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Showing posts from September, 2017

How to Build a Classroom Library Your Students Will Actually Use

          Students will spend a greater amount of time reading if they have books at an appropriate level which are suitable to their interests. Fellow teachers, this means there are 2 things you must know: 1) the reading levels of your students, and 2) the interests of your students.           Books will get borrowed from your shelves more often if they are facing outward. I use plain plastic bins with genre labels, and stand all the books facing outward. Think about yourself, browsing at the bookstore. Aren't you more likely to pick up the books that face outward? See. don't make it too much work for the kids to find the books. Face them outward and they can browse the rest of the bin by walking their fingers through it like a filing cabinet.           Fill your library with quality literature AND some of the fluffy, movie- and merchandise-based books that the children like to read. Sometimes award-winners go over, and sometimes they do not…the lists of Manitoba

Greener Pastures

          I have always been one of those people who defended Manitoba. After high school my fellow graduates scattered like panicked insects, heading far and wide…and mostly west. Western Canada drew these Manitobans with the promise of less taxes and more pay for labour jobs like heavy construction and drilling for oil. Some of my high school friends went to college or university in Alberta and B.C. All the while, I stayed in Manitoba and scoffed at their “grass is greener” mentality.           It`s beautiful here! I love summer! Look at the fall leaves! Cross-country skiing is awesome! I love to watch a thunderstorm rolling towards us across the prairies. You don`t even understand what it is to see the sky until you`ve stood in a canola field on a summer day. Ìf you`re not from the prairie … is one of my favourite children`s books by David Bouchard. Manitobans, read it. It will fill you with such nostalgia you will nearly cry.           Twenty years later I find myself daydream