogs that were not already on everyone else’s lists, I looked around for other award winning or recommended blogs. While perusing Scholastic’s top 14 teacher’s blogs, I happened upon this gem – Regurgitated Alpha Bits. It was so refreshing to read a blog that provides some desperately needed comic relief from the overwhelming daily grind that we elementary school teachers sometimes experience. It is like having a water cooler area to share the hilarious experiences that you just can not make up. Reading the harrowing tale of the butterfly release gone awry had me in tears. Mrs. Lee’s writing and sense of humor are genius!
The page features a disclaimer (hilarious), links to other blog pages – some are education related, a twitter feed, and a link to her face book page. No lesson plans or standards here, just a little time to reflect, relate, and enjoy. It is important to do this sometimes.
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Blogs give teachers and students alike an opportunity to share their individual experiences and perspectives with anyone. The ability to globally connect like-minded individuals who can share ideas or teaching strategies can do nothing but enhance the quality of classroom instruction and student learning. The blogs highlighted here serve vastly different audiences and provide a level of interaction among all participants in the field of education. This interaction opens doors that invite collaborations among people who may never have crossed paths otherwise.
This exchange of ideas also gives way to practicing interpersonal communication skills in addition to polishing the writer’s craft.
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