The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs II: Middle School

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Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Restoring Hope to Louisiana

Posted by Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

On August 11th, 2016, a stationary weather system resulted in torrential downpours with upwards of two feet of rain that devastated several parishes across South Louisiana. The extreme amount of rainwater, close to 7.1 trillion gallons of water, caused rivers, lake, and other bodies of water to reach and exceed flood stages in the following days. In the blink of an eye, the water began rising and encroaching upon not just areas that typically flood, but the flooding waters found their way to places that had never even had the threat of flooding before. The widespread devastation of the rising water quickly destroyed countless homes, businesses, and schools.

As the water began to recede and people were allowed into the areas that were flooded, the full extent of the damage was visible. For many people, they lost an entire lifetime of memories and personal treasures. While the loss of personal property and people's livelihood were tragic, an equally tragic loss was the impact that the flood waters had on area schools. There are over 30 schools, both public and private, across several parishes that suffered significant water damage to their campuses. Livingston Parish alone had 15 public schools that suffered water damage with at least 8 schools that experienced extensive damage that will take months to repair. While the school buildings will have to be repaired to be safe for students and staff to return, this work will be done and funded through the individual school systems, but what can be done to help the individual teachers replace their classroom materials, personal items, and everything else that made their classrooms whole?

I'm pleased to announce that I have joined forces with an amazing group of Teacher Authors from Teachers Pay Teachers to create a fundraiser, Restoring Hope: Love for Louisiana Teachers. The core team behind Restoring Hope is comprised of Kristen fromTeacher Playground, Andrea from This Literacy Life, Shannon from OCD in First, and Stephanie from The Creative Classroom. We came together and created the fundraiser as a way to help our fellow Louisiana teachers rise up and rebuild their classrooms. Our fundraiser has been made possible by the generous donations that we have received from 90+ TPT sellers that include high-quality products ranging from Kindergarten to High School. In total, there are six product bundles available and four donation options. The TPT store will go live on Tuesday, September 6th, 2016 and will remain open for at least 30 days. You can click the banner below to visit our store and support Louisiana teachers by buying product bundles or simply donating money to the fundraiser.

Where will we be donating the proceeds raised from the fundraiser?

One of the biggest pieces of this fundraiser was trying to decide where we would donate the money we raised for Louisiana teachers to ensure that it would be fairly and equally distributed to those in need.100% of the proceeds that are made through our TPT store will be donated to the Associated Professional Educators of Louisiana's Disaster Relief Fund. This organization is donating 100% of all money that they receive to public and private schools teachers who lost some or all of their classroom materials due to the flooding.

Our team knew that we wanted to say THANK YOU to all of the amazing teachers who have supported our fundraiser by purchasing a bundle or donating money. Shannon from Blogs Fit For A Queen has graciously donated a FREE BLOG DESIGN. When you purchase one of the bundles from the Restoring Hope: Love for Louisiana Teachers TPT Store, you can enter for a chance to win! All you have to do is complete the form that is attached in the product bundle or donation page by October 15th, 2016.

We would like to take this opportunity to send out a huge THANK YOU to our sponsors who have donated resources to the fundraiser bundles. Without your help and generosity, none of this would have been possible.

DEANN

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Sunday, January 10, 2016

Let's Celebrate Martin Luther King's Life

By Deann Marin of Socrates Lantern

As a child of the 60’s I remember so vividly that fateful April day in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was brutally gunned down by James Earl Ray. I remember sitting by the television set, just horrified by what I had just witnessed. Thoughts kept racing through my mind about our freedom, I just couldn’t understand why such a heroic person was dead because he had “a dream.” When Bobby Kennedy was murdered in June of that year, again I sat with disbelief as I watched his assassination, live, on the television. Their deaths as well as the killing of John F. Kennedy in November of 1963 were the turning points in our lives. I felt enraged that these things could happen in our day and age.

In January, we remember Martin Luther King Jr. and what he stood for. Equal rights, de-segregation, tolerance of other races are essential especially now-a-days with so much persecution of human beings.

It is so important to stand in another’s shoes and feel what they have felt. The old adage "one picture is worth a thousand words," is so true, you can discuss racial injustices, but to actually see a film about it will bring it to life. An excellent flick that will get this point across to your student is Selma. After viewing it, have an open discussion about it. Have the children role play different people from the film, such as Dr. King, Coretta King, a black/white civil rights marcher, a black person living then, Annie Lee Cooper, President Lyndon B. Johnson, etc. Finally, have them write a paper from the perspective from one of the characters they encountered in the film.

I’ve just finished a Martin Luther King Jr. History and Literacy Bundle with many activities that you can use with your 5-8 grade classes. Here is a study guide with historical facts about him.

Thanks for stopping by
Deann

No Prep Martin Luther King Literacy Activities

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writeit/PDF/master_class_king.pdf

Http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/martin-luther-king-jr-interactive-timeline

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-resources/major-king-events-chronology-1929-1968

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This is part of The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative's January Teacher Talk Linky Party. Be sure to read other members' blog posts by clicking on the following links.

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday, May 4, 2015

Making History Come Alive

Deann Marin at The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs II

Offering for Educators, Comprehensive Teaching Aides.
If you'd like to see what else I have to offer please visit my store.

I remember sitting in history class, as a student, and being bored out of my mind. The teacher just lectured and all I could do was to look at the clock and wish that I was someplace else, ANYPLACE else! Needless to say I learned very little history that year. I only began liking it after I became a 6th grade teacher, years later, and vowed that I would make history come alive for my children. I didn't want them to go through what I did. That's when my hands on approach to World History came about.

I found that a good way to get your class motivated in history class is to make it exciting by adding little tidbits of personalized information about people and or civilizations that you’re studying. Kids love hearing a bit of gore, so when I teach about the Maya, Aztec and Inca civilizations, I give information about their bloody sacrifices, or the game pok ta pok which is a predecessor to some of our modern sports like soccer and basketball. This is one way to help them relate to what was going on at that time.

Click image to go to my Tpt Store

Archaeology is a term that students should become familiar with. To just have them look up the word and perhaps write it in a sentence, or discuss it in class is tedious. I found some old clay pots, had my husband, who is an artist, draw designs on each one, we then broke them into fragments labeled them put them into bags and distributed them to groups of four students who were to work as an archaeological team. They were to walk around the room and find the missing parts from other groups of students. Once they had some pieces, they were to put the pots together so that they could figure out

what the design was. I wouldn’t recommend this to younger students as it was a bit frustrating since pieces were difficult to find. Of course my goal for the lesson was achieved; the class knew a lot more about archaeology than they did before. More importantly, they realized that it was essential to work as a team and they realized what a difficult task an archaeologist had.

Click image to go to my Tpt Store

The Mesopotamians were the first architects of the ancient world, they built huge ziggurats. To help the class gain an understanding of what it was like to build bricks. One of their assignments was to make a brick out of mud, twigs, grass, etc. As a writing assignment, they were to write a daily journal of their experience. By doing this, they gained insight into the difficulties of brick building, and they

realized just how difficult life must have been back then.. As a culmination to the project, they brought their bricks into class so that they could build a ziggurat. Of course, many pictures were taken. Can you guess what their favorite part was? If you said smashing it to pieces, you would have been right.