If You Like Great Teacher Links, Raise Your Hand!

Children's Literature Web Guide
An Aladdin's Cave of resources for anyone interested in children's literature, including up-to-date news, library links and author and publisher links.

FirstYears: A Web Site for Student and Beginning Teachers

National Education Association's Free Things for Your Students or Classroom
The average teacher spends thousands of dollars out of pocket...treat yourself to some freebies!

Kathy Schrock's Bulletin Board Ideas
When you need a little inspiration!

Kidstamps
A great source for literature-based rubber stamps. Great for rewards, correspondence home, hand-stamps for storytime participation, and more! Call for their complete catalog; tell them Esmé sent you!

Mighty Mentors
Sometimes the people we work with are not the people we need. Reach out through the internet to give or get support.

Teaching is a Work of Heart
A fine and fun example of a teacher designed web site.

Teachers Helping Teachers
The place to find lots of great ideas for the classroom, or make special requests on a dynamic bulletin board.

Teachers.Net Chatboard Network
Connect with real live teachers from all over the country and share ideas and experiences on over 30 chatboards. The ultimate in teacher support! Or enjoy many more teacher-designed links on the Teachers.Net Webring!

Trelease on Reading,
Outstanding recommendations and research regarding read-aloud!

You Can Handle Them All
What teacher hasn't needed help with classroom management? This remarkable site offers strategies for handling over 100 misbehaviors.

What We Wish Parents Would Realize
A provocative post from Teachers.Net.

TEACHER FEATURE:
ROCHELLE CUETO, 25 YEAR TEACHING VETERAN!

"Ms. Cueto" has taught grades 4-8 grade throughout her career, and has recently focused on a hands-on science program for grades 3-6, traveling from room to room.

Talk about your approach.

"I really like to see children learn. The best way children learn is to discover answers themselves, doing it, a hands on approach. How? Well, we did the chicken wing thing! We dissected a cooked chicken wing and found all the parts that correlated to themselves. Another time, each child got half of an orange and learned how to figure out the percentage of the orange they ate and the percent they threw away. We do a lot with precentages; we proved the world was 70% water and 30% land with a beach ball. Take a beach ball with a globe on it, toss it around, and wherever the right thumb lands, call "land" or "water." Do it about twenty times, average the results. Sometimes it doesn't work, and then we talk about why it doesn't.

We use balances, gram stackers, meter sticks, tape measures, but mostly things from the kitchen or grocery store, things from real life. I try to make as many projects as possible about things the children can relate to.

The fact is, I always come in with something different, and they never know what it's going to be...but they know it's going to be hands-on and fun. The best thing in the world is walking into the class and knowing they are excited about science."

Teaching pet peeves?
"'Read the story, answer the question, we'll take the test on Friday' approach. How much of that do you remember? Probably as much as I do, which means it was a class-A waste of time."

Advice for new teachers?
"Establish your discipline the first minute you see the whites of their eyes. If you make sure you make learning as interesting as possible, you won't have a discipline problem. When I'm teaching, you're allowed to talk as long as you can hear my voice above you. When you can't, you freeze, and the activity stops until everyone calms down sufficiently to proceed. This works because they want it. They shouldn't come to school for the candy or prizes, they should come for the learning."

What material thing do you wish you had for your program?
"A budget to go to the grocery store and buy whatever I need: cups, plates, rubber gloves, chicken wings, cookies, oranges, candy for graphing, clay, boards for science projects. Last year, I spent over $3,000 out of pocket. This year, I've spent more. It's nothing new. You figure, I've got 300 kids. If every kid has a little something in their hand, it adds up quickly."

What children's book do you recommend that makes teaching more fun?
"I recommend the Janice Van Cleave series of science experiment books. They vary by level, there are a variety of activities, enough to develop a repetoire for hands-on science."

If you would like to be considered as a TEACHER FEATURE featured teacher, and you have been teaching at least two years, send a non-returnable photo of yourself, background information (resumé welcome), answers to the above questions (and feel free to add any questions that you WISH someone would ask you!) and how we may get in touch to: TEACHER FEATURE, P.O. Box 965, Evanston, IL 60204. Send fan mail to featured teachers c/o this address as well.
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